Re: Motherboard with many SATA ports: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ?
On 20:28, Mon 28 Nov 05, Andre Majorel wrote: Sorry, yet another motherboard question. Looking for a socket 939 motherboard with a comfortable number of SATA ports (at least 6, preferably 8). The application is software RAID. Here's what I've found so far : NB PCI SATA ports__ Ethernet__ Asus a8n-sli deluxe nf4s 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(nf) + g(marvel) Asus a8n-sli premium nf4s 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(nf) + g(marvel) Gigabyte ga-k8n ultra-9 nf4u 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(marvel) + g(cicada) Gigabyte ga-k8nxp-9 nf4u 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(nf) + g(marvel) MSI k8n diamond nf4s 3 4(nf4) + 2(3132) g(nf4s)+ g(88e8053) MSI k8n diamond 54g nf4 4(nf4) + 2(sil) g(nf4) + g(marvel) MSI k8n neo4 platinum nf4u 4 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(88e) + g(88e8053) MSI k8n neo4 platinum sli nf3 4(nf3) + 2(sil) MSI k8n sli-finf4s 4(nf4) + 2(sil?) g(marvel) I'm not too hot for Gigabyte due to past experience with BIOS updates, or lack thereof. The Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium and MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum look good. The A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium support SLI, which I have no use for, at the expense of a PCI slot. They're also more expensive than the K8N Neo4 Platinum. All other things being equal, I'd rather have AGP than PCIe16 but I haven't found an AGP motherboard with enough SATA ports. So it looks like it's going to be an MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum. Comments ? Suggestions ? -- André Majorel URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/ Do not use this account for regular correspondence. See the URL above for contact information. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can always add a pci sata controller card, if you need more ports, yes it will take up a pci slot but it could be an option. From your list I would go for the MSI K8N neo 4 Platinum seems to have everything you need, and has some nice ethernet ports. In some of the groups I follow, MSI is getting the nod for more and more builds, these are from guys who might build 8 to 10 systems a year for family and friends. Also you need to remember that most companies do not make there own boards but sub contract those out, and only put the components on. You might want to check out the articles on motherboards fabs. So it is quite possible that more than one mb manufacture use's the same subcontractor. The only difference is the QA and how much the boards are tested. I have a MSI socket A board that is running very nicely, and I have not had any problems. In todays market the mb manufactures really can not afford to have too many problems so you will likely find the quality between the boards to be somewhat the same. What it comes down to is the service, I know for a fact that MSI has an online RMA request form. I have had the worst problem with Gigabyte RMA problems. In the end I had to trash a board, because it would not hold up a +5 volt line and would not work right. I did not want to keep calling Gigabyte. Gnu_Raiz -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Motherboard with many SATA ports: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ?
On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 08:28:31PM +0100, Andre Majorel wrote: Sorry, yet another motherboard question. Looking for a socket 939 motherboard with a comfortable number of SATA ports (at least 6, preferably 8). The application is software RAID. Here's what I've found so far : NB PCI SATA ports__ Ethernet__ Asus a8n-sli deluxe nf4s 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(nf) + g(marvel) Asus a8n-sli premium nf4s 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(nf) + g(marvel) Gigabyte ga-k8n ultra-9 nf4u 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(marvel) + g(cicada) Gigabyte ga-k8nxp-9 nf4u 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(nf) + g(marvel) MSI k8n diamond nf4s 3 4(nf4) + 2(3132) g(nf4s)+ g(88e8053) MSI k8n diamond 54g nf4 4(nf4) + 2(sil) g(nf4) + g(marvel) MSI k8n neo4 platinum nf4u 4 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(88e) + g(88e8053) MSI k8n neo4 platinum sli nf3 4(nf3) + 2(sil) MSI k8n sli-finf4s 4(nf4) + 2(sil?) g(marvel) I'm not too hot for Gigabyte due to past experience with BIOS updates, or lack thereof. The Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium and MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum look good. The A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium support SLI, which I have no use for, at the expense of a PCI slot. They're also more expensive than the K8N Neo4 Platinum. Hmm, does anyone know if you can stick a 4x or 8x PCIe raid card into a PCIe 16x slot on an SLI board configured to run 8x per slot (or even 16x per slot on some of the new boards)? All other things being equal, I'd rather have AGP than PCIe16 but I haven't found an AGP motherboard with enough SATA ports. Forget AGP. It's history. I don't think you will see any new boards made with AGP, and only new boards are going to have a lot of SATA. So it looks like it's going to be an MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum. Comments ? Suggestions ? I am personally an Asus fan, but I have never used an MSI, and lots of people like them, so it is probably a good choice. Of course for lots of drives, one of the ports on the A8N32-SLI Deluxe supports port expanders for I believe up to 16 SATA drives on one port. And of course there is the choice of just get a board with 4 sata ports and buy a cheap sata card for a pci slot to add more ports. After all some sata controllers don't work in linux yet, so it may be required to just get something that will work. Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Motherboard with many SATA ports: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ?
