Am Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 02:20:56PM -0500 schrieb Dale: > >> […] > >> The downside, only micro ATX and > >> mini ITX mobo. This is a serious down vote here. > > Why is that bad? µATX comes with up to four PCIe slots. Even for ten > > drives, > > you only need one SATA expander (with four or six on-board). Perhaps a fast > > network card if one is needed, that makes two slots. You don’t get more RAM > > slots with ATX, either. And, if not anything else, a smaller board means > > (or can mean) lower power consumption and thus less heat. > > > > Speaking of RAM; might I interest you in server-grade hardware? The reason > > being that you can then use ECC memory, which is a nice perk for storage.¹ > > Also, the chance is higher to get sufficient SATA connectors on-board > > (maybe > > in the form of an SFF connector, which is actually good, since it means > > reduced “cable salad”). > > AFAIK if you have a Ryzen PRO, then you can also use a consumer-grade > > board, > > because they too support ECC. And DDR5 has basic (meaning 1 bit and > > transparent to the OS) ECC built-in from the start. > > I tend to need quite a few PCIe slots. I like to have my own video > card. I never liked the built in ones.
You’re just asking to be asked. ;-) Why don’t you like them? (I fear I may have asked that before). I get it when you wanna do it your way because it always worked™ (which is not wrong — don’t misunderstand me) and perhaps you had some bad experience in the past. OTOH it’s a pricey component usually only needed by gamers and number crunchers. On-board graphics are just fine for Desktop and even (very) light gaming and they lower power draw considerably. Give it a swirl, maybe you like it. :) Both Intel and AMD work just fine with the kernel drivers. > I also have never had a good built in network port to work right either. > Every one of them always had problems if they worked at all. I faintly remember a thread about that from long ago. But the same thought applies: in case you buy a new board, give it a try. Keep away from Intel I225-V though, that 2.5 GbE chip has a design flaw but manufacturers still use int. > I also need PCIe slots for SATA expander cards. That’s the use case I mostly thought of. Irritatingly, I just looked at my price comparison site for SATA expansion cards and all 8×SATA cards are PCIe 2.0 with either two or even just one lane. -_- So not even PCIe 3.0×1, which is the same speed as 2.0×2 but would fit in a ×1 slot which many boards have in abundance. 2.0×2 is about 1 GB/s. Divided by 8 drives gives you 125 MB/s/drive. > If I use > the Define case, I'd like to spread that across at least two cards, > maybe three. So, network, video and at least a couple SATA cards, > adding up fast. Sometimes, I wouldn't mind having the larger ATX with > extra PCIe slots. Thought about having SAS cards and cables that > convert to SATA. I think they do that. That may make it just one > card. I dunno. I haven't dug deep into that yet. After the disappointment with the SATA expanders I looked at SAS cards. They are well connected on the PCIe side (2.0×8 or 3.0×8) and they are compatible with SATA drives. I found an Intel SAS card with four SFF connectors (meaning 16 drives!) for a little over 100 €. It’s called RMSP3JD160J. I don’t know why it is so cheap, though. Because the second-cheapest competitor is already at 190 €. > Figure the case is a > good place to start. Mobo, CPU and such next. Figure mobo will pick > memory for me since usually only one or two will work anyway. One or two what? > > I was going to upgrade my 9 years old Haswell system at some point to a new > > Ryzen build. Have been looking around for parts and configs for perhaps two > > years now but I can’t decide (perhaps some remember previous ramblings > > about > > that). Now I actually consider buing a tiny Deskmini X300 after I found out > > that it does support ACPI S3, but only with a specific UEFI version. No > > 10-gig USB and only 1-gig ethernet though. But it’s cute and small. :) > > I thought about using a Raspberry Pi for a NAS box. Just build more > than one of them. Thing is, finding the parts for it is almost > impossible right now. They kinda went away a couple years ago when > things got crazy. I was talking main PC use case, not NAS. :) The minimalist form factor doesn’t really impede me. I don’t have any HDDs in my PC anymore (too noisy), so why keep space for it. And while I do like to game a little bit, I find a full GPU too expensive and hungry, because it will be bored most of the time. The rest can be done with USB, which is the only thing a compact case often lacks in numbers. > Since no one mentioned a better case, that Define thing may end up being > it. That Gamemax is cheaper but a lot less drive capacity. Heck, when > I bought my current case, which has space for five 3.5" and six 5 1/4" > drives, I thought I'd never fill up just the 3.5" ones. Now, the 3.5" > ones have been full for a while and the 5 1/4" are about full too. Full with ODDs? Or drive cages? You can get 3×3.5″ cages which install into three 5¼″ slots. -- Grüße | Greetings | Salut | Qapla’ Please do not share anything from, with or about me on any social network. If you switch off the lights fast enough, you can see what the darkness looks like.
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