October 3, 201312 yr I am looking at upgrading & building a new server, looking at 1150 i3 cpu with either a Asus z87 plus, z87-ws (if available in australia) or z87 c or arock z87 Extreme4, z87 Extreme4/tb4 or z87 Extreme6. I have 1 supermicro SAS2LP-MV8 card & would consider getting another down the track, but have some pci & pcie x1 sata cards I can use. Unraid - the next best thing backup, movies/tv/data Tower2 OS: unRAID OS version Pro 5.0 i386 Case unknown brand: 13 Bay Duplicator Motherboard: GA-pd55a-ud5 LGA1156 CPU: Intel i5 3.33GHz MEMORY: 2 x 2gb ram EXPANSION CARDS: 1 x SAS2LP-MV8 2 x ?? Power supply: Thermalake TR2-700 4in3 Caddies: 5 Cooler master Hard disks: 19x 2tb (10x sam, 4x wd, 4x sea, 1x hit) Tower1 OS: unRAID OS version Pro 5.0 i386 Case Thermalake: 9 Bay M9 Motherboard: Asus p7h55m LGA1156 CPU: Intel i5 3.33GHz MEMORY: 2 x 2gb ram EXPANSION CARDS: 1 x SAS2LP-MV8 2 x ?? Power supply: Thermalake TR2-700 4in3 Caddies: 5 Cooler master Hard disks: 1x4tbsea & 14x (7x sam hd154 1.5tb, 3x sam hd204 2tb, 2x 2tb wd, 1x sea 2tb, 1x hit 2tb)
October 3, 201312 yr Whatever's most readily available is fine. Personally, I prefer Asus over AsRock (which was owned by Asus ... they were the low-cost version of Asus boards. It was bought by Pegatron a couple years ago, but I don't think the focus of the boards has changed) BTW, unless you're an overclocker, there's no reason to get a Z87 board ... an H87 board is just as good and typically costs a good bit less for the same feature set. You may, however, need to go with Z87 simply because manufacturers tend to use these on their premium boards -- so if there's some feature you need (e.g. more x16 slots) but can't find on an H87 board, you have to spring for the Z87 version).
October 5, 201312 yr Author thanks gary my preference is asus but some of the asrock are slightly cheaper or have more sata connections. eg asau $250 while something similar asrock could $200. but I really want is to give my asus p7h55 to somebody & build a newer server then with a 1150 m/b with 8+ sata & atleast 2+ pcie x4 or greater, possibly 1-2 pci the asrock extreme 4 & 6 look ok specs wise but costly over here in australia if available.
October 5, 201312 yr I used to prefer Asus but for cost vs. features I took a punt on an Asrock back in the beginnings on ESXi. Sicne then I am an Asrock fan. You get more for your money and they have some nice habits like being omre forthcoming on residential boards what virtual features they support e.g. VT-x, VT-d. I found that it was hit and miss for other manufacturers. I think I am on my 5th Asrock since then with zero issues. Caveat I never overclock or any nonsense like that
October 5, 201312 yr Sounds like Pegatron may have focused on quality a bit more than Asus did when AsRock was simply a "low cost Asus"
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