On 11/28/05, Andre Majorel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry, yet another motherboard question. Looking for a socket 939 motherboard with a comfortable number of SATA ports (at least 6, preferably 8). The application is software RAID. I would buy a reasonable motherboard, and plan to use either Areca, 3Ware, or LSI Logic 8-port SATA cards. You can get 8-port cards with battery backed cache for about $500 USD, which buys you a pretty big performance increment. By going with these cards, you can actually scale up further if you like (e.g. - with Areca, you can add another 1GB of battery-backed cache)... -- http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/linux.html The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. -- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
Re: Motherboard with many SATA ports: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ?
On Nov 28, 2005, at 4:14 PM, Lennart Sorensen wrote: On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 08:28:31PM +0100, Andre Majorel wrote: Sorry, yet another motherboard question. Looking for a socket 939 motherboard with a comfortable number of SATA ports (at least 6, preferably 8). The application is software RAID. Here's what I've found so far : NB PCI SATA ports__ Ethernet__ Asus a8n-sli deluxe nf4s 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(nf) + g (marvel) Asus a8n-sli premium nf4s 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(nf) + g (marvel) Gigabyte ga-k8n ultra-9 nf4u 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(marvel) + g (cicada) Gigabyte ga-k8nxp-9 nf4u 3 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(nf) + g (marvel) MSI k8n diamond nf4s 3 4(nf4) + 2(3132) g(nf4s)+ g (88e8053) MSI k8n diamond 54g nf4 4(nf4) + 2(sil) g(nf4) + g (marvel) MSI k8n neo4 platinum nf4u 4 4(nf4) + 4(3114) g(88e) + g (88e8053) MSI k8n neo4 platinum sli nf3 4(nf3) + 2(sil) MSI k8n sli-finf4s 4(nf4) + 2(sil?) g(marvel) I'm not too hot for Gigabyte due to past experience with BIOS updates, or lack thereof. The Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium and MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum look good. The A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium support SLI, which I have no use for, at the expense of a PCI slot. They're also more expensive than the K8N Neo4 Platinum. Hmm, does anyone know if you can stick a 4x or 8x PCIe raid card into a PCIe 16x slot on an SLI board configured to run 8x per slot (or even 16x per slot on some of the new boards)? I believe you can. You can definitely put a 4x PCIe card into a 16x slot, I'm not sure it the SLI-ishness makes a difference. That's probably the question you're asking. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Motherboard with many SATA ports: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ?
On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 02:44:47PM -0600, Gnu-Raiz wrote: Also you need to remember that most companies do not make there own boards but sub contract those out, and only put the components on. You might want to check out the articles on motherboards fabs. So it is quite possible that more than one mb manufacture use's the same subcontractor. The only difference is the QA and how much the boards are tested. This is wrong. Yes, most companies will outsource their board production and assembly. The physical PCB is made by one company, and the components are loaded by another. However, the original company (MSI etc) actually designs the circuit and designs the testing, which are the major part of the task. The actual testing may be executed by the contractor manufacturer under the designer's supervision. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Motherboard with many SATA ports: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ?
On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 04:48:50PM -0500, Chris DiVirgilio wrote: I believe you can. You can definitely put a 4x PCIe card into a 16x slot, I'm not sure it the SLI-ishness makes a difference. That's probably the question you're asking. I would be surprised if it did make a difference myself, but I don't have such a board or such a card to try. But given most board configure it as 16x and 1x or 8x and 8x, it actually might not be a bad way to get a cheap consumer board that can run a very nice PCIe raid card. :) Of course if you are silly you could run the video card in 16x and the other slot in 1x and just starve the raid card with only 500MB/s of bandwidth. Not sure why they use 4x and 8x connectors on the raid cards. PCIe 16x does seem to be just PCIe with more lanes, but maybe I am guessing wrong and the 16x slots are special for video in some manner. Hopefully not though. Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Motherboard with many SATA ports: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ?
Am Montag 28 November 2005 23:20 schrieb Lennart Sorensen: On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 04:48:50PM -0500, Chris DiVirgilio wrote: I believe you can. You can definitely put a 4x PCIe card into a 16x slot, I'm not sure it the SLI-ishness makes a difference. That's probably the question you're asking. I would be surprised if it did make a difference myself, but I don't have such a board or such a card to try. But given most board configure it as 16x and 1x or 8x and 8x, it actually might not be a bad way to get a cheap consumer board that can run a very nice PCIe raid card. :) Of course if you are silly you could run the video card in 16x and the other slot in 1x and just starve the raid card with only 500MB/s of bandwidth. Not sure why they use 4x and 8x connectors on the raid cards. PCIe 16x does seem to be just PCIe with more lanes, but maybe I am guessing wrong and the 16x slots are special for video in some manner. Hopefully not though. Len Sorensen Areca for my. It has 4 Lines and it's much more than need. Just thinking that one disk not more than 70 MB/s deliver you need an 12 port raid kontroller to produce an so high stream. Markus -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
