1 AOC-SASLP-MV8 or 3 SIL3132 cards?

[HatchetMan]

Hi all, new to the forum but been browsing for about a month now. Planning my build and have questions about getting (economically) 12 SATA II connections (10 data, 1 parity, 1 cache, all 2TB WD20EARS) with minimal bottlenecks and great transfer rates. The most I will be doing is streaming Blu-Ray rips (1080p & HD audio) to my HTPCs (via CAT6). Liking the AMD Athlon II X2 240e CPU. Now the mobo and adapter cards, which will best fit the bill and be most compatible with unRAID? Also, any opinions on CAT6 – shielded vs. unshielded, solid vs. stranded? (3,000+sq.ft 2-story home). Everything I have learned about servers I have learned on this forum, before this I was planning on a ReadyNAS NV+

 

Biostar A780L (4 onboard SATAII)

http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us/mb/content.php?S_ID=472

with 1 of these installed in the one PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot:

Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (highly recommended on this site yet many complaints about slow speeds)

http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SASLP-MV8.cfm

 

OR

 

JetWay JHZ03-GT-V2-LF (6 onboard SATAII)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153201&Tpk=JHZ03-GT-V2-LF

with 3 of these: 2 installed in the PCI Express 2.0 slots and 1 in the PCI Express x1 slot:

Silicon Image SIL3132

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=2530&seq=1&format=2

 

OR (but less likely based on mixed reviews)

 

JetWay JHZ03-GT-V2-LF (6 onboard SATAII)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153201&Tpk=JHZ03-GT-V2-LF

with 3 of these: 2 installed in the PCI Express 2.0 slots and 1 in the PCI Express x1 slot:

Generic PCI Express to 2 Internal SATA II Ports Controller Card (JMB362 or JMB363 chip based?)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280429470355

 

OR???

 

[Rajahal]

Biostar A780L (4 onboard SATAII)

http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us/mb/content.php?S_ID=472

with 1 of these installed in the one PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot:

Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (highly recommended on this site yet many complaints about slow speeds)

http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SASLP-MV8.cfm

 

That Biostar board doesn't have a gigabit LAN NIC, throw it on the ground.  This is the ideal board for a 12 drive server:

 

Biostar A880G+

 

It is fully compatible with unRAID, and it will take a Supermicro SASLP card as well.  Regarding that card, I'm not sure where you've heard these complaints about the SASLP card being slow, I haven't found it to be.  It does boot a bit slow, but transfer speeds are great.

 

The Jetway board you listed is also a good choice, and will offer you great expandability options if you ever wanted to expand past 12 drives.  The JetWay JHZ03-GT-V2-LF should be able to support up to 22 drives with two SASLP cards.

 

Let's also consider the total price of each of these options:

 

Biostar A880G+ ($55) + 1xSASLP card ($100) + 2xForward Breakout Cables ($30) = $185

 

Jetway JHZ03-GT-V2-LF ($77.55 after shipping) + 3xSIL3132 cards ($46.44 after shipping) = $124

 

Based on that analysis, the Jetway board is clearly the better choice.  It offers you better expandability options, and it is cheaper.  If you do think that you might one day want to expand past 12 drives, then you might consider this option as well:

 

Jetway JHZ03-GT-V2-LF ($77.55 after shipping) + 1xSASLP card ($100) + 2xForward Breakout Cables ($30) = $207.50

 

Clearly that is the most expensive option, but it will net you 14 drive support right away (6 on the motherboard, and 8 on the SASLP card) and you'll still have the option to expand up to 22 drives with the addition of a second SASLP card.

 

Also, for straight streaming (no transcoding or other fancy stuff), a single core CPU like the Sempron 140 is more than sufficient.  You can still get the dual core if you prefer, but it isn't really necessary.

 

I would also recommend against the JMB362 controller.  Not only does the card take 3 weeks to ship from Hong Kong to the US, success rates with it are about 50%.  So if you get a defective card, your build will be set back by a good month or more.  For me that isn't worth the small amount of money you'll save.

[KYThrill]

Or you can sub in the MSI NF750-G55 from mWAVE which will run you $55 AR w/ shipping.  The only difference is that is has 5 SATA on the MB plus 1 eSATA.  The Jetway has six SATA on the MB.  However, the Jetway only has one X1 PCI-e slot, but the MSI has two.  So you can actually expand to more internal SATA ports with the MSI (25) than the Jetway (24).

 

The NF750-G55 isn't as used as the Jetway (so far I'm the only person on here running one I think).  Mine has been up and running for about a week, with no real problems.  Everything on it is natively supported by unRAID.

 

I think the Jetway and MSI are basically the same board, just one is a Nvidia nForce solution and the other is an ATI Radeon solution.

 

I will go ahead and tell you to just go bigger or you will regret it later.  I built my first unRAID last June using parts I had lying around.  I was able to shoe horn 6 drives into it.  I think around October/November, I was already outgrowing that, so ordered all new parts to build a 13 drive system.  Now it is May and I was already using 9 of the 13 drives in that system and getting ready to add drive 10.  So now I went ahead and just built a 21 drive system from scratch because the parts in my 13 drive system couldn't take me to 21 drives.  So most of that money spend last November is just money down the drain.  If I had planned ahead with the MB, I could have saved myself a couple hundred dollars.

 

I recommend that you base your MB/CPU/RAM/ PSU purchase on eventually building a 20+ drive system.  Then when you grow, you essentially just need to buy a new case, and maybe an add-in card.

[HatchetMan]

Thanks Rajahal, I admire your prototype builds!

 

I can’t believe I overlooked the nonGigabit NIC on the A780L. I emailed Biostar about the A760G M2+ alternate item and that is what they recommended.

 

Very valid points you made KYThrill

 

I was going for 12 drive max for the simple fact that is all that I will eventually be able to stuff into my Antec P180 case (I have an ATX mobo in there right now, I assume it can house a microATX?). May not be the highest recommended for a sever but I have it lying around from a previous build and it has served me very well the past 2 years. 6 internal drives for now (though not yet unRAID’ed), then eventually 6 more in the 4 5.25” external bays. Thought about going with a pair of the Kingwin KF-3001-BK for that purpose, but is there anything necessarily wrong with going with a pair of Evercool HD-AR-B boxes instead to save like 80 bucks (besides the hot swap factor)? Shouldn't be any fitment issues with a pair of either, should there?

 

[Rajahal]

I built my first unRAID server from an Antec p180.  Far from an ideal case, but it will work.  That lower built-in drive cage is a real pain to work with, that is what eventually convinced me to upgrade to hot swap bays.  I actually used those exact same Kingwin 3-in-2s as well!  The case's drive rails make them a bit of a chore to install and uninstall, but they do work.  I had to pretty much take the entire case apart to get them to uninstall, it was a pain.  I now use the p180 for my desktop computer and use an Antec 902 for my server.

 

The Evercool drive cage might not work too well with the p180's drive rails.  I found that certain drive cages would be too loose when installed in that case.  For example, I tried some single hot swap bays in the case, and while they would fit they just weren't very secure.  The drive rails tend to not hold cages in place very well unless that cage has a lot of its own support structure.  The Evercool might work, or it might not.

[HatchetMan]

maybe I should go with the current shell shocker, $55 shipped rosewill cruiser?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147145

[Rajahal]

It is an improvement, but for that price you could buy a Thermaltake V5 or V6 (requires a slight modification) and have an even better case.