Motherboard Woes - arghhh (Cant find a board)

[znelbok]

Hi all

 

I am trying to find a motherboard for a 24 drive system.  I know about Raj's thread and the recommendations there, but the supermicro board used there (and its newer counterpart if i3 sandybridge) are hard to get in Australia at a decent price (anything similar to newegg).

 

So I am trying to find a motherboard that will be a suitable replacement that is easier to get downunder.  Gigabyte and Asus are two brands that come to mind, but after a couple of hours I still can't find a suitable board.

 

Basically I want sandy bridge support (LGA1155), two PCI-e x4 slots and a third x1 slot as a minimum.

 

Can the x16 slot be used without an dramas (usually meant for video card).  Some of the boards have a second x16 slot (SLI etc).  WIll this be a problem.

 

If anyone knows of a board that can be used please shout out cause I am starting to pull my hair out.

 

Mick

 

Crap - got it in the wrong section.  Please move to motherboards.  Sorry 'bout that

[cyrnel]

If I can spread a little healthy fear, watch out for consumer boards using EFI in place of the traditional BIOS. I had a bad time with one of these and in talking to others who build more systems than I, it's something of a mess out there.

 

Helpful, I know.

[Rembro]

I know it's not just as you asked but is this available down-under?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131257

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6231.0

[znelbok]

Thanks

 

Cant find that board in any of my regular haunts - will keep looking though.

 

I have no idea what this EFI thing is, more reading to do.  Regardless, when I find a board I will post it here.

 

If only I could find somewhere in the US that does not want to charge an arm and a leg for postage.  Some palces are getting back to normal, but others still want like $50 plus to send international.

 

Mick

[PeterB]

Can the x16 slot be used without an dramas (usually meant for video card).

 

Sometimes, yes ... sometimes, no.  My Intel H55 board is okay.  I understand that some older Intel boards don't allow the x16 slot to be used for anything other than graphics.

 

As an alternative, consider one x8 (x16?) slot and an LSI 16, or 24 port adapter.

[joshpond]

The Asus board M4A89GTD Pro will run 2 supermicro cards with a sempron. I think perfessor01 and pras has it running like that.

 

When I looked about a year ago couldn't get the supermicro boards at a reasonable price here.

 

Josh

[znelbok]

Yes, it appears to be hard to get agood prices here, even though the $AU is stronger than the greenback at the moment.  Its shipping that is the killer.

 

Josh - The Asus board is AMD and I am not a hugh fan of AMD - no particular reason.  There are a lot of boards with two or more PCIx16 slots now maily for graphics cards so I would be taking a punt on it working with a SATA card.  I am not looking at an older board so hopefully most current boards can handle the data cards in a x8/x16 slot.

 

Mick

[Johnm]

Maybe I'm missing something?

 

http://www.techbuy.com.au/search.asp?what=BeginSearch&page=1&srchQuery=supermicro&min=%240.00&max=%240.00&srchManuf=ALL&fromSearch=1&srchCat=ALL&srchNumRecs=100&srchSortBy=1&rbSrchType=ALL&cbSrchDesc=TitleOnly

 

Supermicro boards down under?

[joshpond]

You can get them here in Aus, just dispropotionatly expensive.

 

I agree with AMD vs intel but for unraid no real issues. The Asus board does have 3slots that are capably of x4.

 

if you find a board that you are happy with add it to the dual slot motherboard thread.

 

Josh

[Johnm]

http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/173443/MOTHERBOARD_SERVER/Supermicro/X9SCL_-F.asp

 

That sounds reasonable enough looking at some other prices and a great board for unraid.

[znelbok]

Thats a $300 board that is <200 in the US.  Hence this thread, I didn't want to pay stupidly high prices.  Thanks for the pointer though.  I am happy to pay up to 200, but cant justify more than that.

