Best motherboard to use for RAID array

[eflat]

Any suggestions? I'll be using a Core 2 processor.

 

[VirtualLarry]

DS3R has 8 SATA ports - 6 from ICH9R, 2 from Gigabyte SATAII.

 

[matheusber]

does ICH9R is a true or fake raid ?

I'm looking for a new mobo (intel) and the doubt is about ich9 and ich9r. I'll be using FreeBSD so it needs to be True RAID (as my old EPoX HighPoint is)

thanks

matheus

 

[Madwand1]

I haven't used one, so take these with a grain of salt:

Asus P5E-VM DO

Q35 chipset
6 ICH9DO (ICH9R variant)
on-board video
on-board Intel gigabit

http://www.asus.com/products.a...l1=3&l2=11&l3=571&l4=0

Similarly the Intel DQ35JO

1 more PCIe x1, 1 fewer PCI
no PS2 mouse/keyboard

http://support.intel.com/produ...board/dq35jo/index.htm

 

[heymrdj]

Cheap processor+Cheap reliable board+Acera RAID card with as many as 16ports on a PCI-E 16x slot.

 

[jdkick]

Depending on how complicated you want to get, you could be limited using the integrated RAID controller in terms of performance, migrating the array, etc. You may want to consider an add-on controller.

 

[lopri]

How many HDDs and what CPU? Oh and BTW, Intel/NV chipsets' RAID performance is surprisingly good, albeit at the cost of CPU cycles. You will have to pay some big dough to have a faster storage subsystem.

 

[matheusber]

I haven't used one, so take these with a grain of salt:

Asus P5E-VM DO

Q35 chipset
6 ICH9DO (ICH9R variant)
on-board video
on-board Intel gigabit

http://www.asus.com/products.a...l1=3&l2=11&l3=571&l4=0

Similarly the Intel DQ35JO

1 more PCIe x1, 1 fewer PCI
no PS2 mouse/keyboard

http://support.intel.com/produ...board/dq35jo/index.htm

I did liked this one. 6 SATA and Intel ethernet ! good, really good. onfortunately I've never seen these here ...

I'll look though. looks interesting as for the onboard vga that may come on handy in the future, but for all those "durable" thing from gigabyte I'm still more on their side

thanks for the info !

I'd like to hava a folding machine, running a Quad (plan to buy a Q9450) and FreeBSD. its just home stuff, nothing anybody will depend on. of course I can't loose everything and be happy with it.

As far as I got, I'll buy the not R and do software RAID from FreeBSD.

I'm collecting info to figure out if its worth the R variant, up to now it is not :|

thanks

matheus

 

[Madwand1]

The ICH9R/ICH9DO come with a price premium, so if you're going to be using a *nix OS, then it'd be better to go with one of their software RAID implementations (perhaps even ZFS?) and not trying to get Intel's RAID working there. Intel's RAID is typically more useful for Windows-based builds.

FWIW, Gigabyte also has a similar Q35 board, but it seems even harder to find.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Pro...ec.aspx?ProductID=2728

Q965 boards (e.g. the Asus P5B-VM DO) are similar to the Q35 boards, but slightly older and incorporate ICH8DO. These aren't as good for Windows-based builds, as they can only support single arrays of up to 4 drives despite having 6 SATA ports, but would be fine for *nix builds, as you wouldn't use the Intel RAID.

 

[matheusber]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
The ICH9R/ICH9DO come with a price premium, so if you're going to be using a *nix OS, then it'd be better to go with one of their software RAID implementations (perhaps even ZFS?) and not trying to get Intel's RAID working there. Intel's RAID is typically more useful for Windows-based builds.

FWIW, Gigabyte also has a similar Q35 board, but it seems even harder to find.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Pro...ec.aspx?ProductID=2728

Q965 boards (e.g. the Asus P5B-VM DO) are similar to the Q35 boards, but slightly older and incorporate ICH8DO. These aren't as good for Windows-based builds, as they can only support single arrays of up to 4 drives despite having 6 SATA ports, but would be fine for *nix builds, as you wouldn't use the Intel RAID.

I couldn't agree more !
i don't know about zfs stability, but definitely software raid.

also, from the ich9do world I found an intel based on this chip, and also Q35. I suppose Q35 has the same performance as its cousin P35 which is great by the way.

so again thank you for all your help

matheus

 

[Pluto]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
DS3R has 8 SATA ports - 6 from ICH9R, 2 from Gigabyte SATAII.

Sorry to revive an old thread, I am looking for a storage server board and the DS3R (G33) fits the bill perfectly, unfortunately it now seems to be discontinued!

Anyone know if Gigabyte will be releasing a G45 version of the DS3R, the current G45 board offering (DS2H) only has 4 ICH10R SATA ports and one that I believe is non-ICH.

I really want 8 SATA ports! (and onboard video)

 

[matheusber]

Originally posted by: Pluto

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
DS3R has 8 SATA ports - 6 from ICH9R, 2 from Gigabyte SATAII.

Sorry to revive an old thread, I am looking for a storage server board and the DS3R (G33) fits the bill perfectly, unfortunately it now seems to be discontinued!

Anyone know if Gigabyte will be releasing a G45 version of the DS3R, the current G45 board offering (DS2H) only has 4 ICH10R SATA ports and one that I believe is non-ICH.

