Mini-ITX board for File Server

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Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 12, 2001
Messages
347
Im putting together a Mini-ITX box and I am looking for a good mobo with a few particular features:

1) PCI-E
2) Gigabit Ethernet (More than one Ethernet jack preferable)

Some may question why I need the PCI-E, I plan to connect a Raidcore 4852 SATA controller to this board which is a PCI-E card. This should work right, im not missing anything am i? This is the same interface right?

This is the mobo I have spotted that seems to fit the bill, I cannot find any other boards that would do the job:

Commel LV-672:
LV-672-3D.jpg


The stats on the board are as follows:
Intel LGA775 Pentium 4 Prescott processor-based running up to 3.6+ GHz
Intel 915G & ICH6R
2GB DDR2
2x Gigabit Ethernet port
6 x USB 2.0
2 x COM
1 x SIR
AC97 3D Audio
2 x IEEE1394 Interface
8-bit digital I/O
4 x SATA
PCI Express slot
Mini-PCI socket

It is pretty overkill for my purpose but I really want those two specific features and can only find them on this board. Any thoughts suggestions?
 
Damn thats exactly what I was hoping wouldn't be the case.

How can I find out if any bandwidth is shared between the pci and gigabit ports? Or should we just assume it is shared? I am trying to get around the issue you had in your udat project.

So as of now I'll locate a Pentium 4 - M board with 2 or more ethernet jacks and that should do the job. Thanks Mashie!
 
Suggestion: Linux

With every distro you can setup a software RAID 5 that will be very comparable to hardware SATA Raid cards and not be much slower if at all. This setup will take a few more CPU cycles but you're going to have more than enough spare, especially if you don't install a guy and leave the system in console all the time.
 
Humm I have been reading up on ITX type systems, but I would kinda like to get a P4-M set up, but the sites I have found have mostly been in UK and europe. Any one happen to have some suggestions for US based Mini-ITX sites or shops that deal in a good selection ?

-Robert
 
I am going to stick with windows and also with a hardware raid 5 setup. I plan to use the remote desktop feature built into winxp and I want the performance of a raidcore raid 5 setup.

I'll do some reading up on that chipset issue in coming week regarding what supports a gigabit eth0 connection. Know of any off hand?

Ive also had trouble finding good mini-itx sites, the via epia boards get a ton of coverage but there are many amd and intel boards out there. www.mini-itx.com is probably one you have seen, I dont care for it much. Ive been much more impressed with http://www.epiacenter.com/ they have a lot of info on the site, take a look around.
 
Ok ive done a little research here, none of the recent 915 series intel chipsets support gigabit ethernet. The 875 supports 10/100 on chip as you can see here:

875_schematic.gif


I'll see what via has to offer later this afternoon.
 
Actually, you overlooked the Communication Streaming Architecture connection on the MCH. Note the GbE, stands for Gigabit Ethernet. That's a dedicated spot for a few CSA compatible Gigabit Ethernet chipsets. Any i875 board worth its salt will use a compatible chip, as should any newer chipset board that also has CSA.
 
directron
http://www.servercase.com/
also has some mini itx cases and mobos

and I think I remember seeing an ebay store or two...

I would love to duplicate project udat, but with a p4 mini-itx board. A low end P4 or celeron <2Ghz would be great for a file server. The only problem would be finding cooling to fit the space. Although, I would prefer a mobile Athlon XP... I've yet to see a socket A mini-itx... and don't expect one for a while. I wish the Pentium M versions would come out and be affordable.

Oh and this is another integration of mini-itx and a TB server...
tera-itx @ mini-itx.com
 
widefault said:
Actually, you overlooked the Communication Streaming Architecture connection on the MCH. Note the GbE, stands for Gigabit Ethernet. That's a dedicated spot for a few CSA compatible Gigabit Ethernet chipsets. Any i875 board worth its salt will use a compatible chip, as should any newer chipset board that also has CSA.
Click to expand...
As will most higher quality 865 chipset boards.
 
mashie said:
Software RAID 5 will not give you 125MB/s read and write speed.
Click to expand...
*smacks head* Sorry, forgot we're talking SATA here. Also I was thinking 0 and 1, not 5. My stupid! :eek:
 
So ive done a bit more research now and have nearly decided on this board, the Commell LV-671. It has a nice set of stats which you can read here, but the most important factor is that it is based on the intel 855GM chipset which you can read about here.

It has an onboard lan interface and its a PentiumM board. I can run a Pentium M in there with a passive sink and that should be a nice setup.

855gm_diagram_760.gif


Edit:
Oh boy...just looked up prices on this stuff and it is very excessive, I cant afford 400 on a mobo like this. Looks like I will be sticking with a Via M10000 for now....
 
2 things:

1) Software RAID will always, always, always be inferior to hardware raid solutions. A raid card with a dedicated processor for computing XOR in RAID5 uses virtually no CPU time.

2) onboard NICs tend to suck. The idea of a mini itx filer is pretty kickass, but after watching Mashie thrash threw Udat, I think a micro ATX solution may be the way to go.
 
I've kept struggling with this a bit, and discovered that the Morex Venus case I'm going to use fits a few different mobo sizes. 170x240 195x245 or 170x170 I believe that mini-itx is 170x170

The max specs for MicroAtx are 244x244 or 9.6"x9.6" so thats clearly not going to work, however, I checked out FlexATX the max dimensions on these mobos are 229x191 or 9"x7.5"!!! So FlexATX boards are a definite possibility. Now I just gotta find one that will do the job nicely. I discovered this website, www.formfactors.org pretty interesting stuff listed, specifically [pdf]Mobo Size Spec Comparison go to section 2.1 Board dimensions. Anyhow, anybody have any good FlexATX experiences? :)

Edit: After looking around for FlexATX boards I found that Tyan makes a nice variety, not all the boards there are FlexATX but many are, check it out. That particular mobo mashie linked above is indeed a bit large however there are a bunch of other FlexATX boards listen on the tyan site that should fit just right.
 
So once again I have found the "end all" solution, this time it is the Shuttle FB52 Motherboard. The details on shuttle's site aren't perfect but they tell me what I need to know, most importantly 2 pci slots. I threw together a shuttle box a while back with this mobo, I'll do some measurements next week and see if the size works which I'm suspecting it will.

I believe I'll be able to stick both a NIC and the Raidcore card w/o any risers in those pci slots which would be most convenient. The one thing I'm bummed about is the FSB, I was hoping to put a Pentium M in there. I like their lack of heat, however I wont be taking full advantage of the proc. Should I get something a little less expensive that will do the same job but generate a bit more heat?

Remember this box doesn't need an insane gaming proc just something that will let it cooly crunch numbers. 512 Ram should be fine I believe.
 
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