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which of 3 old mobo's to use for NAS?

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J

jalyst

Senior Member
I have in order of purchase....

Asus K8N-E Deluxe
http://motherboards.org/mobot/motherboards_d/ASUS/K8N-E+Deluxe/
Athlon64 3200 (s754)
1x Corsair Pro 512MB 500Mhz (PC4000) DDR [timings tbd]
1x ATi Radeon7000 64MB SDRAM

Winfast K8S760MG-6LRS
http://motherboards.org/mobot/motherboards_d/Foxconn/K8S760MG-6LRS/
Athlon64 2800 (s754)
1x Generic 512MB 400Mhz (PC3200) DDR [timings tbd]
Integrated Graphics

Albatron KM51-PV
http://motherboards.org/mobot/motherboards_d/Albatron/KM51PV/
Athlon64 3200 (s939)
2x Corsair TwinX 512MB 400Mhz (PC3200) DDR [timings tbd]
Integrated Graphics

Plus maybe:
1x PC3200 512MB Generic [timings tbd]
2x PC2100 512MB Crucial/Kingmax [CL= 2.5/2]

I'm thinking the obvious choice is the third one listed, but I'm curious to hear what others think!

I'm guessing I could populate its two empty DIMMS with any extra PC3200 -or higher- DDR I've got.
Which I think is at least 2x 512MB, so this should bump my total RAM up to 2GB!

It's a PIA that Albatron didn't follow the reference design of the nForce 430 & instead implemented 10/100 on-board Ethernet.
Still overall it's the best base -wouldn't you say?- upon which to add: CPU/RAM/NIC etc...

Thoughts or ideas on the best combination/s are most welcome! :D

Cheers,
J

FYI another fairly good resource for older AMD boards:
http://www.amdboard.com/k8boards.html
 
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I am far from an expert (actually more of a newbie) but I think it's a toss up between #1 & #3, depending on if you plan to add any cards to the board.

The first board gives you Gig LAN which is a big plus, has six SATA ports but only runs at 1.5 SATA and has a 800MHz FSB with only 512MB memory.

The third board gives you four 3.0 SATA ports, 1GHz FSB with 1GB memory (up to 2GB with parts you have), but only has 100M LAN.

I'm pretty sure you could replace the PC4000 memory on board #1 with PC3200 memory pulled from the other boards and get it running with 1.5GB memory. At that point I think it might be the best due to the Gig LAN, unless you add a LAN card to board #3.

Please take this with a grain of salt since I am pretty new at this and could easily be way off base.
 
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Overall your best bet is most likely #3 with a good GB NIC. All of them would most likely work fairly well but #3 overall has the best base platform. (as you mentioned)

What are your performance goals? With a Intel PCIe based NIC the #3 setup as it is could probably support 70-90 MB/sec provided your hard drives could read that fast. At least this is what I regularly saw with similar hardware in my previous home server.

00Roush
 
Performance goals? Good question but I haven't set any really!
I suspect I'll realise all my needs as I move along....

The next step after deciding on the best mobo/cpu/ram combo will be to determine the software platform I go with.

I've heard great things about FreeNAS and it's it reaching a major release soon. Plus I love the idea of being able to use ZFS as the base file-system.
Of course, how all the other transfer protocols work on this platform will be just as critical, and in the end may prove to be it's Achilles heal.
 
Milo thanks for your thoughts, they are appreciated!
I'm inclined to agree with 00Roush, the third board is just too much of a good base, it's only real deficits are: 10/100 Ethernet, 4 SATA ports (1.5 mind you!).

There's a spare PCI-E 1x slot so Gigabit can easily be added using an Intel card that's prolly better than the K8N-E's on-board Gigabit anyway!
And 6 ports is not much more than 4, I'm starting-off with three 1TB drives, if I add more then I'll prolly want to upgrade to a hardware controller anyway.
...Which can be added to the spare PCI-E 16X slot....
 
