Looking for Motherboard Suggestions

[InterMurph]

I am looking to build a NAS server. I am looking for a motherboard that:

• Supports 6 SATA drives in a RAID 0+1 configuration (e.g., 6 500GB drives, fully redundant, for a total of 1.5TB of available storage)

• Supports Core 2 Duo processors

• Has 4 DDR2 memory slots

• Has gigabit ethernet

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[renethx]

The only chipset that supports RAID 0+1 with 6 SATA drives is NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI / 680i SLI / 680i LT SLI. If you use SATA to IDE adapters, these chipsets and nForce 570 SLI / nForce 650i support up to 8 SATA drives with RAID 0+1. For example

? eVGA nForce 680i SLI, nForce 680i LT SLI
? ASUS P5N32-E SLI, P5N32-E SLI Plus
? MSI P6N SLI Platinum/-FI
? ECS NFORCE 570 SLIT-A (V5.1) (the cheapest board)

Intel P35/G33 chipset supports RAID 1+0 with 6 SATA drives (or more by port multiplier).

? GIGABYTE GA-P35-DQ6/DS3P/DS3R
? Intel DP35DP
? GIGABYTE GA-G33M-DS2R (mATX)
? Intel DG33TL (mATX)

 

[InterMurph]

Thanks! I'll take a look at those.

 

[kevman]

What is your total cost once you get this complete ? What OS are you gonna use ?

 

[InterMurph]

It will run Windows Server 2003. I'm trying to get a feel for the cost now; I am hoping that the RAID requirement doesn't set it too high.

The CPU and memory will not have to be too fast, so I think it will end up being reasonable.

 

[kevman]

cool,

you're probably looking at 6x$90 = $540 for the drives at this point I figure a mobo would be ~150 and the rest of the components should be cheap

let us know how it turns out.