Thoughts? Well letting a chip reach 100c isn’t great, your OS stopped receiving any security updates in Jan this year, so you probably want to do something about that and the original FreeNAS suggestion (or its derivatives) was a decent shout and it’ll give you a better long term upgrade patch than the Synology. The kind of low end dual/quad core CPU’s we’re discussing here are for nothing at this stage, as is RAM, power wise don’t make the mistake of thinking TDP is a useful metric here, unless you run your CPU at 100% 24/7 it’s largely meaningless and the higher TDP chips such as an i5 will idle at nearly the same power as an i3 due to power gating. The only obvious question that needs to be asked is, what is it actually doing that will be edit from upgrading?
Home server spec
- Thread starter MarcLister
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Hi Avalon. What do you mean when you say the chips are "for nothing at this stage"? I have 8GB of RAM and WHS 2011 only recognises 8GB. How does RAM come into the equation?
I wasn't looking at TDP but merely looking for a more capable and cheap chip to replace my Celeron G550.
"what is it actually doing that will be edit from upgrading"? Is "be edit" mean to be "benefit"?
I've read that sentence a few times and that's the only way it makes sense to me. 
My query was as I'm going to fit a decent third party cooler, should I also take the opportunity to fit a decent, cheap i3 chip to give the system a bit more oomph?
I wasn't looking at TDP but merely looking for a more capable and cheap chip to replace my Celeron G550.
"what is it actually doing that will be edit from upgrading"? Is "be edit" mean to be "benefit"?
I've read that sentence a few times and that's the only way it makes sense to me. My query was as I'm going to fit a decent third party cooler, should I also take the opportunity to fit a decent, cheap i3 chip to give the system a bit more oomph?
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If the current CPU hasn't been struggling and you don't plan on increasing the workload then it would be a (small) waste of money. However, if you are anything like me, then yes because new = better!
Hi Avalon. What do you mean when you say the chips are "for nothing at this stage"? I have 8GB of RAM and WHS 2011 only recognises 8GB. How does RAM come into the equation?
I wasn't looking at TDP but merely looking for a more capable and cheap chip to replace my Celeron G550.
"what is it actually doing that will be edit from upgrading"? Is "be edit" mean to be "benefit"?
My query was as I'm going to fit a decent third party cooler, should I also take the opportunity to fit a decent, cheap i3 chip to give the system a bit more oomph?
Autocorrect has has apparently refined its distain for me to new level (of course this has absolutely nothing to do with the two kids using iPads linked to my iTunes account for school for two months despite having laptops). For nothing means exactly what it says, they are available for bugger all and ‘be edit’ was indeed benefit. The RAM point was simply that you can upgrade the RAM for - again - bugger all, and while 4GB is OK, given you should be moving to something like FreeNAS (1GB/TB is generally the metric used, though it doesn’t scale in linear terms) or a newer Server Essentials install, you’ll have a better time with more memory. As usual the cost/benefit depends on what you pay and what you do with it, if you’re doing nothing that taxes the current CPU significantly, then putting a faster CPU in won’t give you any real benefit, but you don’t give us any real usage info to form an opinion.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and reset the autocorrect dictionary on my iTunes account, as I apparently we didn’t specify the optional factory reset/mute buttons on the kids.
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New = better is the correct answer!
I managed to get a Core i3-3240 for £5.90 including free delivery and got £1.04 off the price thanks to a discount code the auction site told me about.Hi Quartz. Cool, thanks for the advice. I've only had a brief look for WSE2016 but I can't find anywhere selling it so I can't see the price. WHS2011 cost me about £40 but I get the feeling WSE2016 would cost a few hundred £££? If I decide to keep a PC NAS rather than get a Synology, I think I'll probably go for FreeNAS.
Hehe! Autocorrect ftw!
I have 8GB of RAM and I believe WHS2011 only recognises 8GB of RAM so whilst I could technically upgrade the RAM it wouldn't work because the system wouldn't see it.
I downloaded the largest file I have on my server to my C: to monitor the server's CPU usage and then I copied it back again to see how the read/write CPU usage varied. The 15GB file did at times push the server CPU to 85-90% usage and the temps increased. The standing temp is quite close to the limit so it doesn't take much to push it over the limit. Hopefully the i3 3240 will help a bit with the usage and hopefully the temps as a result. If it doesn't, it only cost me £6.
Yes, it cost me a few hundred. Well worth it for the automatic backup and WSUS support.
WHS2011 does indeed only see 8GB, I had read an earlier post saying you were going with 4GB, either way WHS 2011 is dead, no more security updates/support, time to move on. Also if a simple file copy is doing that to your CPU activity, that’s not great.
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Sounds like it is something I need to read up on before I make a decision. Thanks for the advice.
Ah, I think the 4GB was an earlier 'idea' then when someone said it takes 8GB max so put 8GB in, the cost of this at the time was good enough to go for 8GB so I did.
My NOD32 on the server is still working but it's an older version so I knew I would have to do something at some point.
Like you say, if reading/writing a 15GB zip file to/from the server is causing the chip to hit 85%+ usage, with nothing else happening, that isn't ideal. As I said earlier if the i3 3240 helps with that, then great, if not it only cost me £6.