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_Workstation/Server_Motherboards/Hummingbird/

 

EDIT: include link to itenm I'm discussing:)

Edited November 16, 2012 by chazzy2501

[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.