Asrock Rack E3C236D2I will be available second week of February in the US

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mmeyer

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Jan 30, 2016
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The board began mass production this week and is expected to be available on the second week of February.

Got this from a manager at ASRock Rack via email.
 

mmeyer

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Jan 30, 2016
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No. I simply emailed them (specifically the asrock rack sales email) and waited a while.

I don't think this is confidential information, otherwise they wouldn't have told a random person (hopefully?).

If anyone/staff wants further proof message me and I'll forward you the email exchange.
 

Kai Amundsen

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Jan 29, 2016
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A month ago their support told me end of January, so I hope this is real.

One optimistic sign is that it JUST showed up on Amazon.com (link) I have already backordered it from them as I have been dying to get my hands on it.

I just wish the M.2 didn't share a SATA port with one of the ones on the board. The C236 chipset provides 8 SATA ports (as C236 WS from ASRock uses) so I don't understand why they needed to make them share.
 

mmeyer

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Jan 30, 2016
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A month ago their support told me end of January, so I hope this is real.

One optimistic sign is that it JUST showed up on Amazon.com (link) I have already backordered it from them as I have been dying to get my hands on it.

I just wish the M.2 didn't share a SATA port with one of the ones on the board. The C236 chipset provides 8 SATA ports (as C236 WS from ASRock uses) so I don't understand why they needed to make them share.
Yup! I have an order in as well, I'm super excited about this board. My plan right now is to combine this with an Intel Xeon E3-1245 v5 and 32GB of ECC memory, inside of an NSC-400 case (hoping this won't cause any thermal issues).

This has got to be the best Mini-ITX board out there right now for servers.
 

Kai Amundsen

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Jan 29, 2016
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Wow, I was about to ask why you were getting the 1245 over the 1240 like I was planning but then I looked at the specs more closely and saw that the VGA is not powered by the ASMedia IMPI but only by the iGPU, looks like I am going to have to spend the extra couple of bucks for the 1245. Glad I caught that before I bought the CPU.
 

CreoleLakerFan

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Oct 29, 2013
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Yup! I have an order in as well, I'm super excited about this board. My plan right now is to combine this with an Intel Xeon E3-1245 v5 and 32GB of ECC memory, inside of an NSC-400 case (hoping this won't cause any thermal issues).
Unlikely. The NSC chassis are a poor fit for thermally intensive applications. I just decommissioned an NSC-800 and I know at least one other person @matt_garman on this site who recently did the same. The problem is that there isn't any natural airflow or ventilation over the motherboard area - the chassis fans are drawing air through the drive cages.

If you're looking at a 4-bay unit, you'd be much better off with one of these:

CFI A7879 Mini-ITX NAS Server Case with 4 Hot-Swappable HDD/SSD Trays, supports 1 expansion slot

As it happens and through pure coincidence, I have a gently used unit of the above available for sale. :)
 

mmeyer

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Jan 30, 2016
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Unlikely. The NSC chassis are a poor fit for thermally intensive applications. I just decommissioned an NSC-800 and I know at least one other person @matt_garman on this site who recently did the same. The problem is that there isn't any natural airflow or ventilation over the motherboard area - the chassis fans are drawing air through the drive cages.

If you're looking at a 4-bay unit, you'd be much better off with one of these:

CFI A7879 Mini-ITX NAS Server Case with 4 Hot-Swappable HDD/SSD Trays, supports 1 expansion slot

As it happens and through pure coincidence, I have a gently used unit of the above available for sale. :)
Send me a link! :)

I searched everywhere for small cases with hot swappable bays, and never came across this one somehow. I like that I wouldn't lose the ability to use the PCI express slot. Plus, there seems to be enough vertical space to allow for a non-stock cooler in the event thermals do become a problem.
 

mmeyer

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Jan 30, 2016
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Looks like Newegg is now listing the board as in stock. However, the product Name has the wrong model number in it but all of the specs are for the E3C236D2I and it is $40 less than Amazon's listing.

I just ordered it and hope I get the correct board.

ASRock E3C226D2I Mini ITX Server Motherboard LGA 1151 Intel C236 - Newegg.com
Interesting.. I put in an order as well, but I'm going to keep my Amazon (backorder) in.
Worst case, they actually send the 'wrong' board, and I send it back due to wrong listed specs.

Also.. do you happen to know if the M.2 port accepts PCIe drives? (Ex. Samsung 950 PRO)

Nice catch by the way!
 

Kai Amundsen

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Jan 29, 2016
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Yes, it does support PCIe drives. However, I cannot find any PCIe M.2 drives that are 42mm (the size the board supports), they are all longer, typically 80mm. However, it looks like you could probably have a card hang off the side of the board assuming it is low profile enough to not interfere with any PCIe 16x cards that might be installed.

From the manual:

The Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_1) supports a M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module or a M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen 3 x4 (32Gb/s). *The M.2 slot (M2_1) is shared with the SATA_0 connector. When M2_1 is populated with a M.2 SATA3 module, SATA_0 is disabled.
 

MattH

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Jan 27, 2017
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For those looking at cases. Sorry to go against the CFI option but I've read too many things about how hard it is to work with (and the shipping/taxes the import into Canada was atrocious).

I just ordered this case off newegg:
In Win IW-MS04

roll out motherboard tray, yes please!

I haven't built my system yet but its going to be 2 Sandisk X400 for raid 1 OS (good price per DWPD), 4 x 1TB Ironwolf 5900rpm, Xeon E3-1245V5, 16GB DDR4 Kingston ECC Udimm running Windows Server 2016 Essentials (it's for a SMB customer).