Motherboard recommendation for ZFS build

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CombatChrisNC

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 3, 2013
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Here's the thing, my friend was awesome enough to donate a server he was able to lay his hands on - an IBM x3550 M2. It's got a single quad-core xeon X5570 and 8x 8GB 10600 ECC DDR3.

It also comes with the ServeRAID card which I think I can flash to work as a JBOD. What I'm looking for is a mobo which is ATX or E-ATX, or very similar, that I can throw into the full-tower chassis which I also already have. I can't use the existing chassis and motherboard because it will only accept 6x 2.5" drives and I've got 14 1TB drives waiting to get set up with FreeNAS.

I want to be able to re-use the CPU and as much of the RAM as possible.

I want to be able to put it into my current chassis.

I don't want to pay ~$400 for some new-in-box server motherboard, so I've been coming eBay for something used which will fit the bill. Pickings are slim, but I hope that's partly because I don't know exactly what part number fits the bill for this build.

Thanks, all!
 
You could just keep the whole server and add a JBOD enclosure. SE3016 for example, very cheap.
 
I saw those supermicro boards, and some like them from other companies. But the limitation is the RAM. I've got 64GB of RAM to play with- in 8GB sticks. Those boards support a total of 24 GB and 4GB per ram slot limitation.

I thought about having an enclosure, but that gets into a lot larger physical footprint than I would like. the 1U server is deep and is actually more of a hassle to deal with than a full tower, let alone a 1U and an enclosure.
 
Like,

This is what I'm seemingly able to find - http://www.tyan.com/product_SKU_spec.aspx?ProductType=MB&pid=634&SKU=600000024

18 DIMM slots (though I'll only be using 1 proc and 9 slots) that'll take 8GB chips. Fits E-ATX. 8 SAS ports + 6 SATA II. 4x 1GB LAN ports. I mean, if I can find one at a reasonable price it seems like it'll be the ultimate server for me. Any HSF which mounts to a 1366 socket should work on this, right?
 
In case you're looking at upgrading in the future you should know that the 1068E doesn't support drives over 2TB in size.
 
Also, onboard limits you a bit for spare parts ;) to get up going fast again.
 
It's a home NAS which will store rips and Steam games so I don't have to DL them again. I've got access to near unlimited 1TB drives, so that doesn't bother me much. It's going to be fully populated with them. Once they age out, it might be 2TB drives I get to put in next. If not, I'll get an HBA for the large drives and move any SSD's I might have (or the 10k spinners if I feel like it) to the 1068.

If something breaks, I'll get a replacement HBA. But if I can get it working just fine with something integrated, why not?
 
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