msi 880GM-E41 ?

[tmp31416]

(oops, re-posted from the hardware forum -- sorry, my bad)

(and cut down in size)

 

to be able to put in a third supermicro cse-m35t-1b drive cage in my cm 590, i will need to change my motherboard to get more clearance between it and that 3rd drive enclosure (right now, the main power connector is in the way).

 

so, to replace the ga-ma770-ud3 i currently use, i have spotted the msi 880GM-E41, which is more compact, frees up the pcie-16x slot by the virtue of having decent built-in video, has 2 pcie 1x slots and one "oldskool" pci slot.  throw in 6 sata ports and a plethora of built-in i/o leads on the mobo, this appears to be a very acceptable motherboard to use with unraid.  (and, compared to my current setup, i will regain the use of all on-board sata ports -- my current video card has a _very_ big heatsink!)

 

of course, it would have been nice if it had two built-in gigabit nics instead of one, and a second pcie 16x slot.  but, for the price (around 80cad), one cannot complain about the features.

 

so, the question(s) is/are:  anyone around "here" used this motherboard to run unraid?  i was thinking of pairing it with a sempron 140, which i just bought for next to nothing; curious to know if such a combo is used by someone else.  

 

of course , if someone has a suggestion for a tried and tested alternative, i'm all ears.

 

cheers

[jtown]

How much room do you need?  You could take the tan fan assembly off the back of the drive cage and bolt a thinner fan directly to the back of the cage with long machine screws.  The screws that came with the case's original 4-in-1 might even fit the existing holes on the cage.  The stock fans on those cages are 37mm and the plastic doohickey adds a little more depth.  You'd shave 12-15mm off the depth of the cage just by changing to a 92mm x 25mm fan and eliminating that tan thing.  (BTW, they're 92mm fans, not 90mm, despite what the product specs say.)

[bcbgboy13]

The motherboard you selected uses DDR3 (so you will have to buy a new memory too) and it also uses Atheros NIC (may not work in Unraid)

 

So why not get this one - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130237 which is 99.99% guaranteed to work and you will be able to reuse your old memory and CPU.

It will work with the Sempron 140 too.

 

[Rajahal]

The ASUS M4A785-M is another good option.

[tmp31416]

up periscope!

 

(life can really get in the way, some times...)

 

How much room do you need?  You could take the tan fan assembly off the back of the drive cage and bolt a thinner fan directly to the back of the cage with long machine screws.  The screws that came with the case's original 4-in-1 might even fit the existing holes on the cage.  The stock fans on those cages are 37mm and the plastic doohickey adds a little more depth.  You'd shave 12-15mm off the depth of the cage just by changing to a 92mm x 25mm fan and eliminating that tan thing.  (BTW, they're 92mm fans, not 90mm, despite what the product specs say.)

 

...considering your advice (thanks, btw), i started measuring things, also putting down on paper the dimensions of all considered motherboards to replace my ga-ma770-ud3, as well as paying attention to how things were laid out inside my server.

 

surprise, sort of: my current gigabyte motherboard is the narrowest of all motherboards considered, beating even the msi 880gm-e41 i had my eyes on.

secondly, the power cable was getting in the way of a supermicro 5-in-3's fan cage by not much, and mostly because of the way it was routed.

third, there was a simple way to reclaim the unusable sata ports on the motherboard on my existing motherboard.

 

end result: did not have to buy a new motherboard, i just had to re-route the power-cable and move the video card closer to the supermicro sata controller to be able to get a third supermicro 5-in-3 drive cage in.

 

but then i had another issue with mounting of the drive cages: for them to fit, i had to remove all screws from the existing ones, allowing them to drop just over one millimetre, allowing the third drive cage to fit.  they are now held my simple mechanical friction (it is *tight*!), but this is not my preferred solution.

will be moving the follow up to this to the "pimp your rig" thread, to ask how to solve my problem.

 

thanks to all that answered.

 

cheers.