BUILD Looking for C2750D4i replacement (mobo/CPU)

[theirman]

Hello all,

My FreeNAS system was working fine until last week. Long story short, it appears my board (ASROCK C2750D4i) has died (among with a lot of other ones).
I've started looking at a replacement (motherboard & CPU), but haven't had a lot of luck finding an apt one.

I have the following constraints to work with:

• Motherboard

1. Mini ITX form factor
2. Minimum of 8 SATA ports : 6 SATA2, 2 SATA3 preferably (all SATA3 is fine as well - 2 is minimum)
3. 4 DDR3L RAM slots (1.35V - have 2x KVR16LE11/8 and 2x KVR16LE11L/8 : so a minimum of 32 GB)
4. IPMI support
5. >=1 LAN port (don't care for dual)
6. >=1 PCIE slot (slot for an MSATA adapter for SSD boot drive)
7. >=1 USB port (2 or 3, more don't matter)

• CPU

1. Workload - smallish SOHO server, most intensive will be transcoding a max of 4 full HD streams
2. A small TDP (450W power supply & most of the time will be spent idle), passive cooling is preferred (but active won't be a dealbreaker)
3. ECC RAM support (Kingston!)
4. Virtualization support (looking at FreeNAS 10)

I've already looked at the SuperMicro X9SCM, which was recommended last time in march 2014, but it feels like a set-back from what I've been using (and the CPU question still stands).
Or has that ASROCK board been updated since, and would the new updated version be trustworthy again?

Many thanks

 

[DrKK]

The thing that completely ties your hands is the insistence on mini-ITX. The options become highly restricted, sir.

 

[theirman]

Yes, I figured as much. But there are some mini-ITX boards that could work.
Just looks like I'll be forced to upgrade my RAM to DDR4 as well.

 

[Arwen]

theirman,
It appears that the cause of the problem with the ASRock Rack C2x50D4I has been
found. And, there is a simple work around for boards that have not yet failed. So a
new board might last for years.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...2x50-d4i-boards-by-disabling-the-watchdog.16/

 

[theirman]

Hmm yeah, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth.

I also got that motherboard in march 2014 for 280 euros, and now it suddenly costs 480 euros.
So I'm figuring I might as well go all out and get a decent upgrade while I am at it.

Don't feel like paying a 71% premium just to get back where I was 2.5 years ago. :(

 

[theirman]

Last bump, it seems that I'm unable to find any Mini-ITX board that takes my 4 UDIMM (not SO) DDR3L RAM and isn't the exact same board that failed me.
Does anyone know of any? I've been searching for 3 evenings now, and all that I can find require me to also buy new DDR4 RAM.

 

[Stux]

Last bump, it seems that I'm unable to find any Mini-ITX board that takes my 4 UDIMM (not SO) DDR3L RAM and isn't the exact same board that failed me.
Does anyone know of any? I've been searching for 3 evenings now, and all that I can find require me to also buy new DDR4 RAM.

Well... there's the C2550 ;)

 

[theirman]

Yes, but that's exactly the same board, and that'd definitely be a step back. ;)

Think I'll go for this board and a Xeon : http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=E3C224D4I-14S#Specifications
Pity it's ASROCK again, but I couldn't find a suitable supermicro board.