ASRock Z77 Extreme4 or other suggestions

[zaniix]

Looking for people who are using this board. I am considering upgrading my current 4.7 unraid system to a board that has more  ports and better CPU selection so I can move to a 5.x build

 

I am trying to keep cost down and I do not see myself going past (6) 4tb drives anytime soon.

 

Are there better options for the price? Did anyone have issues with this board?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293

 

Many of the suggestions I see are hard to find or discontinued, way too expensive or just do more than I need. I am also not looking for equipment I have to flash in some special way. I just want some simple out of the box working components for minimal cost

 

I do not have size constraints I use a midtower in my basement so I don't need a tiny mitx board, but I also do not need high end equipment that will let me run 24 drives.

 

I am currently running this BIOSTAR A880G+ AM3 , but if it was to break I am not sure what I could use to upgrade it as it seems like nobody here uses anything but intel now so I am apprehensive about upgrading it to a newer AM3 board.

[vsonerud]

I have just finished building my new unRAID server using the ASRock Z77 Extreme4-m motherboard.

 

No problems so far.

 

Only issue for me was that I had to upgrade to the latest motherboard BIOS to be able to use > 1 IBM m1015 controller cards (reflashed with LSI IT-firmware).

 

I am running unRAID 5.0 rc12a on the server.

 

 

 

[JorgeB]

I would suggest the Asrock B75 Pro3-M, considerably cheaper, same 8 sata ports.

I'm using two of them with 2 x aoc-saslp-mv8 and 20 hdds with no problems, unraid  5.0 rc12a.

[hwilker]

I also very recently built an Unraid system using the ASRock Z77 Extreme4. I've had zero problems. I'm running it inside a Norco 4224 case, with a Celeron G1610 processor with 13 of it's twenty four disk trays populated. I'm running 5.0 rc11.

 

I have two IBM M1015 controller boards installed and they also are working fine. I did not use this system to flash the M1015's to IT mode so I can't speak to whether or not that would be a problem.

[sureguy]

I'm using that motherboard and running ESXi and passing through my M1505 to unRAID without any issues.

[spinbot]

I also very recently built an Unraid system using the ASRock Z77 Extreme4. I've had zero problems. I'm running it inside a Norco 4224 case....."

 

I'm looking to due a new build as I've reach my 12 drive limit of my current case.  I have SuperMico AOC-SASLP-MV8 card and as I've had good luck with it, I think I will jus get a second one, giving me 16 drives from them plus 8 more fom the onboard, filling a 4224 case perfectly. 

 

One thing I want to ensure is the speed of the PCIe slot doesn't restrict anything with the AOC-SASLP cards. 

 

The ASRock Z77 board lists them as:

PCI Express 3.0 x16:    2 (x16/0 or x8/x8)

 

The ASRock B75 Pro3-M motherboard has:

- 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot (PCIE1: x16 mode)

- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (PCIE2: x4 mode)

 

The SATA card is listed as PCI Epress X4 , so either board would work.

 

The B75 seems to be able to do everything needed (for me at least) and is cheaper, so it looks like the better option.

 

When it comes to RAM, what is suggested for 5.0 rc11 (or whichever is most recent)?  This would be for the server running UnRaid for basic file sharing (it stores all my movies).

 

I found some that was listed on the motherboards "Compatible" ram list, however I was uncertain about voltage, as one they list as ok it 1.5V ( http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231193 ) yet another listed is at 1.65V ( http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104173 ).  Is that just a setting on the motherboard , so it can run either, just as its configured>