Motherboard w/8 SATA for server?

[davidgrove]

I'd like to build a file (media) server.

It will only be a server, so don't care about on-board audio and video. I would like onboard gigE (jumbo packet capable) on a separate bus from PCI. Would also like 8 SATA ports and 2 IDE ports. (I want to run Linux and do S/W RAID).

I have started searching for motherboards, but it seems to be a slow process. I've gone through the possibilities at intel.com, but the max # SATA there seems to be 4.

Reliability, stability, and bus structure (separate buses for LAN, PCI, and possibly disks) is more important than having a fast CPU.

No overclocking.

Cost is a secondary consideration.

Might anyone who follows the M/B market be able to suggest candidates?

Thank you.

DG

 

[SDPlissken]

davidgrove just a thought you could just get an extra 4port sata card maybe one based on pci-e http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816115027
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816118031 heres two cards i found. so as you can see you could 4xsata on the m/b along with 4xsata through the add on card. i know this is not exactly what your looking for. but i hope it helps.

Side note i found these http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2U/6024/SYS-6024H-T.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2U/6024/SYS-6024H-TR.cfm
they are xeon based however they have 8prot sata

 

[FireTech]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/04/21/dfi_lanparty_ut_cfx3200-dr/1.html
4 x SATA 2 ports & 4 x SATA 1 ports (can't comment on "Reliability, stability, and bus structure", sorry)
My other thought is Tyan if money is no object...

 

[davidgrove]

Thank you for the suggestions.

Thank you for identifying the "get a SATA card" option.



How about Pentium M motherboards? Thinking of minimizing power consumption now (for 24x7 operation). I have never considered them before. If I relax the constraint of 8 on-board SATA ports (by using SATA card(s)), I suppose I could consider a Pentium M board. [I'm betting there are no Pentium M boards with 8 on-board SATA ports.] But, are there any Pentium M boards with onboard, good gigE that does NOT share the PCI bus?

Thank you again for your helpful comments.

Regards,

DG

 

[keeleysam]

Originally posted by: davidgrove
Thank you for the suggestions.

Thank you for identifying the "get a SATA card" option.



How about Pentium M motherboards? Thinking of minimizing power consumption now (for 24x7 operation). I have never considered them before. If I relax the constraint of 8 on-board SATA ports (by using SATA card(s)), I suppose I could consider a Pentium M board. [I'm betting there are no Pentium M boards with 8 on-board SATA ports.] But, are there any Pentium M boards with onboard, good gigE that does NOT share the PCI bus?

Thank you again for your helpful comments.

Regards,

DG

I tried a Pentium M in a desktop before. It was absolute hell in dealing with, I ended up getting rid of it.

If you want something with low TDP, get one of the specialized Opterons.

 

[RyanVM]

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum has 8 SATA ports. Put an Opteron 165 in there and 2GB RAM and you've got a nice little server

 

[davidgrove]

I appreciate all your comments and suggestions.

I will be looking at a solution that involves installing a card with SATA headers or ports, as well as RyanVM's MSI board.

But, does anyone know if there are other motherboards with 8 on-board SATA headers, that have less fancy (or none) onboard video and audio?

I'm slowly "crawling" my way through manufacturers' web sites, one at a time looking at product offerings, but maybe someone knows aff the top of their head.

Thank you.

Regards,

DG

 

[pkrush]

According to a quick Newegg search, Here's all the options you have with gigabit Ethernet and 8 SATA ports. Most nForce4 boards run the Gigabit Ethernet controller off a PCI-E lane from the chipset, and most of the boards with an additional Ethernet port run that one off the PCI bus. Also, since the chipset doesn't support more than 4 ports of SATA, the rest of the SATA ports will be run off an additional controller that will be on the PCI bus. This means that the performance of those drives will suffer slightly. You should still have plenty of bandwidth for media streaming, though. I'd recommend the A8N-SLI Premium motherboard with an Opteron 165 and 2 gigs of RAM for a more than powerful enough server.
Edit - Apparently the Intel 955x and 975x reference boards each have 8 SATA ports too.

 

[davidgrove]

Thank you, pkrush, for your excellent help.

DG

 

[davidgrove]

Well, I've decided on using a Turion to get low power consumption (for 24/7 operation).

There don't appear to be any 754 pin motherboards with gigE and 8 SATA headers.

Most I could find is 6. There are two boards, one with VIA chipset, and the other with nForce3.

I think I'll be using the Aopen N250A-FR. It hs onboard gigE and 6 SATA headers. I think it will work with Turion MT-40 (after it is flashed with 1.04 BIOS to get stepping E6).

6 Drives should cut it if I use the new 750 GB ones.

Does anyone know if 1 TB drives are imminent?

Thank you.

DG

 

[ribbon13]

If cost is a secondary issue, why not use a hardware RAID controller, such as an Areca 1220 or 1230, and run RAID6 for extreme reliability and array portability? The power the card uses itself is going to be neglible compared to your hard drives. Linux drivers here

 

[Zap]

Wanting power savings is a great idea. Here's how I'd do a strict file server... lowest end 90nm AMD chip running Cool and Quiet, a PSU that's rated 80plus, the LARGEST hard drives possible so I can run fewer drives. Here's the deal, each hard drive takes about 10W power, so let's say you run eight 250GB drives for 80W power versus three 750GB drives for 30W power. I know it costs more for the 750GB units on a per GB scale, but then you won't have to buy a separate SATA controller, plus can get by with a lower wattage PSU, plus will save over time on your electricity bill. You also don't have to get such a large case to hold all the drives and extra fans to cool them. Finally, if you end up running out of disk space, would be easier to add a fourth drive to a system than adding drives number 9-12 (assuming 3TB space using 12x250GB or 4x750GB).

A personal anecdote. I had a file server using 200GB drives. Ended up not enough so now I'm at a mixture of 250-400GB drives and wish I went all 400GB. That's before the current 500GB and 750GB drives came out.

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
If cost is a secondary issue, why not use a hardware RAID controller, such as an Areca 1220 or 1230, and run RAID6 for extreme reliability and array portability? The power the card uses itself is going to be neglible compared to your hard drives. ftp://60.248.88.208/RaidCards/AP_Drivers/Linux/DRIVER">Linux drivers here</a>

I have an Areca card working with my Centos Linux installation on my VMware server. Works well. If cost is no consideration, this is the way to go.

I have a 16 drive Linux storage server, similar to what you're talking about. Its a few years old, so it might not fit your requirements. I'm using software RAID 5. That system is:

SuperMicro P4SCi skt 478 motherboard (2 PCI-X slots, CSA gigabit ethernet)
Celeron 2400
1 gig ram
(2) SuperMicro DAC-SATA-MV8 8 port PCI-X sata cards (Marvell chipset)
16 250gb WD sata hard drives, 2 8x250gb RAID 5 arrays
2 Raptors, RAID1 for booting

It works and is stable, however, I have to use the Marvell SATA driver as the libata Marvell driver is still "experimental." I also can't compile the Marvell driver on anything greater than kernel 2.6.12.

It would be nice to get a CoreDuo motherboard and drop an Areca RAID card in the PCIe x16 slot, but for some reason, the manufacturers are sometimes making those graphics-only.