Intel D945GSE vs Zotac ION ITX (was: Support for Zotac MB with nVidia ION chipset)

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2010-Apr-04 23:54:55 +0200, Jeremie Le Hen <jeremie at le-hen.org> wrote:
>Yeah, you are right.  I should have mentionned that I do not want
>necessarily a high-performance NAS, it's for home use so my premary
>concern is the low power consumption.  This is why I want an Atom-based
>motherboard.

Unfortunately, FreeBSD has some issues with low memory handling that
make FreeBSD/i386 a bad choice for ZFS.  You would be far better off
running amd64 with as much RAM as you can fit onto the board.  (And
this is one case where you want amd64 even if you don't have >4GB RAM).
Note that this doesn't mean you can't use an Atom - some Atoms include
EM64T - you just need to check.

IMO, the biggest disadvantage of using an Atom in a ZFS NAS is the
lack of ECC support on the Atom.  ZFS can detect bitflips in the
I/O sustem but you can still get screwed by a bitflip in RAM.

>I'm still not sure about which motherboard to buy actually.  After some
>additional reading, my leaning seems to go towards Intel's one as it is
>less expensive and consumes half the power of the Zotac's one (13W with
>a HDD [2] vs. 25W [3]).

I'd recommend against buying anything with the Atom combined with a 945.
Whilst the Atom is low-power, the 945 isn't.  That is also an older
motherboard using an older, superseded Atom.  I suggest you look for
motherboards built around the new Pinetrail Atoms (which _do_ support
EM46T and hence can run amd64).

Supermicro make a number of potentially suitable boards:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/ATOM/ICH9/X7SPA.cfm
this is pricier but supports remote management - other options at:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/

If you want an Intel MB, search for BOXD510MO

Note that I'm not sure how well FreeBSD's X.org supports the Pinetrail
yet.  There have been some commits but I don't know if support is
complete.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 196 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20100405/a50789e1/attachment.pgp