#Testout lab configure two raid windows

The Supermicro X8ST3-F differentiates itself among many of Supermicro’s other offerings by providing an integrated 8-port LSI SAS1068E controller. This is an important difference between the Intel LGA1156 platform and AMD AM2+/ AM3 platforms because one can either utilize more RAM or utilize lower density DDR3 modules. While consumer boards can handle more GPUs using switched PCIe slots, the X8ST3-F has many onboard features (LSI RAID controller, Intel NICs, IPMI 2.0, and etc) that the consumer boards lack.Īside from the expansion slots, it is worth mentioning that the Intel LGA1366 platform also offers six DDR3 slots. Case and point, the Big WHS usually has 12 Intel Gigabit NICs (two onboard, eight from Quad port cards, and another two in PCI slots) and port capacity for 46 internal drives.Īnother strong possibility for the X8ST3-F is as a NVIDIA CUDA machine using either single or dual slot cards. Practically speaking the X8ST3-F gives the user the option of configuring plenty of network bandwidth alongside enough hard drive expansion options to handle any enclosure. While this may seem like a fairly expandable system, one needs to remember that there are two onboard Intel NICs, a management Realtek 10/100 NIC, and an onboard LSI 1068e controller. Beyond these the two PCI slots allow for additional Intel Gigabit NICs. The four PCIe slots can easily handle quad port NICs, raid cards, HP SAS Expanders, and etc. Beyond this, there are two legacy PCI slots. One of the key differentiators for the X8ST3-F is the number of expansion slots available. The X58 based X8ST3-F has three PCIe x8 electrical slots and one PCIe x4 electrical slot housed in one x16 physical slot and three x8 physical slots.

PCMIG board to power the HP SAS Expander in the Norco RPC-4220.

#Testout lab configure two raid windows

Host OS: Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V installed.

NIC (additional): 2x Intel Pro/1000 PT Quad, Intel Pro/1000 GT (PCI).

SAS Expanders: 2x HP SAS Expander (one in each enclosure).

Drives: 12x Seagate 7200rpm 1.5TB, 2x 7200.11 1TB, 12x Hitachi 7200rpm 2TB and 2x 1TB, 8x Western Digital Green 1.5TB EADS, 2x Western Digital Green 2TB EARS.

This is not my standard test configuration, however if one is building a server off of the X8ST3-F instead of a lower-end motherboard, the server is most likely going to have many disks, lots of RAM, and many ethernet ports. Aside from its stability, it also comes with many PCIe slots, an onboard LSI 1068e based 8 port SATA/ SAS controller, dual Intel Gigabit NICs, onboard video, and IPMI 2.0 with KVM over IP.įor this review, I am using the Big WHS. It was not the first motherboard I tried in the server, as I originally tried using an ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer in the Big WHS, but it has been running solidly since its first installation. At the heart of this server, is a Supermicro X8ST3-F. My main server, the Big WHS now houses over 60TB of storage, runs multiple VM’s, and has over 10 Gigabit NICs.