I really want 8 SATA ports! (and onboard video)

it must be 8 ports from same controller ?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...StoreType=&srchInDesc=

matheus

 

[Pluto]

No, at least 6 on the ICH10R controller would be good though. Most of the boards in that link have the Pxx or Qxx chipsets which do not have onboard video, which may be my only choice.

That last one the EVGA GeForce 9300 / nForce 730i board looks interesting, although I'm hesitant to go with a non-Intel chipset board, especially for SATA RAID. Any thoughts on this board/chipset?

 

[matheusber]

I don't know about those chips for desktops, but all dependes on what you're going to tun on there. this asus I'm writing now is nvidia based and is now running FreeBSD 7-STABLE great. is for software raid right ?

if so, I'd go intel ...

matheus

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Pluto

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
DS3R has 8 SATA ports - 6 from ICH9R, 2 from Gigabyte SATAII.

Sorry to revive an old thread, I am looking for a storage server board and the DS3R (G33) fits the bill perfectly, unfortunately it now seems to be discontinued!

Anyone know if Gigabyte will be releasing a G45 version of the DS3R, the current G45 board offering (DS2H) only has 4 ICH10R SATA ports and one that I believe is non-ICH.

I really want 8 SATA ports! (and onboard video)

I don't know about G33 boards, the DS3R that I was speaking of is the P35-DS3R. Other recent boads with the 6+2 SATA port configuration are the Gigabyte EP45-UD3R and UD3P. None of those have onboard video though, nor are they micro-ATX.

 

[Pluto]

Thanks Larry, that makes sense. When I googled DSR3 the G33 version is the first one I've found. I realized later there are P35 boards with that suffix as well. The GA-EP45-UD3R does look like a good board, although I'd prefer to get one with onboard video since it will be in a headless server, however it doesn't look like there is a G35 option.

matheusber, I'd prefer Intel ICH raid to software raid (I realize ICH is not true hardware RAID), and I will be using it in a Windows server environment. . What I'd like to know is how Nvidia's SATA RAID performs compared to the Intel ICH.

 

[matheusber]

once I read about this, but can't find where ... I made a quick search but couldn't find though.

try to search for the last family of nVidia chipset ...

matheus

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Pluto
No, at least 6 on the ICH10R controller would be good though. Most of the boards in that link have the Pxx or Qxx chipsets which do not have onboard video, which may be my only choice.

That last one the EVGA GeForce 9300 / nForce 730i board looks interesting, although I'm hesitant to go with a non-Intel chipset board, especially for SATA RAID. Any thoughts on this board/chipset?

AFAIK, there are no consumer chipsets with 8 SATA RAID on a single controller. If 6 is enough, there are many choices from Intel -- the Qxx chipsets have on-board video. They're typically mATX, and don't have additional SATA ports, but if it's just for one or two drives, you typically have a PATA controller you can use, or you could add a couple of more ports using an add-on SATA controller.

Intel chipset RAID tends to be faster and more reliable than nVIDIA's, but of course nobody has the time or inclination to test every nVIDIA chipset/driver combination especially in view of the problems which have arisen with some of them in the past. In a pinch, you can make it go fast with certain specific numbers of drives and configurations, but as a rule you're better off with Intel in this context.

AMD also has a new RAID 5 controller, but I'm not yet aware of any testing being done on those, and as something new and not yet widespread, you're probably better off not trusting it for your file server.

 

[matheusber]

I begun now to think about how to recover from disk crash in these controllers. anyone did once that for intel chips ?

are they retrocompatiples ? if I have a dead ich9R, a simple ich10R should suffice ?

thanks,

matheus

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: matheusber
I begun now to think about how to recover from disk crash in these controllers. anyone did once that for intel chips ?

are they retrocompatiples ? if I have a dead ich9R, a simple ich10R should suffice ?

Both of these are doable; if either was not, the whole idea would be a write-off. They're fairly straightforward -- you're advised to read the docs and practice these operations on your new system before you commit a lot of data to it.

BTW, "RAID alone is not a backup". For the long run, when you're accumulating a lot of unique data, you should really have a secondary backup, even if this means an entire system dedicated to this purpose. And if you have a separate backup, migration, upgrades, reconfiguration, etc,. become more easily doable and less risky.

 

[matheusber]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
BTW, "RAID alone is not a backup". For the long run, when you're accumulating a lot of unique data, you should really have a secondary backup, even if this means an entire system dedicated to this purpose. And if you have a separate backup, migration, upgrades, reconfiguration, etc,. become more easily doable and less risky.

I could not agree more

matheus

 

[Pluto]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
If 6 is enough, there are many choices from Intel -- the Qxx chipsets have on-board video. They're typically mATX, and don't have additional SATA ports, but if it's just for one or two drives, you typically have a PATA controller you can use, or you could add a couple of more ports using an add-on SATA controller.

I may have to go that route (add-on SATA controller) for my additional drives, seems like there aren't many options that have more than the 6 ICH ports *and* onboard video.

Or I'll just bite the bullet and get one without onboard video. They tend to be Full ATX as well which have more room for PCI-E expansion cards if I do decide to add more drives in the future.

I'm just really bummed that the GA-G33-DS3R is no longer available and there is no direct replacement for it, not with the same feature set anyway.