AM2/AM2+ motherboard

[X-Istence]

Any recommendations? It has to be able to last me a good while (My SoYo KT600 Dragon board just died on me, with an Athlon XP 2200+).

I am looking for something that has at least 6 SATA ports on board and at least 1 IDE port (so two drives), or two PCI express lanes so that I can insert more SATA cards.

I don't need an onboard graphics solution, but it would probably be for the best, something simple, I don't care about graphics, it is for a personal server.

So far I have the following:

AMD 64 X2 (one my friend won)
4 GB of memory
2x 750 GB (Seagate Barracuda, 32 MB cache) (ZFS raid) (SATA II)
1x 320 GB (Seagate Barracuda, 32 MB cache) (OS disk) (IDE)

Any thoughts on what board would be a good idea to use? All of those are going to be 3 GB/sec SATA II drives. Looking to eventually run with 6x 750 GB drives for the ZFS raid. I don't need hardware RAID, I don't trust it.

 

[Arniestan1]

I just bought a (Biostar A740G M2+ AM2 AMD740G) for $60 from Newegg. No probs with it so far.

 

[Johnny]

I am quite fond of the asus crosshair II formula myself ....

Info: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131292

 

[X-Istence]

I am quite fond of the asus crosshair II formula myself ....

Info: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131292

That is a whole lot of money, and contains features I don't need. This is for a file server, I don't care about SLI or other stuff like that.

 

[chaos945]

8-16 phase power system with MOSFET cooling is good for durability. Also solid caps.

 

[Steevo]

I like my new MA32AN Asus board. $189 at the egg, and cheaper elsewhere, I found a few for $150ish.

Doesn't support RAID5 though.


4 PCI-e slots and external sata.

 

[X-Istence]

I don't need onboard RAID. I am going to be doing Software RAID.

 

[Johnny]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131249

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130188

 

[Terrahertz]

Those look quite adequate for file server work. On board vga is a plus.

 

[Johnny]

I agree, terra. I laughed when I saw the Parallel and serial ports, though. Who uses them anymore ?

 

[X-Istence]

I agree, terra. I laughed when I saw the Parallel and serial ports, though. Who uses them anymore ?

I still use serial ports all the time, especially because I generally prefer to set up machines with a serial console rather than have a keyboard and monitor attached at all times, or even handy. Serial console lets me watch the machine boot up as soon as the boot loader is loaded and from there I can do everything I could do that I could do sitting in front of a keyboard with a monitor.

I am extremely sad to see the serial port leave the computer and instead become yet another device that is emulated over USB.

 

[Steevo]

I agree, terra. I laughed when I saw the Parallel and serial ports, though. Who uses them anymore ?

Ever had to hack a modem or other piece of hardware to make it do what you want?


Serial is still the only way in.

 

[Terrahertz]

I agree, terra. I laughed when I saw the Parallel and serial ports, though. Who uses them anymore ?

More folks that you know my friend. Some things just stand the test of time. I can vouch working in IT.

 

[Johnny]

So for server standpoints, I can see serial port being. But for desktop ? I can kinda see that also. I never had a need for it, in fact; I never used a serial port before. And you guys are the first that I know of who have for the reasons you mentioned.

 

[chaos945]

I often need atleast 2 serial ports for business equipment on my boxes.

I have a couple parallel printers around too, although I usually just put them on a parallel print server.

It sure is a pain when you need them and you don't have them...