I am looking to build myself a new DIY NAS to be used with ZFS under FreeBSD, I already do have an Atom-based NAS (the Tranquil BBS2) which I have been using for just over 6 months, but recently I ran headfirst into a major issue that is basically forcing me to rebuild the entire thing. I originally started using it with just 1 disk, attached to the motherboard SATA port, recently I finally went beyond using just 1 disk and realized that the the PCI bus is slow and that the PCI Sil3124 card providing 4 out of 5 sata ports in the BBS2 is worse. The motherboard doesn't have any PCI-E expansion slots, so basically I am stuck (since the motherboard only has 2 native SATA ports total).
I am seeing several potential paths I could be taking:
1) Supermicro X7SPA-H board (Intel Atom D510)
Supermicro boards are traditionally well-supported by FreeBSD in general and this particular board is actually the first Atom motherboard I can think of that has 6 native SATA ports, removing the need for any additional disk controller cards. Talking to people directly responcible for the ATA implementation in FreeBSD, I am seeing them consider Intel AHCI-capable disk controllers to basically be the best out there and this board comes with ICH9, which should be pretty good. A free PCI-E 4x (in a 16x physical slot) for possible expansion. Purely passive cooling is good, I like low noise. The downside is that this board is pretty expensive.
2) Intel D510MO board (Intel Atom D510)
The killer feature of this board is price. This board is roughly 3 times cheaper than the Supermicro X7SPA-H, but it carries a lot of question marks. How good is the Intel N10 chipset and how well is it supported in FreeBSD (or other non-Windows operating systems for that matter)?. It has 2 native SATA ports and 1 x PCI and 1 x PCI-E Mini slots for expansion. I have already burned badly on PCI disk controller cards, so what about this PCI-E Mini thing? Are there any good and fast SATA disk controller cards for it? I don't really care about on-card RAID, since I am using ZFS. I want raw speed and reliability at a sane price.
3) Intel E7xxx CPU + LGA775 board
A lot of people are pointing out that IO is often CPU-bound and that I would be silly to not at least consider the E7xxx C2D CPUs which have a low TDP, outperform the Atoms by completely ridiculous margins and can be kept very very quiet with a decent aftermarket cooler. I probably don't NEED a C2D CPU for my needs performance-wise, but overall I have to concur that I would be silly to ignore the option of going this route. What are considered the decent L775 motherboards these days? I've seen someone post some really outrageous performance results (for the money) using ZFS RAIDZ on top of an MSI P45 NEO-F motherboard using ICH10, but I looked around and this board seems to be out of stock in Finland basically everywhere. What are my other options?
4) AMD Athlon X2 + ??? board
I'll admit to being really out of the loop with regard to AMD's offerings, but I keep hearing that some of their X2 CPUs have a "performance per watt per dollar" ratio that is VERY hard to beat. Additionally, the AMD 7xx/8xx chipsets are supposedly very well supported in FreeBSD. But again, I really have no idea whatsoever what are the good motherboard choices when going this route? Pointers are welcome.
And now I get to make myself look (probably) very stupid with the following question: What happens when you try to mount a Mini-ITX board like the Supermicro X7SPA-H or the Intel D510MO inside a standard-sized case? I am guessing that the motherboards are basically simply shorter, so they can be screwed in place to any case they physically fit in, but what about the I/O shield? Judging from the images, the I/O shield of the Mini-ITX motherboards are physically a fair bit smaller than the shields on regular-sized motherboards, does this that it's physically impossible to use them in standard sized cases because their I/O shield opening is "too big"? And if this is the case, then I am really confused, because the Supermicro X7SPA-H comes with 6 SATA ports, but I am not aware of any single Mini-ITX case that could physically fit 6 disks, so WTF?
I am seeing several potential paths I could be taking:
1) Supermicro X7SPA-H board (Intel Atom D510)
Supermicro boards are traditionally well-supported by FreeBSD in general and this particular board is actually the first Atom motherboard I can think of that has 6 native SATA ports, removing the need for any additional disk controller cards. Talking to people directly responcible for the ATA implementation in FreeBSD, I am seeing them consider Intel AHCI-capable disk controllers to basically be the best out there and this board comes with ICH9, which should be pretty good. A free PCI-E 4x (in a 16x physical slot) for possible expansion. Purely passive cooling is good, I like low noise. The downside is that this board is pretty expensive.
2) Intel D510MO board (Intel Atom D510)
The killer feature of this board is price. This board is roughly 3 times cheaper than the Supermicro X7SPA-H, but it carries a lot of question marks. How good is the Intel N10 chipset and how well is it supported in FreeBSD (or other non-Windows operating systems for that matter)?. It has 2 native SATA ports and 1 x PCI and 1 x PCI-E Mini slots for expansion. I have already burned badly on PCI disk controller cards, so what about this PCI-E Mini thing? Are there any good and fast SATA disk controller cards for it? I don't really care about on-card RAID, since I am using ZFS. I want raw speed and reliability at a sane price.
3) Intel E7xxx CPU + LGA775 board
A lot of people are pointing out that IO is often CPU-bound and that I would be silly to not at least consider the E7xxx C2D CPUs which have a low TDP, outperform the Atoms by completely ridiculous margins and can be kept very very quiet with a decent aftermarket cooler. I probably don't NEED a C2D CPU for my needs performance-wise, but overall I have to concur that I would be silly to ignore the option of going this route. What are considered the decent L775 motherboards these days? I've seen someone post some really outrageous performance results (for the money) using ZFS RAIDZ on top of an MSI P45 NEO-F motherboard using ICH10, but I looked around and this board seems to be out of stock in Finland basically everywhere. What are my other options?
4) AMD Athlon X2 + ??? board
I'll admit to being really out of the loop with regard to AMD's offerings, but I keep hearing that some of their X2 CPUs have a "performance per watt per dollar" ratio that is VERY hard to beat. Additionally, the AMD 7xx/8xx chipsets are supposedly very well supported in FreeBSD. But again, I really have no idea whatsoever what are the good motherboard choices when going this route? Pointers are welcome.
And now I get to make myself look (probably) very stupid with the following question: What happens when you try to mount a Mini-ITX board like the Supermicro X7SPA-H or the Intel D510MO inside a standard-sized case? I am guessing that the motherboards are basically simply shorter, so they can be screwed in place to any case they physically fit in, but what about the I/O shield? Judging from the images, the I/O shield of the Mini-ITX motherboards are physically a fair bit smaller than the shields on regular-sized motherboards, does this that it's physically impossible to use them in standard sized cases because their I/O shield opening is "too big"? And if this is the case, then I am really confused, because the Supermicro X7SPA-H comes with 6 SATA ports, but I am not aware of any single Mini-ITX case that could physically fit 6 disks, so WTF?
