Building Fileserver for a friend and need Motherboard

[Cr0nJ0b]

I'm building a system for a friend that he will be using as a file server for the house. Money isn't really an issue, stability is the big concern....he doesn't want anything that he will have to keep up or worry about.

I've been thinking about the AM2 boards with Nforce 590 chipset, but I'm not sure which one would be right for this application...Any thoughts?

I'll take any sugestions for build.

thanks

 

[krotchy]

Nforce 590 = BEYOND BEYOND BEYOND overkill for a file server.

You can actually make a really good file server using a Pentium 3 if you do it right. Honestly, if you want to spend money, get a low end asus motherboard (This Nforce 570 board would do the trick) for stability, and then get a dedicated SATA Raid card. Having a dedicated Raid card for redundancy is going to be alot more usefull than a performance motherboard. Plus running any redundant RAID off a card is going to be very beneficial over motherboard based software RAID solutions.

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

I like your Idea for the M2N-E board, but can't find a SATA RAID controller for less than $300, which sort of defeats the purpose...I'm not sure the performance gains of the Card will be seen anyway. One other point...don't most of these cards need a 64bit PCI-S slot or other big server type slot to run?

 

[DaveSimmons]

For a file server, a motherboard with passive cooled chipset would be nice, either one of the SLI boards with heatpipe or go the other direction and get a Biostar TForce mATX with onboard video.

If not using onboard video, a passively cooled video card like a nvidia 6200 is one less fan to die or go whiny.

An X2 3800+ is more than enough CPU, a Sempron would probably be enough. A slower CPU is easier to cool quietly, especially if you get $30-50 aftermarket HSF.

Socket 939 is just as good as AM2 and the motherboards are more mature.

Software RAID is fast enough for a personal file server. If you can find a cheap PCI SATA RAID-5 card that should work well. If you need 750 GB or less you could just use 2 drives in RAID-1.

 

[alex123]

I would go with AM2 Nforce 570 Ultra chipset because it has 6 RAIDed SATA, 2 Gb LAN, on-board video.

By the way, Asus M2N-E board is based on exactly that Nforce 570 Ultra chipset. However, I would go with this MSI board:

K9N Platinum

6 RAIDed SATA connectors,
2 x GB LAN
Onboard video
No fans

Plus, my personal experience with MSI GeForce 6150 board is good.

Asus board - it has an extra fan, and it has a heatpipe. Since you are NOT OCing your file server, and your target CPU is probaly Semptron, you do NOT need an extra fan and heatpipe.

Other things should be the same because that Asus board is based on exactly the same chipset as MSI board. However, I did not look into Asus board specs.



MSI Specs:



? 11.96 in.(L) x 9.61 in.(W); ATX
? 4 DIMMs w/ DDR 800+ up to 8GB
? 2 PCI-E 16X (2nd PCI-E 16X slot runs 1X speed); 2 PCI-E X1; 3 PCI; 10 USB
? Realtek 7.1 CH HD audio
? Dual Gb LAN; IEEE 1394 RAID(0, 1, 0+1 & 5); SATA2; ATA133
? Live Update; Dual Corecell; MSI Dual CoreCenter; DOT , DigiCell; nVidia Firewall

CPU
? Supports 64-bit AMD® Athlon? 64 / Athlon 64FX / Athlon 64 X2 processor (Socket AM2)
? Supports Athlon 64 CPU: 3500+, 3800+
? Supports Athlon 64FX CPU: FX-62
? Supports Athlon 64 X2 CPU: 3800+, 4000+, 4200, 4400+, 4600+, 4800+, 5000+, 5200+


Chipset
? NVIDIA ® nForce 570 Ultra Chipset
- HyperTransport link to the AMD Athlon 64/Athlon 64FX/Athlon 64 X2 CPU
- Supports 1 PCI Express x16 interface / 3 PCI Express x 1 connection
- Independent SATAII controllers, for six drives
- Single Fast ATA-133 IDE controller


Main Memory
? Supports dual channel DDR2 533/667/800, using four 240-pin DDR2 DIMMs.
? Supports the memory size up to 8GB
? Supports 1.8v DDR2 SDRAM DIMM

Slots
? Two PCI Express X16 slot (supports PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant)
? 2nd PCI Express X16 is compatible with PCI Express x 1 (MSI PCI-Express Lite Slot)
? Two PCI Express X1 slot
? Three 32-bit Master PCI Bus slots, one orange slot reserves as communication slot.
? Support 3.3V/5V PCI bus Interface


On-Board IDE/SATA
? An IDE controller on the nVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66 operation modes.
- Can connect up to 2 IDE devices
? NV RAID supports 6 SATA II ports (SATA1-6). Transfer rate is up to 300MB/s.
? NV RAID (Software)
- Supports up to 6 SATA
- RAID 0 or 1, 0+1, 5, JBOD is supported
- RAID function work w/ SATAII HDDs


BIOS
? The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board automatically.
? The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface (DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.
? Supports boot from LAN, USB Device 1.1 & 2.0 and SATA HDD


Audio
? Chip integrated by Realtek ALC883
- Flexible 8-channel audio with jack sensing
- Compliant with Azalia 1.0 spec


LAN
? Supports dual LAN jacks
- Dual LAN supports 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by nForce 570 Ultra


IEEE1394
? VIA 6307 chipset
- Supports up to 2 x 1394 ports
- Transfer rate is up to 400Mbps


On-Board Peripherals
- 1 floppy port supports 1 FDD with 360K, 720K, 1.2M, 1.44M and 2.88Mbytes
- 1 serial port
- 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode
- 1 audio jack (5-in-1), coaxial/fibre SPDIF out
- 10 USB 2.0 ports (Rear x 4 / Front x 6)
- 2 RJ45 LAN jack
- 1 D-Bracket 2 pinheader
- 2 IEEE 1394 a connectors (Rear x 1/ Front x 1)
- 1 CD-in pinheader
- 1 IrDA pinheader


Dimension
11.96 in (L) x 9.61 in(W) ATX Form Factor

Mounting
9 mounting holes

 

[BoberFett]

Is this thing just a file server? If so, don't bother with fancy motherboards that take expensive CPUs and memory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813185043

Throw that in a mid tower with some old PC2100 you probably have lying around. Add drives and you're done. Cheap, quiet, cool. If all it's doing is file services, it could handle software RAID if that was a requirement. If he really wants gigabit ethernet or needs more drives or hardware RAID, it's a got a couple PCI slots.

 

[KGB]

like your Idea for the M2N-E board, but can't find a SATA RAID controller for less than $300, which sort of defeats the purpose...I'm not sure the performance gains of the Card will be seen anyway. One other point...don't most of these cards need a 64bit PCI-S slot or other big server type slot to run?

Check these out.