TeraByte File Server Project - Motherboard

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The project described in this web page was started in May, 2001. The product information in this web page (components to use) is current as of January, 2002. The information in this web page provides the knowledge, and ideas necessary to build a functional TeraByte file server. For more information on current file server offerings, please look here.

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Motherboard

There are many different things that a TeraByte file server could be used for. These applications all seem to fall into the three general categories of High Performance File Server, Archive File Server and Data Intensive Server. The requirements that each of these categories places on the motherboard are discussed separately.

High Performance File Server
A High Performance File Server is connected to the network with a Gigabit interface. It would normally be used to store frequently accessed files. This server would normally be expected to be able to sustain more than 10 Megabytes per second of I/O to the network.

The following table lists a number of motherboards that should be capable of supporting this type of server. For a motherboard to be listed here, it must meet the following requirements:

  1. The motherboard must meet the ATX or Extended ATX specification. No AT or Proprietary motherboards are listed.
  2. The motherboard must support either AMD Athlon, an Intel Pentium 3, or an Intel Pentium 4 processor.
  3. The motherboard must be capable of supporting two processors. A single processor doesn't have the compute power to keep up with the network and disk load.
  4. The motherboard must have at least one 64-bit PCI slot. This is needed for the Gigabit interface. More would be useful if the disk controller can use it (3Ware controllers can).
  5. The motherboard must have at least five PCI slots.
  6. The motherboard must support socketed processors. These are virtually the only type that are readily available.
  7. There should be at least 2 PCI buses, with the optimum configuration being one dedicated PCI bus for the Gigabit interface, and one dedicated PCI bus for each disk controller.
  8. Only the most recent versions of a motherboard are listed.
  9. Due to known performance problems, no motherboards with VIA chipsets are listed. During high interrupt loads, the VIA chipsets all have a tendency to cause system problems.

I listed all the motherboards that I've been able to find that meet the above specifications. If you know of another motherboard that meets them, please send E-mail to webmaster@accs.com.
Motherboard Chipset PCI buses 64-bit PCI Slots 32-bit PCI Slots Onboard Video AGP Onboard Network Onboard IDE Onboard SCSI Memory ECC
AOpen DX3R ServerWorks ServerSet III LE 2 4 5V/33MHz 2 5V Yes No Intel 82559 2 UDMA/33 2 Ultra 160 4 SDRAM Only
ASUS CUR-DLS ServerWorks ServerSet III LE 2 2 5V/66MHz 5 5V Yes No Intel 82559 2 UDMA/33 2 Ultra 2 4 SDRAM Only
SuperMicro P3TDE6 ServerWorks ServerSet III HE-SL 2 6 (2 3.3V/66MHz, 4 5V/33MHz) 0 No 2X AGP Pro Intel 82559 2 UDMA/33 2 Ultra 160 4 SDRAM, 2-way interleaved Only
SuperMicro P3TDL3 ServerWorks ServerSet III LE 2 2 3.3V/66MHz 4 5V No No Intel 82559 2 UDMA/33 1 Ultra 160 4 SDRAM Only
SuperMicro P3TDLE ServerWorks ServerSet III LE 2 2 3.3V/66MHz 4 5V No No Intel 82559 2 UDMA/33 No 4 SDRAM Only
Tyan Thunder HEsl ServerWorks ServerSet III HE-SL 2 6 66MHz (4 5V/33MHz, 2 3.3V/66MHz) 0 No 2X AGP Pro Intel 82559 2 DMA/16.6 2 Ultra 160 4 SDRAM Yes
Tyan Thunder HEsl-T ServerWorks ServerSet III HE-SL 3 6 66MHz (4 5V/33MHz, 2 3.3V/66MHz) 0 No 2X AGP Pro Intel 82559 2 DMA/16.6 2 Ultra 160 4 SDRAM Yes
Tyan Thunder i860 Intel 860 2 4 66MHz (2 5V, 2 3.3V) 2 Yes 4X AGP Pro Intel 82559 and Intel ICH2/82562 2 UDMA/100 2 Ultra 160 8 RDRAM No
Tyan Thunder K7 AMD-760MP 1 5 5V/33MHz 0 Yes AGP Pro 50 2 3Com 3C920 2 UDMA/100 2 Ultra 160 4 DDR SDRAM Yes

NOTE: The early Tyan Hesl-T motherboards will not allow the cooler that comes with the Intel Box processor to be used on CPU2. I called Tyan tech support, but they refused to discuss the issue with me. A later purchase of this motherboard has a lower heatsink in use on the NorthBridge.

The following pictures show what I had to do to get the Intel coolers to fit. Fortunately, this is no longer necessary.

This poor quality closeup (too close) shows the machining done to the heatsink. The area modified is quite far from the center of the chip, and should have virtually no effect on the cooling of the processor.
Here, you can see exactly what the interferance problem is. The heatsink on the NorthBridge chip is too long, and gets in the way of the CPU cooler for CPU2. The heatsink actually comes almost up to the CPU socket.
This closeup shows how the NorthBridge heatsink now goes under the CPU cooler for CPU2. Also, the cooler on CPU1 actually touches the NorthBridge heatsink.

NOTE: The Tyan Thunder K7 motherboard is marginal here, due to it's single PCI bus. The theoretical peak transfer over this bus (64-bit/33MHz) is 266 Megabytes per second. This is little more than the maximum that a full-duplex 1 Gigabit Ethernet network interface can transfer (about 100MB/S in each direction). In practice, a larger margin than this usually needs to exist for good performance.

Archive File Server
An Archive File Server is connected to the network with one or two 100 Megabit interfaces. It would normally be used to store large, less frequently accessed files. This server would normally be expected to be able to sustain less than 10 Megabytes per second of I/O to the network.

For this configuration, there is little contention for the PCI bus. If there are three or more disk controllers, the 32-bit version will usually work just fine. Often, a single processor will be able to keep up with the load. There is no table of acceptable motherboards for this type of server, as the list would be far too long. The important things to consider are:

  1. Don't use a motherboard with a VIA chipset.
  2. Look for many PCI slots. A dual PCI bus system might be helpful, but isn't necessary.
  3. Integrated network and video will help, as they free up slots for disk controllers.

Data Intensive Server
A Data Intensive Server is the most demanding of the three configurations listed here. It's used to perform local computation, based on the data files on the disk, usually in response to network requests. An example of this is a Database server. This type of system is often connected to the network with just a 100 Megabit connection, but it's disk I/O could easily be many hundreds of Megabytes per second.

The motherboard requirements of this type of system are the same as those of the High Performance File Server, with the added requirements of very high memory bandwidth and compute performance. The best Pentium III motherboard I've found to support this type of server is the SuperMicro P3TDE6. Also, several dual Pentium 4 motherboards should work quite well. If the computation is exceptionally intense, there are even quad Pentium 4 motherboards available that should work well.

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