I’m planning to build a NAS sometime this calendar year and I’m stuck on the motherboard.
I’m pretty set on the rest of my build, I just need a decent motherboard suggestion.
[SIZE=5]Needs:[/SIZE]
[ul]
[li]Micro ATX or Mini ITX[/li][li]support for ECC memory[/li][li]at least 8 SATA ports (the more the better but I can be flexible on this)[/li][li]at least 1 PCI Express 2.0+ x4, x8 or x16 slot (the more the better)[/li][li]hardware RAID not needed[/li][li]embedded CPU a plus, but not a need[/li][li]on-board graphics (I don’t want a discrete graphics card)[/li][/ul]
I had a motherboard picked-out, but after reading the reviews on several sites, it sounds like that model consistently fails after 18-24 months; that’s just not good enough.
The motherboard that I had picked so far was the ASRock C2550D4I Mini ITX Atom C2550 Motherboard.
This motherboard just seemed too-good-to-be-true and I guess it was.
[SIZE=5]Notes:[/SIZE]
[ul]
[li]I’m ok with having to add a PCI-E card to expand that SATA port count if necessar[/li][li]I don’t care about RAID as I’ll be using Windows Storage Spaces to allocate my files over my drives. I’ll be setting up the equivalent of a mirrored RAID to get 16TB of effective storage.[/li][li]My motherboard doesn’t have to have an embedded processor, but that would be nice.[/li][li]Passive cooling of the processor is ok too, as long as it’s an ATOM or something, as my case will have great airflow.[/li][li]This NAS won’t be doing any heavy lifting, just serving files. I have a HTPC that plays my content and a gaming/development PC that does my encoding and whatever else.[/li][/ul]
[I][SIZE=5]PC Part Picker List:[/SIZE]
I’ve put together a PC Part Picker part-list that has the above mentioned motherboard in it, but I plan on replacing it with a better suggestion.
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/hDwjWX
If you don’t want to view the list on pcpartpicker.com, then here’s the component list:[/I]
[ul]
[li]I ASRock C2550D4I Mini ITX Atom C2550 Motherboard[/I][/li][li]I Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory[/I][/li][li]I Samsung 850 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive[/I][/li][li]I Western Digital Red 8TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive[/I][/li][li]I [Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case](‘http://Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case’)[/I][/li][li]I Silverstone Nightjar 520W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply[/I][/li][li]I Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit[/I][/li][li]I Fractal Design FD-FAN-SSR2-120 40.6 CFM 120mm Fan[/I][/li][li]I Fractal Design FD-FAN-SSR2-140 66.0 CFM 140mm Fan[/I][/li][li]I Tripp Lite SMART1500LCDT UPS[/I][/li][li]I Mediasonic USB 3.0 PCI-E Card[/I][/li][/ul]