Hello Fellas,

 

Long time lurker, first time poster.  I've been waiting for the right time to start building and getting into the unRAID scene and I finally have some money saved up.

 

I'm looking to maximize storage by upgrading the case later on, so right now i'm looking at boards and CPU.  Primarily I will be using it for Media Streaming and storage.

 

What do you guys, or gals think about this board for starting and expansion?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138162

 

It's at a decent price and has plenty of lanes for expand-ability.  Especially with 2xPCI-Ex1 and 2xPCI-Ex16.

DL nic should work. Not so sure those x16 slots will work with 2 hbas. Motherboard is listed as a xfire sli card. My experience with video slots tell me you'd probably get only one working. You might get lucky though.

 

If your looking for a cheap MB I'd go with a recommendation from Greenleaf.

Thanks for replying daniel.boone.

 

According to the manual, which can be found here: http://www.biostar.com.tw/upload/Manual/IP55C-AHT%20&%20IP55D-AHT_090922_B.zip

 

PEX16_1: PCI-Express Gen2 x16 (x16/CrossFireX x8, SLI x8 Speed) Slot

- PCI-Express 2.0 compliant.

- Maximum theoretical realized bandwidth of 8GB/s (4GB/s CrossFireX/SLI)

simultaneously per direction, for an aggregate of 16GB/s(8GB/s

CrossFireX/SLI) totally.

 

- PEX16_1 & PEX16_2 slots are reserved for graphic or video cards. The

design of this motherboard supports dual PCI-Express graphics cards using

CrossFireX/SLI technology with multiple displays. When CrossFireX/SLI is

activated, these slots run with x8 speed.

PEX16_2: PCI-Express Gen2 x8 (x8/CrossFireX x8, SLI x8 Speed) Slot

- PCI-Express 2.0 compliant.

- Maximum theoretical realized bandwidth of 4GB/s (4GB/s CrossFireX/SLI)

simultaneously per direction, for an aggregate of 8GB/s(8GB/s

CrossFireX/SLI) totally.

 

Note:

SLI function is for T5XE CFX-SLI only

PEX1_1/PEX1_2: PCI-Express Gen 2x1 Slots

- PCI-Express 2.0 compliant.

- Data transfer bandwidth up to 500MB/s per direction; 1GB/s in total.

- PCI-Express supports a raw bit-rate of 2.5Gb/s on the data pins.

- 2X bandwidth over the PCI architecture.

 

 

With that -- i'm assuming you'd get the full lane on both x16.  If you can't, no biggie you can use one and you'd still have 2x PCI-E x1 and 2 x pci (although slower).

 

The only thing I wish it had was a LGA 1155 so I can buy lower wattage CPU.  I'm thinking of pulling the trigger and getting a Core-i5 760 Lynnfield.  Should be plenty of power to process/transcode blu-rays.

 

With this I can re-use my old case (holds 8 drives) and upgrade to the Norco 4224 later and would only have to buy the case and accessories.

Yeah those x16 are video only. It's mentioned in the manual.  I would look elsewhere for a MB.

 

You can chance it if you want but there is no recourse if it doesn't work.

Rather not take my chances.  Thanks for the double checking. I'll look for another one.