Final parts selection for home server
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
I chose the Asus motherboard because it is on the OpenSolaris HCL. I had access to another (desktop) computer that uses it and I was able to boot the live DVD and run the device manager. I showed no hardware problems, and networking worked.
The motherboard has only 4 SATA ports, but I've decided to run the OS from an old PATA disk. The case is a cheapy from Gigabyte that was chosen because it has slots for lots of disks. Its ugly, but it is going to sit out of sight down in the basement.
Initially I'll run 2 x 500GB disks in a mirror pair for ZFS storage. There is space to add more later.
Last weekend I put it all together, but it wouldn't boot. I haven't had time to figure out the problem yet, and unfortunately the next 3 weekends are taken. I hope to get some time on a week day night though.
Here is the final list.
- Gigabyte GZ-X4 Mid Tower Case w/ 300W PSU
- Asus M2A-VM mobo (AM2/690G/SB600)
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ CPU
- Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400 2GB RAM
- 2 x Samsung 500GB SATA HDD
- old 80GB PATA disk for OS
- old IDE DVD drive for installation
posted by bj @ 8:03 am,
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Motherboard for home server
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
A Foxconn motherboard is looking good in that it is cheap and has 6 x SATA ports, but still trying to ascertain if the relatively new AMD 780G chipset is supported by Opensolaris. The LAN chip (RTL8111B) is good.
One post I found mentions installing OS on a Asus 780G/SB700 mobo, so it seems it might be OK.
Foxconn - Products: Motherboard
posted by bj @ 10:41 pm,
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