Motherboards with lots of SATA ports.

[Gilbo]

Hey guys. I'm going to be building a new file server soon. I'd like to just use onboard SATA ports and not have to buy a separate RAID card just to get some extra ports. Ideally, I'd like 12 SATA ports onboard, but I think that's impossible.

The Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 has 10 ports, but is fairly pricey. The Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P has 8, and is a little more reasonably priced.

Any other recommendations?

 

[ddrueding]

If you look to the server boards, you can find 12. These cost more than the board+controller, though.

 

[Bozo]

You might also want to check if your backup software works with the motherboard RAID. I have an Intel motherboard with 2 hard drives in RAID 1. Acronis sees them as two separate hard drives.

Bozo :joker:

 

[Gilbo]

I'm not going to bother with RAID. It's so much more economical to just add disks to a JBOD in software. That way I can always buy at the best GB/$ ratio. It'll be LVM on Linux rather than dynamic disks on Windows. OTOH I'm thinking of XP just so I can run Mozy. The Linux version doesn't have an unlimited backup option; it's all metred .

Using Windows as a fileserver limits you to 5 connections doesn't it? I'm so used to not having artificial restrictions on my software that it boggles my mind to even ask this question. Could they be any more retarded?

Additionally, if I went with Windows I guess I'll have to use Cygwin for rsync then? I would blow my brains out without rsync.

 

[Gilbo]

Maybe I can run Mozy in a Windows XP VM on the server just for backups. I'd have to make the storage appear as local --not network attached though.

Hmmmm. Sometimes I think it's crazy that this is all so complicated.

 

[sdbardwick]

Using Windows as a fileserver limits you to 5 connections doesn't it?

IIRC (and I may not) that restriction was in the EULA but not enforced by consumer (non-server) Windows. You'd think that a simple hack or registry edit would lift any limitation...

 

[Mercutio]

Home = 5 connection, Business versions = 10 connections and yes, it is enforced by the OS. I see a lot of small businesses where a computer in a full tower case with XP Pro is a "server."

 

[Gilbo]

10 would be enough I think. I'd still prefer to use linux though. It makes so many things easier for me. The only drawback is the lack of fixed-rate online backup. I'm thinking of virtualizing XP under linux to solve this problem.