Suitable mobo and Nic?

[Robertxc]

I'm going to build my first array tomorrow, and am keen to make sure I buy compatible components. Would someone who knows please be able to have a look at the spec for me? 

 

The PC store has a combo deal with an Intel E2160 and an ASUS P5GC-MX/1333 mobo. The spec for the mobo is here:

 

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=498&l4=0&model=1768&modelmenu=1

 

It doesn't have gigabit ethernet, so I was going to buy an ASUS NX1101. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be too much info out there about this card, but it seems to be a pretty standard make.

 

I'll also be buying three 750GB Seagate SATA drives to start off with, and once I have it up and running I'll add the four I already have (2 SATA, 2 IDE).

 

Thanks in advance for any advice

 

 

 

 

[SSD]

Welcome aboard, Robertxc!

 

You might want to check out the Motherboard section.  This recent thread will probably answer most of your questions about what to look for in a motherboard.  (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=936.0)

 

In short there are have to haves and nice to haves.

 

You have to have

1 - MB that can boot off of USB flashdrive

2 - MB with supported chipset (to recognize your hard disks)

3 - Supported gigabit ethernet chip (ok, it will work with @100 megabit, but gigabit is really needed)

 

Nice to haves

1 - MB with onboard Gigabit NIC that does not use PCI bus - the PCI bus becomes a bottleneck on unRAID.  Anything that is NOT on it is a good thing.

2 - Lots of SATA ports (hopefully NOT on the PCI bus)

 

You might search the motherboard area for the MB that you are looking at - but it you are buying a new box just for unRAID, get one with the gigabit LAN on the MB.

 

Let us know what you decide.

[Jon]

I've liked the looks of the retail Intel boards with the ICH8/9 chipsets (6-8 SATAII on the PCIe bus).  Many also have the Intel 82566DC GbE which also resides on the PCIe bus.

 

Plenty of expansion ports, onboard video, and you can get ATX or mATX - depending on the case you're looking at.

 

I recently ordered a BOXDG965RYCK for myself and am waiting for it to arrive so that I can start on my own.

[Robertxc]

Thanks for the replies folks. I think I might avoid that particular mobo - I much prefer the idea of on-board lan anyway. I think I might get one of these instead:

 

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L INTEL Motherboard

 

• Support for an LGA 775 Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme/ Core™ 2 Quad/ Core™ 2 Duo/ Pentium Extreme Edition/ Pentium D/ Pentium 4/ Celeron processors

• The Intel® P31 Express chipsets support the latest multi-core processors up to FSB 1333MHz

• Dual channel DDR2 1066 featuring faster speeds and higher data bandwidth

• PCI Express x 16 graphics port

• 6 x SATA 3Gbps with RAID function for fast reliable secure storage

• 8-channel Intel® High Definition Audio with premium home theatre digital sound

• High speed Gigabit LAN connection for broadband and fast networking

• 1 x PCI X 16 3 x PCI, 3 x PCI X 1 slots

• 4 x USB 2.0 ports

 

How important is processor speed? Will a Celeron do?

[RobJ]

It doesn't have gigabit ethernet, so I was going to buy an ASUS NX1101. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be too much info out there about this card, but it seems to be a pretty standard make.

 

The NX1101 does not seem to have a standard chipset, although there seems to be source available for an 'ipg' Linux driver.  Unless another user speaks up, I wouldn't bother with that card.  I think it very unlikely there is support for it.

 

I see you've responded, I much prefer getting onboard LAN.

 

[Jon]

Thanks for the replies folks. I think I might avoid that particular mobo - I much prefer the idea of on-board lan anyway. I think I might get one of these instead:

 

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L INTEL Motherboard

 

 

The board I had mentioned for myself includes onboard LAN.  The Intel 82566DC is the model that resides on the PCIe bus, as opposed to the more common Realtek chipsets (which I find to be junk).

 

The BOXDG965RYCK is an older model, I'll admit, but I chose it due to the maturity of the G965 Express chipset and all necessary components lying on the PCIe bus (while still having 4 PCIe expansion slots available for future use).

 

There are more modern boards similar to this making use of current chipsets (like the G33 series).

 

I like Gigabyte, have one myself, but aside from a good manufacturer, you're going to want to make sure it's a good chipset base for unRAID support.

 

Good luck!

[Robertxc]

Well, I got my Unraid up and running  It seems to be working *almost* perfectly...

 

I used an Asus P5B-VM motherboard with onboard gigabit lan, which I believe uses a Realtek controller. The only problem I'm having is that my Dell Gigabot router is reporting the connection speed to the Unraid as 100mbs. I can transfer a DVD of about 6.4GB to the array in about 18 minutes, but transfers from the array seem to be taking about 10 times longer. The only possible thing I can think of is that it's some sort of driver problem. Does anyone have any ideas?

