Need Ideas for Server Motherboards

[hafengr]

I have an AMD Athlon II x4 630 processor that I would like to use for a home server. I need ideas on a server quality motherboard that will allow me to use this processor. Any ideas?

 

[kanewolf]

The only motherboards for that type CPU will be desktop motherboards. What features, define a "server quality" motherboard to you?

 

[hafengr]

The only motherboards for that type CPU will be desktop motherboards. What features, define a "server quality" motherboard to you?

 

[hafengr]

Well I had hoped to get a server board, but found that it really is not a server type cpu, so I guess my best answer to your question would be something as reliable as possible. I plan to set up a small server in my home to store music, data, and maybe some movies. I have three PCs in my home. all the hard drives are getting a tad full, so I thought of the home server idea or Nas. I want to be able to do other things video wise in the future so I was leaning towards server over nas. Right now I have a matx by AsRock N68C-GS4 FX with the AMD Athlon II x4 630 and 4gb of Ram that are mounted into a server case. I have not fired the system up for I still need HDDs for the server. Think that board is good? I plan to place 4 2tb drives into the case and use a WD black 500GB drive to hold my OS and parity if that is possible to do. The AsRock has 6 Sata II ports that I know will except the current day sata III HDDs. It also has an ide I can probably convert into sata with one of those drive interface changing attachments as well and I can stick my DVD in that port since I would like to save the remaining Sata II ports for future HDDs. Since I have never owned an AsRock board and since I am not ready to fire up completely I figured I would get as much knowledge as possible here.

 

[kanewolf]

If you want to create a storage server, I would recommend getting a RAID controller card rather than using the onboard controller. Why? Because if the motherboard dies, you can move the drives and card to a new motherboard. The drives won't know the difference. Use the onboard for boot, optical, maybe even backup of the RAID drives. Remember that RAID is not a substitute for backups.
Here are couple of articles that are good reading for preparing for a RAID implementation -- http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-features/31745-data-recovery-tales-raid-is-not-backup and http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-features/32168-data-recovery-tales-prepare-the-right-way-for-raid-failure

 

[hafengr]

Yes my plan was to use the onboard to back up, but I will take your advice to add the Raid controller card since this AsRock board I am unsure off completely. I figured I can use it until I can pickup more of a quality motherboard such as Asus or Gigabyte. I had the tech from Newegg show me the top line AMD GAMING board. It was 101.00. Not sure if I really need a gaming board for this project though. it was an AM3 board and would have used the Athlon II 630 but then again so does this Asrock board. Thanks for all your ideas.