Supermicro X10SRA-F-O vs ASRock x99 WS

[essjay]

Hi guys.....

 

I have a few questions on the Supermicro X10SRA-F-O and the benefits of this board in an unRAID system. I spotted this board in a discussion here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=44393.15.

 

So first up I can't find this exact part number on the Supermicro site. The nearest is the X10SRA-F but no sign of the "-O" variant. Is there an actual difference here?

 

Secondly I see it has a VGA connector onboard. Does this mean that I wouldn't need a discrete GPU for the unRAID console which I would need with any x99 boards?

 

Up to this point I have been admiring the ASRock x99 WS workstation board which gives me the dual Intel onboard NICs, looks like 5 discrete GPU's, ECC RAM, 10 x SATA, a few USB's, COM's if I ever need them (might be useful for some AV kit programming) and so on. What is the benefit of the Supermicro board over this one given it's around 10% more expensive? Is it simply a case that the Supermicro boards are tried and trusted in an unRAID environment?

 

My use case will be probably with a 2620V3 (can get one quite cheap), 16-32GB RAM. Building unRAID for NAS duties, a high performance HTPC (with a 960 Asus Strix) VM, and at least one workstation VM (nothing too intensive though - web development etc). A couple of other VM's here and there for maybe automation/CCTV, torrents etc.

 

Thanks....

[sonofdbn]

Unfortunately I can't answer your questions, but for the Supermicro there are some places that suggest that "-O" just refers to retail packaging (https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/supermicro-motherboard-part-number-guide.17511/ or even here http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=15046.0).

 

However, I'm also trying to understand what the significant differences are between an X99 board that supports ECC and a MB with a C612 chipset (like the X10SRA-F).

 

It seems from Newegg reviews that the Supermicro packaging sometimes results in bent components - like the VGA port. My dilemma is that I would probably have to have the Supermicro shipped in, whereas I can get an X99 locally. So if there's not too much difference, I'd go for the X99 (but that's because of my situation).