HomeServer Motherboard consumer grade

[Ertman]

Looking to make a new home file/media server. I am hoping to add some other functionality such as VMs etc. My OS of choice will be Unraid which I already have a license for.

 

I do not want or otherwise unwilling  to invest in "proper" server motherboards.

AM4 (spare cpu)

B550 ?
Many SATA ports, more than 6.

 

To meet the above criteria, the best pricing for me in Canada is with the MSI B550m-vc or the B550-vc. They both have 8 built in SATA ports. 
 

I believe the ATX board is better rated, but apparently the mATX support ECC (unbuffered naturally). I do not know if ECC is needed for my use case or how well/poorly MSI has implemented support in these boards. These boards are similar to the VDH and APro ones. The only other board in this price bracket with 8sata is the Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX AM4 Motherboard

 

Any helpful feedback would be appreciated. I do understand the more narrow 

 

[LIGISTX]

9 minutes ago, Ertman said:

Looking to make a new home file/media server. I am hoping to add some other functionality such as VMs etc. My OS of choice will be Unraid which I already have a license for.

 

I do not want or otherwise unwilling  to invest in "proper" server motherboards.

AM4 (spare cpu)

B550 ?
Many SATA ports, more than 6.

 

To meet the above criteria, the best pricing for me in Canada is with the MSI B550m-vc or the B550-vc. They both have 8 built in SATA ports. 
 

I believe the ATX board is better rated, but apparently the mATX support ECC (unbuffered naturally). I do not know if ECC is needed for my use case or how well/poorly MSI has implemented support in these boards. These boards are similar to the VDH and APro ones. The only other board in this price bracket with 8sata is the Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX AM4 Motherboard

 

Any helpful feedback would be appreciated. I do understand the more narrow 

 

For additional SATA ports, regardless of what mobo you go with, get a HBA (host bus adapter), they can be found on eBay for ~40 bucks, at least in the USA. 
 

Dell H310 flashed to IT mode is a good option, and at the 40-50 dollar price point they will come with SAS to SATA break out cables that are required. This way you don’t have to worry about mobo SATA ports at all, just get whatever mobo works best for your situation. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

52 minutes ago, Ertman said:

To meet the above criteria, the best pricing for me in Canada is with the MSI B550m-vc or the B550-vc. They both have 8 built in SATA ports. 

 

I believe the ATX board is better rated, but apparently the mATX support ECC (unbuffered naturally). I do not know if ECC is needed for my use case or how well/poorly MSI has implemented support in these boards. These boards are similar to the VDH and APro ones. The only other board in this price bracket with 8sata is the Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX AM4 Motherboard

Two things:

1. It's really weird that the mATX would support ECC while the ATX doesn't, they should be the same motherboard in a different form factor. What the heck, MSI?

 

2. In addition to what @LIGISTX said about an HBA, you shouldn't need to worry about ECC for a basic home server.

[Ertman]

23 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Two things:

1. It's really weird that the mATX would support ECC while the ATX doesn't, they should be the same motherboard in a different form factor. What the heck, MSI?

 

2. In addition to what @LIGISTX said about an HBA, you shouldn't need to worry about ECC for a basic home server.

I too found it weird that the ATX is missing this option that the mAtx has.

 

I do not disagree with HBA suggestion by you and @LIGISTX.  I will see what I can do and this will provide more options.

 

Thank you for the feedback about the necessity of ECC.

 

 

 

 

[LIGISTX]

42 minutes ago, Ertman said:

I too found it weird that the ATX is missing this option that the mAtx has.

 

I do not disagree with HBA suggestion by you and @LIGISTX.  I will see what I can do and this will provide more options.

 

Thank you for the feedback about the necessity of ECC.

 

 

 

 

To add info about ECC, it’s not required, it’s just recommended. Truenas and ZFS is no more prone to bit flip issues then any other OS, and unraid is even less of an issue. 
 

ZFS stores checksum info in RAM, so the old school idea was a bit flip in ram could lead to a “scrub of death”. Turns out this wasn’t really a thing, and nothing to worry about. Unraid doesn’t even have such a function, so it’s not even a potential issue. 
 

ECC protects data in flight in on a file system like unraid; this helps keep corruption down and integrity up, but it’s likely not a big issue. I do run ECC, but I can 1) afford it 2) decided I want to use ZFS to keep my data in tact for virtually ever™, and 3) I personally decided it was worth it to me due to 1) and 2). If you don’t find it worthwhile to you, nothing wrong with that; certainly makes the setup easier. 

[voyager_]

You'll be fine with a consumer grade motherboard. I have two unraid servers currently and both run ASUS boards. One is a B350 and the other is a B450, they have both been running for years and have been solid. As far as adding drives I wouldn't worry about the number of sata ports instead look for an LSI 9207-8 but it has to be flashed to IT MODE. You can find these all over ebay already flashed, just make sure to get a genuine LSI card or the Dell version. Make sure to point or add a small fan to the heatsink though, they run hot. These will let you use a sas to sata cable and make cable management a bit easier. I pass the onboard sata controller into the windows VM that runs my cameras so I can hotswap and it has direct access to the drives.