I'm downsizing and rebuilding my NAS using the U-NAS NSC-800 chassis. My current system is Socket 1155 Micro-ATX (E3-1230 v1), so I need to get a new Mini-ITX motherboard. I'm going back and forth in my mind between waiting for the ASRock Avoton board, or getting a full-fledged C2xx Socket 115x system.
The quickest and cheapest route would be to re-use my E3-1230v1 CPU on a Mini-ITX board. It seems that the Intel S1200KP(R) is the only socket 1155 board that supports ECC memory. But, unless I'm missing something, it doesn't appear to have IPMI or IP-KVM... I don't really need that, but it's so handy when I want it. Plus, it only has two DIMM slots. I currently have four DIMMs: 2x2GB and 2x4GB. I'd like to reuse all the memory if possible.
If I just bite it and buy a new CPU, I can get something like the ASRock E3C224D2I. The Xeon is overkill, and I think I could get by with an i3-4130. But that board also limits me to only two DIMM slots.
These 115x boards also don't have enough onboard SATA ports. I do have an extra IBM M1050, but it would be nice to keep power consumption lower and have an overall simpler build.
The 115x boards also require me to buy a low-profile heatsink. I already have one NSC-800 chassis for my backup server, and my very imprecise measurement suggests a maximum clearance of about 45mm. IOW, I don't think a stock Intel cooler would fit (54mm IIRC, excepting the "T" model low-power parts, which I think are 37mm).
On the other hand, the ASRock C2750D4I (Avoton) solves all those problems: four DIMM slots, passive heatsink (presumably [hopefully!] short enough to fit in the NSC-800), ample SATA ports... but the downsides are:
This server does a little more than just file serving. In particular, it acts as a master backend for MythTV. Generally, that's an IO-dominated process, excepting "mythcommflag" which scans for and automatically cuts out commercials from recorded broadcast TV. Last I checked, that process was mostly single-threaded, so is unlikely to run quickly on Avoton. But maybe I don't care? We usually wait at least a day before watching any show that Myth recorded.
I also use the server for some lightweight hobby-level programming/development.
FWIW, right now the RAID subsystem is Linux software raid-6. I've been flirting with the idea of moving to ZFS raid-z3.
Anyone have any thoughts on why I might go one way or the other?
The quickest and cheapest route would be to re-use my E3-1230v1 CPU on a Mini-ITX board. It seems that the Intel S1200KP(R) is the only socket 1155 board that supports ECC memory. But, unless I'm missing something, it doesn't appear to have IPMI or IP-KVM... I don't really need that, but it's so handy when I want it. Plus, it only has two DIMM slots. I currently have four DIMMs: 2x2GB and 2x4GB. I'd like to reuse all the memory if possible.
If I just bite it and buy a new CPU, I can get something like the ASRock E3C224D2I. The Xeon is overkill, and I think I could get by with an i3-4130. But that board also limits me to only two DIMM slots.
These 115x boards also don't have enough onboard SATA ports. I do have an extra IBM M1050, but it would be nice to keep power consumption lower and have an overall simpler build.
The 115x boards also require me to buy a low-profile heatsink. I already have one NSC-800 chassis for my backup server, and my very imprecise measurement suggests a maximum clearance of about 45mm. IOW, I don't think a stock Intel cooler would fit (54mm IIRC, excepting the "T" model low-power parts, which I think are 37mm).
On the other hand, the ASRock C2750D4I (Avoton) solves all those problems: four DIMM slots, passive heatsink (presumably [hopefully!] short enough to fit in the NSC-800), ample SATA ports... but the downsides are:
- Still not available
- Unclear what price will be
- Is the CPU strong enough for my needs?
This server does a little more than just file serving. In particular, it acts as a master backend for MythTV. Generally, that's an IO-dominated process, excepting "mythcommflag" which scans for and automatically cuts out commercials from recorded broadcast TV. Last I checked, that process was mostly single-threaded, so is unlikely to run quickly on Avoton. But maybe I don't care? We usually wait at least a day before watching any show that Myth recorded.
I also use the server for some lightweight hobby-level programming/development.
FWIW, right now the RAID subsystem is Linux software raid-6. I've been flirting with the idea of moving to ZFS raid-z3.
Anyone have any thoughts on why I might go one way or the other?