New MB suggestions sought, 8+ SATA

[tucansam]

My trusty M5A78L-M still won't boot off USB automatically (without a kb and monitor plugged in to make it do it) even after two CMOS battery replacements, and it still won't keep time.  I'm thinking its getting a little long in the tooth.  I've maxed out at six drives, and had considered just getting an 8-port SuperMicro card, but.....

 

Might as well turn this board into a lab machine and upgrade my server for the next few years.  Presently running an AMD AthlonII X2 250u -- absurdly low power, but with the integrated graphics on the motherboard, I'm sure a modern solution would draw less power.

 

Plus now I can take advantage and upgrade to ECC memory, an Intel NIC (or two), and IPMI.

 

Looking for suggestions for a replacement.  Micro ATX, ATX, strange sizes, whatever, I have a large tower and anything should fit.  Again, IPMI would be sweet, as would ECC and an onboard Intel NIC, but it must have at least 8 SATA ports (and not on some strange controller chip unraid won't like, as I've seen with other boards)

 

Any suggestions?  Intel-based would be fine as I could use a ridiculously low power Celeron (1150 or 1155) and upgrade to something later if it ever becomes necessary.

 

Thanks.

[SSD]

I recently upgraded, and decided on an ASRock E3C224-4L.

 

ECC memory, IPMI, 8 SATA ports onboard, good PCIe expansion.

 

Highly recommended.

[sgibbers17]

I use a Asrock c225 ws and has worked great so far.  It has 10 sata3 ports, supports ecc memory, 2 Intel NICs, and great PCIe expansion.  But it does not have IPMI.  4 of the sata ports a on 2 Marvell controllers and I had no issue with them.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157409

http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C226%20WS

 

I also have Intel Pentium G3220 Haswell 3.0GHz LGA 1150 that supports ECC memory.  I just upgraded to a Xeon for VT-d support.  I would be willing to sell it for about $30.  PM me if you are interested.

 

When you buy a CPU make sure that it supports ECC memory if you want ECC, not all CPUs support it.  I think that this particular Pentium was the only Pentium that supported ECC.  Celerons were not available when I bought this CPU so I don't know if they support it.

[2stroke]

I recently upgraded, and decided on an ASRock E3C224-4L.

 

ECC memory, IPMI, 8 SATA ports onboard, good PCIe expansion.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Thats a nice server board. Really nice nitch in the market segment there, wish they could strip out the quad nics to save on coin. Think ill end up shifting to a rack unit because i can pickup daul 771 racks for ~$200, only issue is power though ill strip out a cpu, then hdd Would love that board but its to much for a file server for me, maybe i could flog my gaming rig off and move onto one, maybe lol

 

Guess it comes down to how deep your pockets are, like tyan make some great stuff and some nice e-atx boards.  bjp999's board is the sweet spot though quad nics for me would be wasted, though that a nice price and something that really would suite unraid as you could max out hd limit with a single sas controller or grab 2 cheaper cards or 4. Only issue would be if you losing pci-e slots with a dedi video though risers could fix that with ease The lanes might be cut a bit though pci-e 3 at 8x is pci-e 2 16x which wont bottle neck any current card, maybe the titian x and daul 290x. The board being a single cpu is the sweet spot and cheap cpu wise unlike 2011's, its also less power hungry. It's really a well balanced board for unraid so i would be chasing something like it, its just your cup of tea on which maker you go with.

 

green with envy here hahah