Wanting an upgrade...just not getting perf. from the ol' SUPERMICRO MBD-C2SEA.

 

Can I use this mobo combo pack outta n-egg?

 

BIOSTAR B75MU3+ LGA 1155 Intel B75 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

 

1x Intel Core i3-2120 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155

 

1x CORSAIR XMS 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333  (already have 2GB on the C2SEA...but not sure if I can use them too)

 

Is this a decent swap into my existing 6 drive runner at 3GB SATA rates?

 

Need to get something more stable than the second-hand C2SEA that has been "ok" for about 2 full years.

 

 

Waiting on the words of wisdom.

 

oops forgot a few details---there is 1 Adaptec RAID 1220SA  and 2 Adaptec RAID 1430S's in an AZZA Helios with a Corsair 650W with IcyDocks...

That motherboard doesn't have any PCIe x4 slots for your 1430SA's

 

How many drives do you plan to run?

That CPU is outdated. Come summertime that CPU will be two full generations behind. Ivy Bridge was the successor to Sandy Bridge. The successor to Ivy Bridge, Haswell, is due out this quarter. Some OEMs already have some to start building PCs with.

UnRAID doesn't need much CPU "horsepower", so I wouldn't be overly concerned about what generation the CPU is, as long as it's a Core architecture unit (i.e. I wouldn't build a system with an old NetBurst architecture Pentium).  A Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge CPU is just fine.

 

What you DO want, however, is plenty of PCIe x4 or larger slots, so you can have full bandwidth for add-in SATA cards.    Here's a motherboard with 3 PCIe x16 slots that would be a good choice:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130643

 

Matter of interest -- what's unstable with your C2SEA?  That's a superb board -- mine's been running non-stop for over 3 years and only gets rebooted when the system shuts down due to power failures longer than the 10 min I have the UPS control software set to wait.    Current runtime on that system is ~ 135 days. (running v4.7)

 

UnRAID doesn't need much CPU "horsepower", so I wouldn't be overly concerned about what generation the CPU is, as long as it's a Core architecture unit (i.e. I wouldn't build a system with an old NetBurst architecture Pentium).  A Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge CPU is just fine.

 

That is true but unless its a super great deal it might not be worth buying such an old CPU when it will soon be pretty outdated.

UnRAID doesn't need much CPU "horsepower", so I wouldn't be overly concerned about what generation the CPU is, as long as it's a Core architecture unit (i.e. I wouldn't build a system with an old NetBurst architecture Pentium).  A Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge CPU is just fine.

 

That is true but unless its a super great deal it might not be worth buying such an old CPU when it will soon be pretty outdated.

 

An Ivy Bridge (or even a Sandy Bridge for that matter) is hardly "... such an old CPU " !!  Although Haswell's will be shipping fairly soon, the Ivy Bridge CPU's are still the most current Intel processors;  and Sandy Bridge is only one step behind.

 

 

UnRAID doesn't need much CPU "horsepower", so I wouldn't be overly concerned about what generation the CPU is, as long as it's a Core architecture unit (i.e. I wouldn't build a system with an old NetBurst architecture Pentium).  A Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge CPU is just fine.

 

That is true but unless its a super great deal it might not be worth buying such an old CPU when it will soon be pretty outdated.

 

An Ivy Bridge (or even a Sandy Bridge for that matter) is hardly "... such an old CPU " !!  Although Haswell's will be shipping fairly soon, the Ivy Bridge CPU's are still the most current Intel processors;  and Sandy Bridge is only one step behind.

 

My point was 2 generations behind, which is what Sandy will be when Haswell is released is pretty old. Unless you're getting a really good deal, why buy something so old? If its not a really good deal then just pay the few extra bucks and get something more up to date

 

UnRAID doesn't need much CPU "horsepower", so I wouldn't be overly concerned about what generation the CPU is, as long as it's a Core architecture unit (i.e. I wouldn't build a system with an old NetBurst architecture Pentium).  A Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge CPU is just fine.

 

That is true but unless its a super great deal it might not be worth buying such an old CPU when it will soon be pretty outdated.

 

An Ivy Bridge (or even a Sandy Bridge for that matter) is hardly "... such an old CPU " !!  Although Haswell's will be shipping fairly soon, the Ivy Bridge CPU's are still the most current Intel processors;  and Sandy Bridge is only one step behind.

 

My point was 2 generations behind, which is what Sandy will be when Haswell is released is pretty old. Unless you're getting a really good deal, why buy something so old? If its not a really good deal then just pay the few extra bucks and get something more up to date

Compatibility.  I still need Sandy Bridge CPU and bios when I want to pass through an AVerMedia Duet tuner card to a  VM - or even use it with a bare metal OS.  The only MBs to address this are Intel.  Both Tyan and SuperMicro have not fixed the problem as far as I can find.  Ivy Bridge compatible bios adds PCIe 3.0 support and I suspect that is what is causing compatibility problems with my PCIe 1.0 tuner card.  Being on the bleeding edge of technology is not always the best thing for a server where you want stability a generation or two back is usually better if you want that.

Not only compatibility, but also reliability -- of both the CPU and (often more significant) the motherboards, which have had time to mature.

 

ANY Intel CPU that's Sandy Bridge or later is fine -- and there's very little benefit with the "bumps" to Ivy Bridge and Haswell.    Haswell, for example, is showing a 5-10% increase in performance in the initial tests ... NOT what I'd consider a significant improvement that's worth waiting for or running "bleeding edge" systems.

 

When Intel jumped from the NetBurst architecture to Core architecture chips (i.e. P-IV's to Core 2 Duo's) the performance bumps WAS very significant (4-6 times the performance);  and the I-series chips brought out with Sandy Bridge represented another reasonable jump from the Core 2's (50% to 300% gain).    But the incremental gains from Sandy to Ivy, and from Ivy to Haswell, are nowhere near to this order of magnitude.

 

There IS one area that's gained very nicely from Sandy -> Ivy -> Haswell => and that's the graphics core.    But for an UnRAID system, this is simply irrelevant.    And of course for anyone who wants gaming-level performance and will use a dedicated video card, it's also irrelevant.