On TCRP/ARPL, do I need to rebuild the loader if I upgrade RAM?

[denmalley]

I just finished a migration from my Dell T30 server (xeon, standard specs, 16GB ECC RAM, running baremetal DSM 6-something on jun 1.03b,) to an old desktop PC I had from back before NAS days (baremetal, converted to xpen using ARPL, latest possible DSM7-whatever).  I actually built this thing like a tank since at the time it was my data hub as well as my center of operations.  Nice big Antec case with plenty of room for drives (4 side facing bays with drive rails plus two more front facing), six SATA ports on the MB (ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen 3), Core i3 3.3GHz, 680W PSU.   

 

My original intent was to build my new SHR with all new disks on this old PC temporarily and then build a new loader for the T30, adding two more ports for SSD cache or extra storage via an LSI 9211-8i PCIe card if I can get it to work without much hassle.  Then move the drives over to the T30.   However this old PC is actually running DSM pretty darn well.  The only downside is that it only has 8GB of RAM.  I have two empty slots and see I can buy two more sticks relatively cheap.  Just wondering if I should go for it and if the loader will need to be rebuilt to do so? 

 

As a side question, any opinions on using that much RAM on that board?  I am not really well-versed in all the ins and outs of RAM and "when is it too much/diminished returns?"  Will that Z68/i3 make good use of 16GB of memory? 

 

I think if I just let this thing carry on as my prod NAS, I can keep the T30 waiting in the wings whenever something fails on the old PC hardware.  Maybe even keep it up as a test box.  For now I'm just going to sit tight and hang on to that working system in case something crumbles in the first few weeks on this "new old" build. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by denmalley