I currently have the upgraded UNRAID that allows for 6 drives and I'm starting to run out of space, but my motherboard is old and antiquated.  It has no SATA ports, and all the big drives are SATA, of course.  I have a EPOX EP-8RDA6+PRO board (w/ AMD chip) that I'm not using currently which has 6 SATA slots, but I can't get it to boot to my UNRAID USB stick.  it boots fine to Windows XP.  I've tried the HP formatting tool, syslinux, updating BIOS, etc, and now I'm ready to move on.  In addition, I don't see my EPOX board on the hardware compatibility list.

 

I've searched here for a suggested motherboard/CPU combo, but I don't see a consensus.  Is there a suggested board, should I try and add some sort of SATA add on card to my current system?  What my best option?

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

Your cheapest option would be to pick up a Promise TX4 card, assuming you have a free PCI slot.  This would let you add 4 SATA II drives, and both the card and drives could go with you to your next board, when you are ready.  This would buy you some time, with no wasted investment.

 

There are good boards listed on the Hardware Compatibility wiki page.  Many are old and hard to find, but check those with a recent date added.

 

Another option, with caveats, is a board like mine, the Epox EP-MF570SLI AM2, still available for $50 at the Epox Store.  It has 8 SATA II ports, lots of slots (PCIe X16, PCIe X8, 2x PCIe X1, 3x PCI), and very good performance, specs are here.  On the downside, it is not the current generation, does not have video, and Epox has apparently gone out of business.  It also requires one boot option, noapic.  I added a lower wattage AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+(65W) 2.4GHz.

 

Your EPOX EP-8RDA6+PRO is an nForce2 board.  Even if you got it to boot, I would not recommend it for unRAID.

Thanks for the response.  That sounds like what I need.  I don't need video, any major processing power, etc.  I just need a board and CPU that are reliable and works with UNRAID. 

 

What is noapic?

 

Thanks for letting me know my board isn't good for UNRAID. that's what I was wanting to find out before I wasted any more time on it.

What is noapic?

 

Please see the Boot Codes wiki page.  Do read the bottom paragraphs.

Hmmm.  I checked my current unRAID setup and I have a board that may be on the list.  I have an Asus P4P800, but I didn't see any trailing letters (the one on the approved list is P4P800-SE) and there are multiple versions of this board.  So it sounds like it may be my best option to just get a SATA card and upgrade that way.

 

Also, my board does have 2 SATA ports that I missed, so that'll help get started at least.

 

Also, is there a suggested Promise TX4 card?  I looked at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102062&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Hard+Drive+Controllers+/+RAID+Cards-_-Promise+Tech.-_-16102062 on newegg and the first post was about problems with Linux.  I found Promise SATA 300 TX4 cards and Promise SATA 150 TX4 cards.

 

 

I definately wouldnt buy the promie the supermicros is much superior IMO. Had nothing but grief with the promises compatibility with 2 boards and eventually gave them away

NAS:  What about a specific supermicros card? 

 

Robj:  What's your experience with SATA cards?

 

Basically, I want to buy one SATA card that'll work and not have to worry about it not working.

 

Robj:  What's your experience with SATA cards?

 

I personally have only had an IDE Promise card, and it was great, for what it did.  However, I have 'troubleshooted' and researched numerous users and threads, pertaining to Promise cards, and I can say that most, but not all, have had good success with one Promise card, but less success with multiple cards.  I believe Tom uses a pair of Promise SATA TX4 cards in the builds that he ships, and many others have had success with 2 cards, and a few have gotten 3 cards to work.  But your chances definitely go down with multiple Promise cards.  They certainly are cheaper than the SuperMicro card, and are probably about the same performance, used in a typical PCI slot.  Of course, it takes 2 Promise TX4 cards to equal one SuperMicro (8 SATA ports).

 

I personally prefer PCI Express cards for SATA controllers, less of a bottleneck for simultaneous access, than the PCI bus.  I have a SYBA PCI-E X1 2 port SATA II Controller Card, one of a number of similar SiI3132-based cards, often found for about $20, and very fast.  They also support Port Multipliers, for future expansion.

Hmm, my board doesn't have PCI-E.  http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=12&l3=31&l4=0&model=180&modelmenu=2

 

Would you suggest upgrading the board instead of running on a PCI SATA card?  All I'm using my unraid server for is music and movie storage.  I just bought 2 x 1 TB WD SATA green drives.  I know I can add these to the 2 onboard SATA slots, but I'm wondering for future expansion.

Hmm, my board doesn't have PCI-E.  http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=12&l3=31&l4=0&model=180&modelmenu=2

 

Would you suggest upgrading the board instead of running on a PCI SATA card?  All I'm using my unraid server for is music and movie storage.  I just bought 2 x 1 TB WD SATA green drives.  I know I can add these to the 2 onboard SATA slots, but I'm wondering for future expansion.

 

The $60 you spend on a promise card (or 2 @$60) could possibly be used for a newer motherboard that supports more sata ports.