If your pockets are a bit deeper, here's a decent start on a more solid rig for virtualization. It has room for upgrades in the future so you can throw in 4 more HDDs, 2 more sticks of RAM, swap the SSD for a much bigger one (and from a more reputable brand?), pop an LSI host bus adapter in... but I don't think you need any of that (maybe the RAM) so I didn't put it in.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3IOxc
I completely made up the price for the motherboard, and I don't know where you can even buy it. I just stumbled across it and maybe fell in love a little bit. I guess I can go back to the drawing board and try to be slightly more realistic next time...
Now, a parts list is nice, but I also want to give a quick rundown of the reasoning behind my component selection so that you can understand the pros and cons and in the end hopefully be better equipped to customize the build to fit your own wants/needs/budget.
I went with the WD Reds for an extra $20 over the Barracudas simply because I have a bit of experience with the Reds and none with the Barracudas. In addition, the Reds have a 3 year warranty whereas the Barracudas get only 1 year. On the other hand, the Barracudas spin faster (whee!).
Some other considerations I had:
- It should have integrated graphics and HDMI output for hooking up to the TV.
- ECC RAM is highly desirable for FreeNAS.
- The more RAM the better, for both filesystem caching and for running VMs.
- It shouldn't be bigger than necessary.
- It should be quiet, if not silent.
- It should be cool and efficient.
- The system should have an IOMMU for PCI device passthrough to virtual machines. On Intel this means VT-d support.
- ZFS and thereby FreeNAS wants to talk as directly to the disks as possible, so if FreeNAS is in a VM it should have a whole SATA controller passed through to it.
- Because of that, there should be more than one SATA controller so that the host OS has something to work with, too.
- And the host OS will also need some form of storage.
- The machine should be remotely manageable, even when it's off. So, either IPMI or vPro.
VT-d and vPro and ECC narrow down the choices pretty well to limit my selection to a Xeon AFAIK. I went with the cheapest one that has integrated graphics, the E3-1225 V3. It should be plenty fast enough.
The RAM I selected is fast, good, and cheap. It meets the ECC requirements, and it is low voltage to help with efficiency. 16GB will be enough to run ZFS and a few VMs. More would be better, and 8GB sticks leave you the slots for expansion.
Now for motherboards that support the E3 V3 Xeon, ECC, and remote management; there is actually a pretty decent selection. Once you ask for an HDMI port, you have a much smaller menu to choose from. For no great reason, I decided I wanted to look for something that was also micro ATX. I found only one. If anyone is aware of an alternative motherboard meeting the above criteria, I would be delighted to hear about it. The ASRock C225 mWS is absolutely perfect in my eyes, save for the tiny little disadvantage of it not being sold anywhere as far as I could find. That also means I don't know if it's actually a $220 board or a $500 board or...?
After settling upon the micro ATX form factor, I tried to find a case that was not any bigger than that. I went for the Fractal Design Mini because it is the right size, and on top of that it comes with decent fans and is supposed to be a quiet case. Things like configurable drive bays, drive trays with isolation mounts, reputable manufacturer, and the unobtrusive design helped make up my mind.
When I was looking at the PCIe slots on the motherboard, I noticed that there was a blank space in the middle with some round standoffs. Then my eye spotted the M.2 connector, and I decided to look for the cheapest possible SSD to put in it. The rest is history. :)
I chose the power supply because it was one of the cheapest 5 star platinum PSUs without mail in rebates on PC part picker. I think that's pretty much it. More efficiency, check.
I think that's it! If I missed anything, need to explain anything differently, or am just a complete dunce for some reason, let me know!