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

[Jeremie Le Hen]

Hi Dan, Peter,

Thank you for your enlightening replies.

On Mon, Apr 05, 2010 at 10:40:35AM +1000, Peter Jeremy wrote:
> 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 motherboard using an older, superseded Atom.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

I think I will go for the Supermicro X7SPA-H.  It seems a better
hardware although it consumes more power.

Nonetheless I'm a little worried by what you said about the lack of ECC.
Computers has been used for years before ECC came out and obviously they
worked :).  Do you really think it might happen to be a problem?  Would
an Intel board would compensate for this?  Dan, have you ever
experienced weird problems that could be explained by bitflips?

For the records, I've found an interesting and very recent post about
someone running OpenSolaris on this Supermicro motherboard [1].  He uses
a thumbdrive for the operating system and with four drives connected
onto it, the whole system sucks 41 watts when idle (27 without any HDD,
which is twice as the Intel D945GSE, but I guess this is the price for
better performance).  Now, it seems that OpenSolaris unfortunately has
some problems with this hardware, but according to Dan, FreeBSD runs
correctly on it.

Thanks again for your help.

Regards,

[1] http://sorenragsdale.livejournal.com/19875.html
-- 
Jeremie Le Hen

Humans are born free and equal.  But some are more equal than others.
					    Coluche