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jalyst said:
Milo thanks for your thoughts, they are appreciated!
I'm inclined to agree with 00Roush, the third board is just too much of a good base, it's only real deficits are: 10/100 Ethernet, 4 SATA ports (1.5 mind you!).

There's a spare PCI-E 1x slot so Gigabit can easily be added using an Intel card that's prolly better than the K8N-E's on-board Gigabit anyway!
And 6 ports is not much more than 4, I'm starting-off with three 1TB drives, if I add more then I'll prolly want to upgrade to a hardware controller anyway.
...Which can be added to the spare PCI-E 16X slot....
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's good info and will aid me in learning more. I told you I was a bit of a newbie at this.. ;)
On the other hand, 00Roush has helps me quite a bit too, so I would agree with his opinion.

Thanks for the response,

Milo
 
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the third board should give u the best performance... and the pcie 1x does offer some upgradability and extended life... depending on ur purpose and expected life, the s754 mobos would be good for a basic file server on a 100mb network where performance isn't that essential. My WHS server which only does nightly system backups and general file server runs on a turion MT s754 matx mobo w/2GB on a 100mb network. Since it's not serving video or anything, its fine for wut it does. memory is maxed at 2GB and I'm not going to find a more effecient cpu for it, so that will run until it dies, or i find something ubercheap to replace it...

the 3rd motherboard would offer the longest life and some flexibility with upgrades. you could add a gig nic in the 1x or an sata/esata controller in the 16x slot. I would try to find 4GB PC3200 for cheap and max it out, but 4 x 512MB would work too. it does have 4 x sata3G ports to get you started and even pci ports to add dumb sata controllers on it...
What case is this going in? have you thought about future expansion?
how many hard drives do u want? wut OS? software raid? JBOD?
FreeNAS is a bit slow on the network side and WHS would work with JBOD.
If I were building a Linux SRAID/Solaris ZFS server, I would sell/donate the first 2 mobos and build on the 3rd mobo. I would look for a gig nic for the 1x and maybe get dumb sata controllers for the pci or something nicer for the 16x...
it really depends on what you media streaming or just basic file server... a linux server could also function as something...
 
Yeah think I've only got 4x 512MB PC3200 or greater... Then I've only got old sticks that are PC2100 or less....
But as you say it might be worthwhile getting 4 new PC3200 (ECC registered; not sure if the CPU supports that?) 1GB sticks, as they'd be relatively cheap now.

Then I could prolly just sell everything else but where, who knows... Does Ebay really work?! LOL...

It's going in an old "Chin Mei" (I think?) Full Tower that has "heaps" of 5 1/4" bays at the front, then I might add 1 or more enclosures from 1 of these 3 ranges:
http://www.icydock.com.tw/English/mb453_frame.html
http://www.icydock.com.tw/English/mb673SPF-B_frame.html
http://www.icydock.com.tw/English/mb235_frame.html

Would a PCI slot have enough bandwidth for SATA3 port/s though? If so then cool idea, with a dumb controller I can add a few extra SATA ports!
But really, once I get to 6 HDD or more, I'm going to want a decent hardware controller anyway...

It would be software raid initially, the board claims to have a on-board 0,1,5, 0+1 controller, but as far as I'm aware it's not true hardware RAID.
I've read up on some of the major RAID types and 5 sounds like the best for only 3 drives. It offers good redundancy without compromising performance too much.

What do you mean FreeNAS is a bit slow on the network side? It's the 1st one I'll try but I'll prolly give Solaris or a OpenSolaris distro a whirl too.
WHS will prolly be the last OS I try but I will give it a shot, particularly if I'm totally peeved with the *nixes.

Yeah it'll primarily be a back-up/file server (NAS), but there will be the odd streaming and possibly even mail/web/security services etc. established...
 
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jalyst said:
What do you mean FreeNAS is a bit slow on the network side?
Click to expand...

