My first unRaid build went well but my second one has been a bit of a train-wreck where I keep buying hardware that ends up not being usable and the re-purposing it and repeating my mistakes.

 

Anyway ran across an inexpensive older server for sale -- it has an Intel S3420GP motherboard and the CPU and RAM fit my needs to build a basic media server unRaid box.

 

 

http://ark.intel.com/compare/46533,46545,48474,48472,59429

 

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/motherboards/server/s3420gp/sb/s3420gp_tps_r2_4.pdf

 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/server-products/server-boards/single-socket-server-boards/intel-server-board-s3420gp-family.html

 

 

My main concern is the ability to use 6TB harddrives -- I bought a bunch of WD Red SATA III drives and then proceeded to buy hardware that wasn't compatible with drives that large.

 

All I can tell from looking at specs is that it the motherboard will support SATA II drives and given the motherboard is not too old I'm optimistic -- searching the forum all got me one hit. I was able to fine someone on a different forum that was considering using 6TB drives with the motherboard but then went 3TB so I didn't get a confirmation.

 

So will this motherboard support 6TB drives?

 

 

It appears that virtualization is not an option with this motherboard -- that is fine since this is for media serving only.

My main concern is the ability to use 6TB harddrives -- I bought a bunch of WD Red SATA III drives and then proceeded to buy hardware that wasn't compatible with drives that large.

According to Intel at this site http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/boards-and-kits/000006700.html the chipset on the MB supports > 2TB drives so you should be good.  2.2TB was the old threshold and if the controller supports greater then that it should support all sized drives for the foreseeable future.

Thanks.