Currently available Motherboard recommendation for UK builder please

[SteveNeal]

Hi there

 

Have looked at the compatibility list - and many of the boards listed seem to no longer be widely available in the UK.

 

Can anyone who has recently built an unRaid system (particularly in the UK) - suggest a good motherboard that I can purchase here in Britain?

 

I'm looking for fast Gigabit Ethernet, at least 4 (ideally 6) SATA channels on-board, and enough expansion to add 4 more via an expansion card.

 

I don't mind if it is Intel or AMD - though I believe that Intel PRO 1000 ethernet adaptors are well regarded?

 

ATX or Mini-ATX are fine for me.  I'm looking to build an unRaid system to store backups of my DVDs (as ISOs) for use in Vista Media Center via MyMovies, and also to store my audio files.  I don't like the sound of Windows Home Server - so am planning on an unRaid build.

 

If anyone wants to suggest good cases available in the UK - ideally able to hold 8 3.5" SATA drives - that would also be great.

 

Apologies again if this isn't the right place to ask this?

[claude]

hello

I just buy one last week via e-bay in Germany because the one I wanted is no longer sold in France (or often used  ): ABIT AB9 pro: 77 € shipping included (about £ 60 )

 

http://cgi.ebay.fr/Abit-AB9-PRO-775-Intel-965-Expr-Chip-NEU-OVP-24Mon-Gew_W0QQitemZ360099778765QQihZ023QQcategoryZ4613QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

[lionelhutz]

The boards with an AMD 740G northbridge and SB700 southbridge work fine, are cheap and give 6 SATA ports. GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2 is an example. Pair it with a 45W Sempron or cheap 45W dual core.

 

The only downside is only 1- x1 PCIe and 1 - x16 PCIe slot for future expansion. You can use PCI cards but the PCI buss is a bottleneck for multiple SATA drives.

 

Peter

 

[SteveNeal]

Thanks guys.  Been doing a bit more research.

 

How about an AMD-based Gigabye MA78G-DS3H ATX board?  This appears to be very similar to the MA78GM-S2H uATX board (which I thought was listed as compatible - but it is the 78SM not GM...), but with 6 SATA rather than 5 SATA+1 ESATA, and with 3 PCI-e x1, 1 PCI-e x4 and 1 PCI-e x16 (though the x4 and two of the x1s share a PCI-e bus?) as well as 2xPCI slots for future expansion (the uATX model only has 1xPCI-e x16 and 1xPCI-e x1)

 

I've built an HTPC around the MA78GM-S2H (with a 4850e) and 4Gb of RAM and found it a very easy board to work with, and Gigabyte's documentation was OK for me to follow.  The HTPC has a maximum of 3x1Tb 3.5" hard drives in it (along with a 120Gb 2.5" OS drive) and I'm running out of space - and a Gigabit Ethernet server seems neater than external hard drive enclosures, and unRaid offers some degree of protection for my media (I have the original discs so it is more a time-saving than vital data I can't afford to lose) withouth the proprietary RAID issues and a NAS seems a bit limiting (and very expensive if you want more than 2 drives)

 

On the other hand 6 SATA drives and 2 PCI-e slots are probably going to be enough for me - and the MA74GM-S2H suggested is about 2/3rds the price...

 

Would a Sempron and 1Gb of be enough - or should I consider something more like an LE-1640 or a 4850e and 2Gb of 53/5400 RAM ?  AIUI unRAID is now fine with more than 1Gb of RAM ?  

 

Just thinking about slight future proofing elements - particularly if unRaid supports plug-ins in the future. (Simple things like an iTunes audio server, uPnP or Twonky etc.?)

 

Was thinking of either a Coolermaster Centurion 5 or 590, or an Antec Titan 650 case, to allow for future expansion.   Any thoughts? (Apols if this should be moved to hardware not motherboard discussion)

[lionelhutz]

Why don't you just plug an UNRAID flash drive into you HTPC and see if it works then? If it's the same chipset then you'd be OK.

 

The MA74GM-S2 should be even cheaper than the MA74GM-S2H version.

 

Peter

 

 

[SteveNeal]

Why don't you just plug an UNRAID flash drive into you HTPC and see if it works then? If it's the same chipset then you'd be OK.

 

The MA74GM-S2 should be even cheaper than the MA74GM-S2H version.

 

Peter

 

 

 

Doh!  Great suggestion!  Many thanks.

[SteveNeal]

Couldn't find stock of the MA74GM-S2 so ended up with a MA74GM-S2H (quite a bit cheaper than my MA78GM-S2H used in my HTPC - so no point paying over the odds)  as part of a bulk eBuyer purchase.  Delivered this morning - time from delivery to file transfer was less than 90 minutes.  Never built a system in an ATX case before - so nice to have room! (All my previous PCs have been compact HTPCs where everything is really fiddly and cable management is a nightmare.  So nice to be able to neatly tie-wrap everything easily for a change!)

 

The system is mounted in a Cooler Master Centurion 5 with Cooler Master Extreme Plus 550W PSU, I'm using 2Gb of Kingston 5400 / 667MHz RAM, and an AMD LE-1640 CPU with stock heatink and fan. Hard drives are Samsung Spinpoint F1s -  1TB and 500GB currently which I had spare.  Not yet put in a parity drive.  Using a 1GB Lexar Firefly (as recommended) as the USB boot disk, with BIOS configured to boot from USB-HDD running the Free version, just to check things out.  Have switched on AHCI support and disabled all the on-board stuff that UNRAID doesn't use (Audio, floppy etc.).  Have still connected the audio headers to the case - well it gives them somewhere to go...  Haven't even bothered bunging in an optical drive.

 

Connecting via Gigabit Ethernet to my MA78GM-S2H-based HTPC I'm getting around 45-50MB/sec transfers - both large ISOs and a bulk transfer of lots of 320k MP3s and Apple Lossless stuff.  This appears to be completely respectable (I was getting around 60-70MB/s SATA to SATA transfers within the HTPC, and compared to the 20MB/s I get with a USB2 external it is a major improvement!)

 

Centurion 5 with 550W PSU was a reasonably cheap bundle - may regret it as it only has 5 exposed 5.25" drive bays - so I can only use a 4-in-3 and a 3-in-2 if I get ambitious, and won't be able to use two 4-in-3s - but that would still leave me with 11 drives - which may be too many for the PSU anyway...  However at the moment I suspect I'll be fine!  (No problems with fitting 6 drives - which is my motherboard SATA limit)

 

Obviously it has only been running for a couple of hours and I'm not running with a Parity drive yet, - heck I haven't screwed the side on - but I'm really chuffed at how easy it was. (And VERY impressed at the boot from USB with no requirement for a lengthy OS install)