[RobJ]

I used an Asus P5B-VM motherboard with onboard gigabit lan, which I believe uses a Realtek controller. The only problem I'm having is that my Dell Gigabot router is reporting the connection speed to the Unraid as 100mbs. I can transfer a DVD of about 6.4GB to the array in about 18 minutes, but transfers from the array seem to be taking about 10 times longer. The only possible thing I can think of is that it's some sort of driver problem. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

Is the station running Vista that you are using to transfer to and from?  Then see these threads:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1162

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1177.msg7931#msg7931

 

 

As to 100Mbps, try typing the command below at the unRAID or telnet console, and check the speed reported.

  ifconfig eth0

 

[Joe L.]

The realtek controller driver has had a bug causing poor performance for the last release or so.  Many have just added an Intel network card and disabled the one on the motherboard

 

If you can wait a bit, I think I read on some forum it was fixed in the 2.6.23 kernel and a new version of unRaid using the 2.6.24 kernel is due out any day now.

 

Joe L.

[Robertxc]

The realtek controller driver has had a bug causing poor performance for the last release or so.  Many have just added an Intel network card and disabled the one on the motherboard

 

If you can wait a bit, I think I read on some forum it was fixed in the 2.6.23 kernel and a new version of unRaid using the 2.6.24 kernel is due out any day now.

 

Joe L.

That sounds like a good plan. The syslog is reporting the following: "Mar  1 13:51:43 Tower kernel: [  32.353147] eth0: RTL8168b/8111b at 0xf881a000, 00:1e:8c:1c:0d:12, IRQ 10". It doesn't seem to be affecting transfers to the array too much, so I can continue putting files on it in the meantime. I reckon the transfers (about 4TB) should be complete by the middle of next week, so I've kicked the kids off the TV until then and they can go and ride a bike or something until it's sorted...

[Guest Sparkie]

I have dual onboard nics and I had to disable both of them because 4.2.1 choked their performance. I then bought an Intel PCI-E NIC card and everything works great. The PCI-E eliminates any bottlenecks associated with PCI cards.  The card is fast and reliable. Onboard NIC have always been hit and miss for me.

[Robertxc]

If you can wait a bit, I think I read on some forum it was fixed in the 2.6.23 kernel and a new version of unRaid using the 2.6.24 kernel is due out any day now.

When you say "any day now" do you literaly mean like this week, or are you talking metphorically? I'd rather not buy a new NIC if the current one is going to start working perfectly in a couple of days.

[Joe L.]

Unfortunately, I can't give a specific date.  Tom has said in the past few weeks that version 4.3 of unRaid will be out shortly.  That could mean today, tomorrow, or unfortunately, next month...

 

Why not send Tom an e-mail, let him know you have a motherboard with a realtek LAN controller that is performing poorly and ask him his expected release date for 4.3.

 

Let him know you will have to go out and buy a replacement network controller to get decent performance otherwise.

[Guest Sparkie]

RobertXTC. I will be building a new server with the Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R. The Specs are below.

 

CPU

 

  1. Support for an Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processor/ Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor/Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor/ Intel® Pentium® processor Extreme Edition/Intel® Pentium® D processor/ Intel® Pentium® 4 processor Extreme Edition/Intel® Pentium® 4 processor/ Intel® Celeron® processor in the LGA 775 package

      (Go to GIGABYTE's website for the latest CPU support list.)

  2. L2 cache varies with CPU

  3. 1600 (O.C.)/1333/1066/800 MHz FSB

 

Chipset

 

  1. North Bridge: Intel® P35 Chipset

  2. South Bridge: Intel® ICH9R

 

Memory

 

  1. 4 x 1.8V DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 8 GB of system memory

  2. Dual channel memory architecture

  3. Support for DDR2 1200 (O.C.)/1066/800/667 MHz memory modules

 

LAN

 

  1. Realtek 8111B chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)

 

Expansion Slots

 

  1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slots

  2. 3 x PCI Express x1 slots

  3. 3 x PCI slots

 

Form Factor

 

  1. ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 21.0cm

 

Storage Interface South Bridge:

 

  1. 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATAII0, SATAII1, SATAII2, SATAII3, SATAII4, SATAII5) supporting up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices

  2. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10

 

GIGABYTE SATA2 chip:

 

  1. 1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices

  2. 2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (GSATAII0, GSATAII1) supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices

  3. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD

 

Highlights:

8 Sata Ports

Gigabit LAN

Has a Low power management feature implemented in the BIOS that saves energy. New function from Gigabyte.

 

If you can wait, I'll post my results by Wednesday Next week.