Currently I have my old 1366 generation i7-950 gaming rig as my server. Looking to grow into a dual socket 1366 server board (SuperMicro X8DTL-3F). I have a few dockers and a VM right now, but am looking at playing around with some other stuff that will require a bit more horsepower. Here are a few questions I have before I buy the new (old) hardware:

 

1. Can the LSI SAS1068E chipset, be set to the proper IT mode for unRAID? Found a topic by Madburg from May 2011, but not sure if that is still relevant to today's unRAID. https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.0

 

2. I also see a note in that thread that the SAS1068E controller can't read 3TB drives (sees 2.2). Not sure if that information is up to date. I would imagine there is a firmware out there than can. I would like a board I could grow into. I currently have 6 drives: 5x WD Red 3tb and a 1tb SSD cache. This going to work?

 

3. Temporarily! Can I use the i7-950 in that board until the point I get my matching Xeon's? I know I can use non-ecc ram (just a lower amount) just not sure if the CPU will work. I know that you can put Xeons into desktop motherboards (that support them), just didn't know if it would work the other way. If I can get the motherboard now and the other stuff a couple weeks later I can spread out the workload over a couple of weekends.

 

Thanks for any help you can give.

Since no one else has responded, I thought I might offer you a suggestion.  Go to the SuperMicro website and look up that MB you are interested in.  If they don't say your old CPU is not supported, it isn't.  (If a Celeron would work in that board , it would be listed with all of the other CPU's!  They want to sell motherboards...)

 

Second, if you look at the post you referenced for the LSI SAS1068, you will see it was last updated in 2013.  Three TB drives had been around for a long time at that point.  So, in all probability, there is no software update that will update that card for 3TB drives.  (If you are looking at it because it is cheap, that is the reason.)