Energy-efficient motherboard for large home file server?

koreth · Post by **koreth** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:53 am

I am looking to build a new Linux file server, and I'm at a standstill in researching motherboards. It seems like all the motherboard review sites focus on the SLI-enabled bells-and-whistles gamer boards and the bargain-basement entry-level boards.

My two big requirements are gigabit Ethernet support (preferably not going through the PCI bus) and lots of SATA connectors, ideally 6 of them. I don't need it to be small, but I'd like it to consume as little power as possible and be as silent as possible. It has to support a CPU that's fast enough to do software RAID5 at sustained gigabit Ethernet speeds. It doesn't need fancy graphics support since it'll be running a text console, not even a GUI.

I've searched here and seen a lot of advice about desktop machines and a little about smaller-scale servers, but it seems few people are building machines like the one I want.

Anyone have any pointers? Thanks!

qdemn7 · Post by **qdemn7** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:10 am

The first thing is to stay away from Nvidia based 'boards. They consume much more power. It seems the most efficient boards today are using ATI chipsets. Unless you're going to wait and buy one of the new Conroe CPUs, which are very energy efficient, then that would mean you will have to get an Athlon 64 based board. And since socket 939 is almost going away, that would narrow it down to AM2. See this article at the The Inquirer.

Unfortunately, there aren't many AM2/ ATI boards now. Infact Newegg has only ONE. So it's either buy a 939 board now, wait for more AM2 board, or wait for Conroe. Just how big of a hurry are you in?

Best way to choose, go to Newegg and use their system to look at 939 boards with ATI chipsets.

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:34 am

6xSATA really limits your choices. 4xSATA + 2xPATA is much more common.

A quick search on Newegg turned up this one (Abit AW8-MAX):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813127209

You'd have to add a cheap video card. An 805D CPU would be adequate.

Avalanche · Post by **Avalanche** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:37 am

I know little enough about linux, but everyone says support for nvidia boards is way better than for ATI boards.

Have you been to newegg.com? Click on advanced search and put in the things you need... If you're running six disk drives, as long as you stay away from a performance oriented board your hard drives and CPU will probably consume way more power than your MB anyway.

Mike_P · Post by **Mike_P** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:21 am

i know people are saying stay away from nVidia boards but how about this

nVidia 570Ultra, gigabit lan, 6 Sata w/ raid 0/1/5/jbod etc etc, passive cooling (heat pipes).

supports all the new stuff, and is only 113.98 cdn$

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... omoid=1001[/img]

qdemn7 · Post by **qdemn7** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 12:31 pm

WOW! That is a a heck of a board and a great value.