It has been shown that FreeNAS can be slower at transfers than other operating systems. My system was built based on the "Build Your Own Atom-based NAS" articles. Part one of the article uses FreeNAS and part two compares the same Atom system with Ubuntu server. I have seen the same types of performance differences and ran into my own issues too. I'm still tweaking the system but it's a good little system for a basic NAS / Media Server.
 
I've heard CIFS/SMB can be 'sluggish' on *BSD-based distros because of the way it's implemented.
But I think most other protocols should be comparable if not better in some instances. Only way to find out is to give it all I whirl I guess!

Any further comments on my other statements/Qns anyone? Thanks ya'll for you help!

-j
 
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PCI does not have the bandwidth for raid5 with SATA3Gbps drives or the like. However, your 100Mb network would be the other limiting factor until u get GBe nics or use the mobo with GigE on it. you are mainly using the dumb controllers just for space, not performance.
None of those mobos have hardware Raid5 on it. Most are software raid or software assisted or fake raid. That is one reason I prefer linux software raid. It supports online expansion, raid 5/6, email alerts and recoverable on any linux system, old or new.
I use trayless 5x3.5 to 3x5.25 drive bay enclosure from newegg to house my drives.
 
Yeah in that case I don't think I'll bother with "dumb controllers", I'd rather jump straight to a hw RAID controller if/when needed.

"Linux software RAID" being MDM right? Is that what's also primarily used in the BSD world?.. I have much to learn :D

Can you be more specific about your enclosures, are they hot swappable? Okay time to just move ahead and experiment methinks.

Thanks ya'll!
 
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HW Raid will require the use of pci-express slots usually x4,x8 or x16 for most bandwidth. You can dumb controllers that work in the pci-express slots and still use software raid. I use something like this but there are other versions that other people have used. Some swear by the supermicro ones, but theyre pricier and deeper which may be a problem in smaller cases. Most of the newer enclosures are hot swappable, but you need to check between the controller card and the enclosure.

Linux software raid using mdm/lvm. With that, I dont need a hardware raid controller cuz i left the cpu do all the processing. Its most compatible and I can theoretically mix ide/sata drives which may ok for having an ide hotspare.
 
well, unbelievably all of them seem to be frackin foobared....
So I'm in the market for a totally new mobo/ram/cpu....

what's the best NAS base one can get now?
I don't care about form-factor...

was thinking the lowest model core2duo, 4GB ddr2-800, p35 chip-set-based mobo w/IGP....
 
I would prefer AMD equivalent. I believe AMD has the best bang for buck in budget or mid-range build.

I would get a dual core AMD (X2 7750BE?) and a AMD780/790G all in one mobo with at least 6 Satas port. The all in one chipset from AMD is extremely well regarded compared to the Intel counter part.

So for a NAS application, i found the AMD is even more attracting.

As for getting a HW raid, depends on what you're using your NAS for, it might not be worth it. As zfs is becoming more and more adapted by other OS, RaidZ would give you the best bang for buck. A performance of a HW raid without putting a hole in your wallet. (freeBSD is gonna use zfs, linux will be ditching ext for a new filesystem which is just a forked from zfs)

However, i'm using HW raid in my NAS because my NAS is also serving 3 diskless HTPC runing Vista.
 
I'm actually looking at Intel's Q45 chipset, as it has the ICH10-DO south-bridge...

But I'm not too impressed with major motherboard OEM (Asus/Gbyte) implementations of it thus far....
 
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jalyst said:
I'm actually looking at Intel's Q45 chipset, as it has the ICH10-DO south-bridge...

But I'm not too impressed with major motherboard OEM (Asus/Gbyte) implementations of it thus far....
Click to expand...

What are you're seeking from the NAS? Heavy traffic file sharing? I dont see anything promising from that chipset. Once you setup a soft Raid, all those features are out of the windows. Those are purely for Windows.
 
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