Need a motherboard that meets two requirements

[Tuckie]

I'm working on a storage server, and was initially thinking about purchasing a raid card, but I realized that if I spend a bit more, I can just purchase one with more sata connectors and not have to worry about spending 200+ on a pci-express controller and just go with software linux raid. So, the two requirements are: greater than or equal to 6 sata connectors, and works well with linux (most likely ubuntu). I've heard problems about some raid chips that motherboards use and not liking linux, and I would like to avoid any headaches if possible. And, of course, a cheaper board would be nicer than an expensive ($200+) board.

 

[sdsdv10]

Tuckie,

Just one thing to consider, which I read about on another forum. If for some reason your motherboard ever dies you may have a very hard time recovering your RAID setup. Say after 3-4 years your MB craps out, it maybe very hard time finding an exact replacement with the same RAID hardware/software/drivers. Just plugging in a random new MB it is unlikely your RAID array will be recognized. With a RAID card on the other hand you are much more likely to find a replacement if the card dies. If your MB dies, no problem, just move the card to another board.

Not trying to change your mind, just something to think about.

 

[Tuckie]

In no way shape or form was I planning on using the raid provided by the motherboard. My plan was to use the software raid provided by linux to setup the raid 5 array. The issue arises when some of the sata channels are provided by a raid chip of some sort. Even if I'm not using the raid function of the chip, I still need the channel to be recognized in linux.

 

[najames]

I don't know if it will matter to Linux what hardware you are using. Normally not the bleeding edge is best, I know Nforce4 works well out of the box with Nvidia 6x00s, 5x00 series video cards. Don't forget you also have IDE drives to work with.

I have 2 similar setups here now.

1) Chaintech VNF4 Ultra, AMD64 3000, 1GB, with a little 40GB IDE for the file system, 4 Hitachi SataII 160s in soft RAID5, Ubuntu Dapper 64. Nothing, including kernel updates, seem to bother it, although I wait about a week before installing major upgrades. I have used this everyday for over a year flawlessly.

2) Tyan 2882D dual Opteron 246s running CentOS in a similar setup, but with 250GB drives.

Good controllers are expensive and If they fail they might take the RAID with them. If you have multiple PCs, and want to spend some extra money, get a decent gigabit switch to connect them. You will double throughput of 10/100. This comes in handy copying LOTS o' files between computers when upgrading/changing hardware or the OS on various PCs in the "farm". If you have Microsoft computers set up Samba for file sharing a public folder, it works for me. Drag and drop from Linux or WinBlows.

My WinXP box is currently a Gigabyte VIA board AMD 1600 I built 6 years ago, soon to be replaced by a virtual machine hopefully. If you don't abuse stuff, it should last longer than you'll ever need it to last. I had some old socket 7 stuff and replaced the pentium 200MMX with a K6-2 last year for fun. I gave it to someone with a lite version of Linix installed. It was as plenty fast enough to surf and read email. You'd be suprised what will run on very little hardware with Linux and you don't even need a Vi$ta tool to tell you if it is adequate.

So many computers, so little time.

 

[Tuckie]

I'm going with an older IDE drive for the os, but plan on using new 500gb sata drives for the raid 5, if I have to purchase new drives for this, I might as well go with the newer technology. And yes, I do plan on using gigabit. The reason I didn't mention this in the requirements is that pretty much any board that I have looked at with a decent number of sata connectors is new enough that it had gigabit lan. Video doesn't matter in the slightest to me, as long as it works. I have an old ati pci card in case it doesn't come with integrated video.

I've been looking at both an AMD option as well as Intel. It seems that AMD would have a cheaper cpu, but the motherboards with an abundance of sata connectors cost a bit more on newegg

Intel motherboards cost a bit less, but would cost a bit more unless I went with an older Pentium or Celeron (on newegg)

What do you guys think I should do?

 

[Tuckie]

well i was this close to ordering this board, until I found out that the lan chipset didn't support jumbo frames Any other suggestions?

 

[najames]

Jumbo info could take some real digging. I looked at the Realtek 8111B used on the Biostar 690G board, no info, downloaded the datasheet, no mention of Jumbo. Could be tough.

I don't know if I'd lose sleep over jumbo frames honestly. Worst case scenario is buying a $10-15 lan card if you really need jumbo frames.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...=27&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=jumbo

Add the $65 daul core (overkill) to either the gigabyte or epox perhaps. Sorry, I can't help much on the Intel side. You will have to run a late kernel to have the onboard stuff work out of the box. 1.5TB with 500GB drives.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...egory=22&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

 

[Tuckie]

Intel or amd doesn't matter, if you have a board that you recommend that would work well, by all means let me know.