What motherboard to use?

[Blu]

I've been wondering what motherboard do I use? I currently have a 8800GMA Gigabyte mobo but I've read some places that alot of mATX mobo's will only detect up to 12 hard drives sometimes, should I try the 880GMA or swap it out for something better? (Also heard gigabyte is sometimes a terrible brand for unraid) Would it be smart to go with a server grade motherboard or something (Will it last longer if it's server based or won't matter?) I also need two x4 slots for my sata port cards as well. Thanks for any help.

[queeg]

I've been wondering what motherboard do I use? I currently have a 8800GMA Gigabyte mobo but I've read some places that alot of mATX mobo's will only detect up to 12 hard drives sometimes, should I try the 880GMA or swap it out for something better? (Also heard gigabyte is sometimes a terrible brand for unraid) Would it be smart to go with a server grade motherboard or something (Will it last longer if it's server based or won't matter?) I also need two x4 slots for my sata port cards as well. Thanks for any help.

 

Switch over to the MSI 880GMA-E53.  It's a great board.  It's only got one big PCIe slot but, it's got 8 onboard sata.

[TheWombat]

I am currently using the 880GMA and overall I think it is a good motherboard. I have had some issues however I believe these are related to the AMD 880/890 chipset rather than the Gigabyte motherboard. I can confirm that HPA is disabled by default.

 

Setup:

unRAID 4.7

Motherboard = Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H (latest FW)

HDDs = Hitachi 5k3000 2TB x 6 (and about to add more)

RAID CARD = SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 (FW=3.1.0.21) x 2

CABLES = 3WARE CBL-SFF8087OCF-05M x 4 & Sata x 2

PSU = CORSAIR CMPSU-850HX 850W

 

Issues & comments:

 

1) With the SASLPs on firmware .21 the machine would not boot. note: This appears to be an issue with the AMD 880/890 chipset as the issue has been found on Asus motherboards as well. See here. The solution is to either:

     a) set the motherboard onboard SATA ports to RAID or IDE

     b) not use the motherboard onboard SATA ports

     c) downgrade the SASLP cards to firmware .15 (takes about 2 minutes) <-- this is what I have done and seems to now be working

 

2) Preclears - due to issues with the SASLP card and certain non-Super Micro motherboards it seems to be recommended to run pre-clears with HDDs connected to the onboard SATA ports rather than to the SASLP. Once the HDDs are pre-cleared they can then be connected to the SASLPs without any issues.

 

3) I do not believe you need SATA III or USB 3, so there may be other motherboards that are cheaper options.

 

4) While I am still going through the initial setup, so far I would rate this motherboard experience as positive. It is micro-ATX and one of the few mATX motherboards that has 2 x PCIe x16 (x16 + x4) slots.

 

5) The 2 x PCIe slots are next to each other. Some other motherboard designs place a PCIe x 1 slot between the x16s which would help with cooling. I have not however had issues yet on temperatures, and I believe if you have a good case/fan setup you will be fine. See below:

 

 

I will be running the motherboard through the level 1 & 2 testing over the coming weeks.

 

If you want the greatest level of certainty then I would suggest the SuperMicro motherboard or other motherboards listed in Rajahal's builds.

 

hth

 

Alex

 

[Blu]

When you say to run the pre clears on the mobo sata ports first, does this mean for every new hard drive I would like to add I need to connect to the motherboard first to pre clear / format (is that what pre clearing is? I'm still new to unraid) before I can connect it to the SASLP? Also mind telling me how to downgrade the firmware on these as I have ordered two as well.

[TheWombat]

When you say to run the pre clears on the mobo sata ports first, does this mean for every new hard drive I would like to add I need to connect to the motherboard first to pre clear / format (is that what pre clearing is? I'm still new to unraid) before I can connect it to the SASLP? Also mind telling me how to downgrade the firmware on these as I have ordered two as well.

 

Read this thread here

 

And this thread here - the instructions to use are on page 3 however I'd recommend reading through the entire thread.

 

You may not need to downgrade the firmware, depends on if you have any issues booting the machine due to the BIOS.

 

If you have the issues I did, then when running preclears, I'd recommend connecting the HDD to the motherboard SATA rather than the SASLP. Once you've run however many preclears you wish (I typically run ~4) then you can reconnect the HDD to the SASLP.

 

Preclear is not the same as formatting, for more information on preclears and a useful configuration guide to unRaid I'd thoroughly recommend reading this guide.

 

hth

 

Alex

 

[Blu]

Just a thought, a friend told me a server class board will do me better in the long run. Would getting this be an improvement?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182161&cm_re=supermicro-_-13-182-161-_-Product

[Blu]

Any comments on the super micro board?

[cyrnel]

That's may be the least "server-class" board I've seen from Supermicro. 8ch audio? Can't really give you my honest feeling about the Realtek nic on a family forum.

 

Perhaps loiter in the recent Motherboard threads in the hardware forum?

[Blu]

You could always pm me your thoughts

[queeg]

Unless you are trying to get something really server class-ish like IPMI then there's not much of an advantage over many of the desktop motherboards for an unRAID server.  Why not just save the money for something like another hard drive?