XigmaNAS works with a wide variety of hardware, there is no way we can test every combination available or guarantee that your particular hardware will be 100% compatible. It is your responsibility to determine if your hardware will work with a with a particular version of XigmaNAS? The first step in finding out is to take a look at the versions and check' Compatibility List. If your hardware is on the list for a particular version.

So far over the years we have found that systems that are build on Intel chipsets and Intel network interfaces gives lesser problems/bugs and does perform a little better than some other brands. We also see regular commits and driver updates for Intel hardware in the FreeBSD sources.

Motherboard of choice: Consumer boards and often “prosumer” boards are not always the best choice for a 24/7 running server. All the extra hardware that allows you to do overclocking, exotic audio and video features, etc is a big waste of power. Even when left disabled in the BIOS they will use power 24×7 nonstop. It might have all sorts of great features that are useful for desktops but we aren't building a desktop. We're building a server and we're looking for reliability and high uptime. You want a motherboard that has as much on-board that you need without the extra stuff you don't. For this we recommend server-grade boards like they are made by Supermicro, Supermicro is known for good engineering experience with server-grade hardware!

An extra bonus is the fact that most of those comes with an onboard IPMI lan connection. IPMI is really awesome. You can remotely connect to your server's if you don't want to leave a monitor/keyboard/mouse hooked up all of the time this *is* something you should get. It's easy to install an XigmaNAS.ISO over IPMI and/or adjust your Bios settings, or run the console of the server from any desktop/laptop you use and if needed, from anywhere around the world.

CPU of choice: There is no need to buy an ultra expensive CPU. When choosing from the recommended CPUs make sure your CPU is 64-bit compatible with your motherboard. We do recommend Intel Xeon Dual core's or better as those do support ECC if you really like to know what we prefer. In the end it's your choice. Keep in mind for high network transfer speed that the CPU frequency is important for Samba as Samba is single-threaded on a per-user basis. Generally any 3Ghz+ CPU will be more than capable of handling Samba at Gigabit speeds without a problem. Something that is mostly overlooked by a lot of users and custom builders.

• If you have hardware problems, or you suspect hardware problems, determine exactly what hardware you are using; CPU, MotherBoard make and model, controller's IDE, SATA, RAID, SCSI and USB, NIC make and model, etc..
• If you find that a piece of your hardware does not appear to be currently supported, please endeavor to find the FreeBSD drivers, or a link to them yourself by (XigmaNAS x.x.x.x.xxxx release based on FreeBSD version.

• Reviewing the Hardware compatibility list, select one from below.
• Searching your hardware vendors website for FreeBSD compliant drivers (they may not exist and you may have to check with the vendors support site to find out if they exist or are under development).
• If you find drivers, please submit a Feature Request that includes the web link of the driver and the make and model of the hardware.
• If you 'think' a feature might be useful to other users, post it to XigmaNAS forum for the community to review and comment on.

Default XigmaNAS hardware support:

Please learn about the precautions you must take when using so called “Green” drives from any manufacturer. It is up to you to understand the tradeoffs between power consumption, speed, and safety of your data! Please read: Q: Should I use so called “Green” drives in a NAS system and what is WDIDLE? before buying your drives. XigmaNAS highly recommends 24/7 Certified drives!

update 2020-04-14 Western Digital admits 2TB-6TB WD Red NAS drives use shingled magnetic recording avoid their 2TB-6TB drives with EFAX label! also read Shingled hard drives have non-shingled zones for caching writes

It's best with all brands not to use SMR drives at all, DM-SMR DRIVE == STAY AWAY and unsupported by XigmaNAS

hard-drive-failure-rates 2019 hard-drive-failure-rates 2018 hard-drive-failure-rates-q1-2017 hard-drive-failure-rates-q3-2016

note: NUT UPS Compatibility List

• DENON AV Receivers: AVR-4810, AVR-4520, AVR-4311, AVR-4306, AVR-4308, AVR-3311, AVR-3313, AVR-3310, AVR-2313, AVR-2113, AVR-1913 and newer models (NET-AUDIO usage on the receiver, DENON AVR profile UPnP service).
• ONKYO AV Receivers: TX-NR3008, TX-NR3009, TX-NR5008, TX-NR5009 and newer models.
• Philips Streamium SL400i.
• Netgear MP101.
• Kodak EX1011 WiFi Digital Picture Frame.
• Linksys WMLS11B.
• Freecom MusicPal.
• Bewan iMedia HD 100 (ok via Samba (all formats) / ok via UPnP (except ISO and MKV which hang the box)).
• Tivo (with PyTivo).
• Popcorn Hour devices for streaming using cifs/smb or NFS

• Plex App when Plex Media Server plugin on XigmaNAS is used.
• Winamp + On2Share for Winamp v0.1 Plugin
• Geexbox 1.0
• Windows Media Player
• CLAMP
• VLC (UPNP version only)
• PyTivo