December 15, 201015 yr Hi guys, First post. The wiki hasn't been updated in a while, and the mentioned Asus board can be hard to find at the cheaper retailers like umart.com.au and gamedude.com.au. Can anyone suggest a suitable replacement? This list from Gamedude is where I'd prefer to buy from. http://www.gamedude.com.au/prod_list.php?maingroup=MOTHERBOARD&secondgroup=AMD%20SOCKET%20%20AM3 Surprisingly everything else on the list is easily attainable. I'd rather build from Raj's 5 drive budget box http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7998.0 but finding supermicro or biostar stuff for a decent price in Aus is next to impossible. From wiki Components: CPU: 2.7 GHz AMD Sempron 140 Motherboard: Asus M4A785T-M RAM: Kingston 2 GB DDR3 1333 RAM or Kingston 1 GB DDR3 1333 RAM (1 GB is sufficient for stock unRAID usage, get 2 GB or more if you plan on using add-ons) Power Supply: Corsair CX-400 400W (will support up to 12 drives) Case: Antec Three Hundred Hard Drive Bays: Hot Swap - SNT-3141 SATA-II Hot-Swap 4 Drive RAID Enclosure (eBay price: $120 each) You can forgo this option as the case only allows for one of these. To keep things on a budget scale, I'd suspect most would build this server without them and would use the Cooler Master STB-3T4-E3-GP 4-in-3 Device Module Hard disk Cage. Non-Hot Swap - Cooler Master STB-3T4-E3-GP 4-in-3 Device Module Hard disk Cage (eBay price: $40, would only need one for this case) Expansion Card: If you plan to use more than 6 SATA drives, you'll need to buy a compatible SATA RAID controller ($40 gets you a 4 Port SATA I RAID controller, about $70 gets you a 4 PATA II RAID Controller. PCIe would retail for about $100+ 4 Port card). Hard Drives: Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 3Gbs Western Digital Caviar Green Power 1.5TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 3Gbs Western Digital seem to be quieter and better for value to date. It is best practice to avoid buying multiple drives from the same manufacturer at the same time. Doing so increases your risk of a multiple drive failure, a situation from which unRAID cannot recover. At current prices (as of April 3, 2010), the above configuration totals: $352.90 + hard drives (base system, non-hot swap bays, 1 GB of RAM) $464.80 + hard drives (baller system, hot-swap bays, 2 GB of RAM)
December 15, 201015 yr You can have a look at some of the boards that are listed on the motherboard forum section and that will show some boards you can look to see if available. From memory there are a few newer gigabyte boards that come with HPA disabled that you might be able to pick up. I was lucky and got that ASUS board but am not using it at the moment as I've moved to a bigger (ATX) ASUS board listed in my sig. That board works except there currently is a clash between the onboard SATA ports and the supermicro SASLP MV8 card. If you don't plan on going past 6HDDs it could work or wait a bit for a fix if you want to take the risk. Josh
December 15, 201015 yr From your GameDude list, these two look promising: ASUS M4A87TD-USB3 ASUS M4A88TD-M This forum thread actually discusses both boards. You might want to contact Compass and ask him if the ASUS M4A88TD-M is working out for him. Since he hasn't posted any problems, my guess is that it works fine. This forum thread also mentions the ASUS M4A87TD-USB3, but there's not much information there. Again, you could contact Just Me to see if that board is working for him. I don't see anything in the specs of either board that would preclude it from being compatible with unRAID. Both would also work just as well in my 5 drive budget box design. Personally, I would probably choose the USB3 model just because it uses newer technology and is therefore slightly more 'future proofed'. It also offers more expandability options in the future. There's also a possibility that the MSI 740GM-P25 will work, but the Atheros AR8131M LAN chipset that it uses is a big unknown. Generally speaking, Atheros NICs have been known to cause some problems. So I wouldn't gamble on this one unless GameDude has a really good return policy. I also wouldn't bother with looking into any of the Gigabyte boards because it is too much of a hassle to figure out if they will have HPA issues or not. Better to just avoid them altogether as long as there are other options.
December 16, 201015 yr Author Champions. Thanks for the responses. I'll dig through the motherboard forum for more info and let you know how the purchase goes.
January 5, 201115 yr This forum thread actually discusses both boards. You might want to contact Compass and ask him if the ASUS M4A88TD-M is working out for him. Since he hasn't posted any problems, my guess is that it works fine. Working like a champ thanks, yes have been a bit slack lately on here, but if you have any questions, fire away........... here's my build, all bought from https://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/default.php 2 x Western Digital Caviar Green Power 2TB 7200RPM 64MB SATA 3Gbs 1 x Corsair CX-400 400W ATX Power Supply 1 x AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 255 3.1GHz 2MB Cache (AM3/AM2+/ AM2) 1 x Asus M4A88TD-M AMD Mainboard - 4x DDR3 / 6x Sata Raid / Gigabit Lan / Onboard VGA/DVI/HDMI / AM3 1 x Antec Three Hundred - Black ATX Gaming Case (No PSU) 1 x Kingston DDR3 2GB PC-10600/1333 (2x1GB) CL9 Value Ram Cheers
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