Hi!

 

First of all:

 

I read a lot in the wiki an through this forum. But after all I'm a bit confused. I search for a mainboard with the following functions:

 

• stable and no problems with unRAID
  
• 6 SATA ports. More would be better.
  
• full gigabit performance
  
• low power consumption. That part is not so important cause the system will not run 24/7
  

 

I found out, that the MSI P55 Big Bang Fuzion supports up to 10 SATA drives. An alternative would be buying a 6 port mainboard from Supermicro. For a total of 15 drives I have to buy another 8 port SATA card and another with, let's say, 4 ports. I'm not quite sure if the mainboard will run quite well with unRAID.

 

Very important is the performance. Previously I owned a Zyxel NSA 220 Plus which allows a transfer speed over FTP of 12 MB/s. That's lousy. I considered a "i3" for that board. Besides I'm planing to install a cache drive to increase the performance.

 

I'm quite open for any hints considering this "problem".

 

Thank you.

 

Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since you are not going to be operating the board continuously, I would suggest you search the forum for WOL. Not all boards do this well under Linux. I would also look for on board video. I am partial to Supermicro, but I know the board I use does not do WOL well.

Is budget a concern?  If not, then I believe the perfect motherboard and CPU currently available for unRAID would be something like this:

 

MSI H55M-ED55 LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

+

Intel Core i3-530 Clarkdale 2.93GHz 4MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80616I3530

 

Total: $200

 

Add two SuperMicro cards and you would have a 22 drive capacity (currently unRAID's max).  Power usage would be very low when the CPU is idle, but there would be ample processing power if you needed it for add-ons.  Onboard video and onboard gigabit LAN as well.

 

I found these just by quick searching, I haven't really researched the motherboard in any detail.  At a glance it looks to be fully compatible with unRAID.  I will add a caveat that MSI is not a terribly reputable motherboard brand.  They aren't bad, but they aren't the best either.

 

The biggest advantage of SuperMicro motherboards would be built-in IPMI.  However, SuperMicro doesn't seem to currently make any motherboards that support the i3.

 

I found out, that the MSI P55 Big Bang Fuzion supports up to 10 SATA drives. An alternative would be buying a 6 port mainboard from Supermicro. For a total of 15 drives I have to buy another 8 port SATA card and another with, let's say, 4 ports. I'm not quite sure if the mainboard will run quite well with unRAID.

 

 

 

This is overkill and using in unRAID you are wasting those HD audio/video function on this MB that you are paying for it. If you still can find it go for MSI P43 Neo3-F that comes with 8 SATA and get a 8 port PCI-4x card then you have 16 ports, if not enough throw in another PCI-1x 2 port card then you have up to 18 SATA ports.

 

I am using this MSI Neo3-F and so far no problem at all.

 

 

I would suggest something with a H55 chipset. That way you don't need to add any graphics cards if you use an Intel CPU with built in graphics, such as the i3 530.

 

This MSI H55M-ED55 motherboard is low cost ($75 after MIR), includes 6 SATA ports and 2 16x PCI-Express Slots. Combined with 2 SuperMicro SAS controllers, you're looking at 22 drive capacity. If that's not enough, add in a 2 SATA port controller in the 1x PCI-Express slot for 24 drives. (NewEgg Link)

 

NewEgg lists the Intel i3 530 CPU for $114. Not a bad combo, $190 for motherboard, cpu, and graphics, though there have been cheaper deals.

 

I am using that motherboard with an Intel i3 530 CPU in my unRAID server without any issues.

 

 

The biggest advantage of SuperMicro motherboards would be built-in IPMI.  However, SuperMicro doesn't seem to currently make any motherboards that support the i3.

 

Not true, a few of us are running Supermicro X8SIL-F, those support i3 and xeons, ecc memory (though ecc capability only with xeon cpu), 6 onboard sata, enough pci-e expansion slots to run up to 3 x SASLP cards for a maximum of 30 drives, IPMI, etc

The biggest advantage of SuperMicro motherboards would be built-in IPMI.  However, SuperMicro doesn't seem to currently make any motherboards that support the i3.

 

Not true, a few of us are running Supermicro X8SIL-F, those support i3 and xeons, ecc memory (though ecc capability only with xeon cpu), 6 onboard sata, enough pci-e expansion slots to run up to 3 x SASLP cards for a maximum of 30 drives, IPMI, etc

 

Sweet, didn't know that!  Thanks for the info.