[bcbgboy13]

Josh - The Asus board is AMD and I am not a hugh fan of AMD - no particular reason.  There are a lot of boards with two or more PCIx16 slots now maily for graphics cards so I would be taking a punt on it working with a SATA card.  I am not looking at an older board so hopefully most current boards can handle the data cards in a x8/x16 slot.

Mick

 

Why not AMD - you know that with AMD you can get the ECC functionality for "free" as it is build in any relatively recent AMD CPU and the extra cost is only the slightly more expensive ECC memory. However not all motherboard vendors will support it but Asus usually does.

On the other hand Intel charges an arm and a leg for this "must" feature on any server.

 

IMHO - ECC, UPS and keep your HD temperatures under 40C and you will rarely if ever visit the "support" forum here.

 

[Rajahal]

I've heard through the grapevine that Superbiiz has reasonable prices on international shipping.  They have a healthy selection of Supermicro boards (more listed under Server motherboards).  Here's a few of their offerings that should work well for you:

 

Supermicro X9SCM-F-O - The latest and greatest, being used with success by a handful of unRAIDers.  The primary NIC is known to be incompatible with unRAID (no drivers for it), but the secondary NIC reportedly works just fine.

 

Supermicro X8SIL-F-O - My current recommended board.

[znelbok]

Thanks Raj, but at $88 for shipping a motherboard and two sata cards, its not a good price at all

 

How does this board look

MSI X58A-GD45 (http://www.mwave.com.au/sku-28023434-MSI_X58A_GD45_Motherboard_ATX_Intel_Socket_LGA1366_Processor_Intel_X58_&_ICH)

 

Its got three PCI-e slots - Gen2 (2x16), Gen1(1x4), at $175 its in the ball park, but it needs an i7 which is overkill ($295 for the cheapest here so far and $122 for an i3 2100).

 

While I may be paying more for the processor, at least the money is not wasted on shipping.

 

Its easy to find boards for the i7 with everything needed.

 

or this

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R

http://www.mwave.com.au/sku-28023263-Gigabyte_GA_X58A_UD3R_LGA1366_Triple_DDR3_2200_Intel_X58+ICH10R_6_4GT_s_QPI_10x_

2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_2) (Note 2)

2 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1/PCIEX8_2) (Note 3) (The PCIEX16_1, PCIEX16_2, PCIEX8_1 and PCIEX8_2 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)

2 x PCI Express x1 slots

 

Mick

[Rajahal]

Unfortunately the MSI board uses the Realtek 8111E NIC, which has known compatibility problems with unRAID.  If you used an Intel PCI NIC instead you could get it to work, but it isn't ideal.  The i7 will waste a lot of power as well.  The i3 is designed to be energy efficient, the i7 is designed to be powerful (and not nearly as energy efficient).

 

The Gigabyte board looks better.  I don't see any known compatibility issues with that board.  You will want to check to see if the board has HPA enabled by default or not.  If it does, then do not use it for unRAID.  If it doesn't, then it is fine to use.  See this thread for more info on HPA.  You will still have the same energy wasted by the i7, but everything else should be fine.

 

Honestly, I think you are going to have to start considering AMD boards or else you are looking to waste a lot of money on an i7 CPU that is total overkill for unRAID.  I promise there's nothing wrong with AMD, I use them all the time.  My personal server is AMD based, as are about half of the servers I sell.

[joshpond]

You can usually save a few bucks on mwave. I've never found them the cheapest. Have a look on www.staticice.com.au

 

Josh

[znelbok]

OK, I will look at the AMD's.  What is a current (new) processor that is suitable for 24 drives.  I dont know my Athalons from Sepmerons, hell I only just a handle on the Intels again (just).

 

Mick

[Rajahal]

For basic NAS functionality, any Sempron is fine.  My favorite is the Sempron 140, as it is low power and inexpensive.  If you want to run any CPU-intensive add-ons (such as video encoding via Handbrake, or video transcoding via PS3MS or airvideo) then you will want an Athlon.  I would just buy the cheapest dual core Athlon you can find.  You should only be looking at socket AM3 CPUs.