ASRock introduces an E5 storage board

[jgreco]

http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EPC612D4U-2T8R

I expect that this is going to be a very popular choice for FreeNAS users. Dual 10GBase-T, 8 SATA on C612 and 8 SAS on LSI 3008, and support for four RDIMM's, which should mean that 128GB is possible... with three more PCIe slots on top of it.

 

[gpsguy]

Looks like it'll cost about $500 USD

 

[Ericloewe]

Oddly enough, they went with the old X540 10GbE controller instead of the X557. I'm guessing the former must have some sort of pin compatibility with the i350 they use in the GbE version of the board.

support for four RDIMM's, which should mean that 128GB is possible...

LRDIMMs too, with Xeon E5-2xxx v3 processors. Pricing would probably favor getting a board with 8 DIMM slots, though. 256GB in a microATX board is something to behold, though.

 

[jgreco]

Oddly enough, they went with the old X540 10GbE controller instead of the X557. I'm guessing the former must have some sort of pin compatibility with the i350 they use in the GbE version of the board.

Or possibly they just wanted it to be usable on day one. Since the X540 is a well-supported controller, it isn't going to give people problems with FreeBSD, or ESXi, or whatever-your-slow-driver-roll-in-OS-of-choice is.

256GB in a microATX board is something to behold, though.

I remember being amazed at 256MB on an AT board back in the 440BX days. That was about 20 years ago, geez.