Motherboard for Server

[S_Hannah]

Hi Guys,

I purchased a server case a very long time ago and its been in the loft for a while. I am going to start buying and building it.

I purchased this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BRAND-NEW-BLACK-1U-RACKMOUNT-SERVER-CASE-WITH-500W-PSU-/350441849490?pt=UK_Computing_Rackmount_Cabinets_Frames&hash=item5197f64292

and I am looking for a decent Motherboard for it.

Your thoughts?

[3s-gtech]

What do you want to build? Low power storage server? Rendering server? DC?

Many high-end AM3+ boards with a new Piledriver CPU are well suited to server duties - lots of cores (or 'modules') with ECC support on the desktop boards. Easy to pick up and cheaper than server boards, if budget is the issue. That'd make a good general server for storage etc - I've found the onboard RAID to be pretty good too.

[S_Hannah]

What do you want to build? Low power storage server? Rendering server? DC?

Many high-end AM3+ boards with a new Piledriver CPU are well suited to server duties - lots of cores (or 'modules') with ECC support on the desktop boards. Easy to pick up and cheaper than server boards, if budget is the issue. That'd make a good general server for storage etc - I've found the onboard RAID to be pretty good too.

I'm hoping to set it up as a server whilst I'm doing my studying, then once I've finished, turn it into a storage server.

[glennda]

SuperMicro server boards are fairly robust

[S_Hannah]

SuperMicro server boards are fairly robust

Robust enough to sipport a vast majority of the Windows Server 2008 roles. I will be making the server an AD DHCP DNS FILE SERVER WDT whilst doing my studying.

[glennda]

Robust enough to sipport a vast majority of the Windows Server 2008 roles. I will be making the server an AD DHCP DNS FILE SERVER WDT whilst doing my studying.

Should be if you buy the server grade ones.

[nickbro]

It you want to go crazy, the Intel® Server Board S2600CP Family board is pretty good. Hardware Visual Console Redirecting (basically hardware VNC, so you can remote into a machine and play around in BIOS without being any near the server)

It will be supporting up to 16 cores (currently I think it's only 8), that would be 32 cores in HT mode.

[chazzy2501]

You want a super low power board if you're paying the electric and require the server 24x7. if your server guzzles say 200Watts of power 24x7 thats 4.8kw per day at 17p a kwh thats 81p a day or £297 a year! This atom board takes only 30Watts.

http://www.asus.com/Server_Workstati...s/Hummingbird/

EDIT: include link to itenm I'm discussing

[VeryPC_Tom_M]

This atom board takes only 30Watts.

I'd be careful with using an Atom board.

Intel has stopped working on ALL 64-Bit Drivers for the Atom series, so while you may be able to get drivers, no updated drivers will be being released.

[Arthur]

This atom board takes only 30 watts.

It will also be useless in a server designed for virtualization. A Core i5/i7-based system will idle at ~63 watts and be significantly faster.

A good processor to get would be the quad-core Xeon E3-1240 V2 (£196) because it is essentially a Core i7-3770 minus the IGP. Because it lacks the integrated graphics its power consumption is lower and it's cheaper too. If you stick it in a suitable motherboard it will support ECC RAM and VT-d, although it can also be used in some motherboards designed for Core i3/i5/i7 processors.

[chazzy2501]

if you want a really good home server you should look at buying a laptop with a bust screen from ebay. very low power, quiet with built in ups! I use one with 7 usb drives and it steams 2x 1080p videos fine and only uses 15Watts. you can install esxi just fine on a lappy. if it makes you feel better you could plonk it inside your server case

You can virtualize many servers on an atom btw as you'll be the only user using them the cpu requirement is very low, memory may be an issue.

[Arthur]

memory may be an issue.

Exactly! 4GB is not a lot of RAM.