Need input on which motherboard to use (N5105)

[Ayouby]

Hi everyone,

I just purchased unraid and want to use it on my new NAS.

 

Im following this video. My needs are simple for a NAS, I want reliability and set and forget configuration. It's for file transfer, backups, syncing, and docker containers. My main focus is power efficiency. I won't be doing video transcoding and all that stuff.

 

In the video, or rather in the comments, he recommends that the SATA chip should say "ASMedia". I don't know why as he doesn't explain. I've found a clone or variant of the board here on a deal. If you press view more, the pictures are too blurry to see but one of them says it uses a JMB585 SATA chip. Would this be okay?

 

 

[ConnerVT]

First, this is a good thread to review.  It is *very* long, but the info in the first post has great info that is still valid today.

 

 

Both the JBM585 (that I use in my main server) and several of the Asmedia based SATA are all good choices.

 

Note that N5105 boards have a limited number of PCIe lanes, and that many of the boards only use one PCIe lane for the M.2 slot (vs the 4 lanes typically used for M.2 nVME storage).  So be sure the SATA adapter you buy matches what the motherboard has electrically.

[Ayouby]

1 hour ago, ConnerVT said:

First, this is a good thread to review.  It is *very* long, but the info in the first post has great info that is still valid today.

 

 

Both the JBM585 (that I use in my main server) and several of the Asmedia based SATA are all good choices.

 

Note that N5105 boards have a limited number of PCIe lanes, and that many of the boards only use one PCIe lane for the M.2 slot (vs the 4 lanes typically used for M.2 nVME storage).  So be sure the SATA adapter you buy matches what the motherboard has electrically.

 

Thank you for replying. I'm not familiar with these forums, and I'm trying to reply to your comment. What do you mean by the SATA adapter has to match? The board itself has 6 SATA connectors that I can plug the hard drives directly into.

[Lolight]

On 3/25/2024 at 10:41 PM, Ayouby said:

The board itself has 6 SATA connectors that I can plug the hard drives directly into.

He meant that the referenced board has many more SATA ports that the CPU itself can support.
That's why the board feature a separate third-party SATA controller - JMB585.
The problem with those is that they don't play nice with the CPU's low power modes called C-states.
The author of the video described it as a "perfect" home server, but that is in his view.
Doesn't meant that you can't do better.
You can achieve better power efficiency doing it differently.

 

Edited March 28 by Lolight