Server Motherboard

[Angracey]

Hi, I work at a local computer shop. Our shop will from time to time take up the occasional networking job through some local businesses.
Well this time i managed to hall in a multi-thousand dollar job.
The main purpose of this server is file storage, there will be no networking operating system onboard, only w2k pro.

I need advice on the following:

Choice of high end server boards (P4).
SCSI Controller cards (RAID and NON-RAID).
Choice of SCSI hard drives.

These are the three most important aspects of the server at the moment.

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[Vette73]

I would get a AMD 760MPX tyan board that has built in adaptec SCSI. The 760MPX chipset sets a certain amount of ram aside for PCI Buffer, so that can help out a file server very well.

I have a regular 760MPX board without SCSI and I can tell a diff. with it over a single chipsystem when accessing the hard drive and even ethernet system.

Also the board will have 66Mhz/64Bit pci ports. Very good if you go for a standard board and add a 64Bit SCSI card.

 

[Angracey]

Ok, sounds good.
Any other suggestions?

 

[jamesbond007]

I second the vote for AMD MPX. I have an Asus A7M266-D and it works great! I also have an Adaptec Ultra320 39320-D SCSI controller card along with a 36.7GB Seagate Ultra320 68-pin 15K.3 15,000 RPM drive. It's fast, quiet, and delivers when asked.

The slowest I've benched my HDD and SCSI combo was a tish over 50MB/sec. I get bursts much higher than that. Put in an Intel Gigabit Ethernet adapter (can be had for less than $60) and you'll have yourself a very stable, fast, relaible machine.

Hope this helps.

[Edit] I should mention that it is 50MB/sec WRITE. [/EDIT]