BUILD Mixed between Asrock C226M WS and MSI C236M

[pDesm]

I recently had a nightmare with ASUSTOR 4disk bay with wd red 6TB disk and im looking to migrate to Freenas which ive played with a lot on my ESXi.

Ive been looking at the few available boards that support ECC but that are also not 2-3 years old. I really dont care about Intel or AMD. The Box will contain 20TB 4x6TB

So im mixed between two boards, ive search ECC board without success.

Asrock C226M - Chispet C226 - Haswell Processor - NIC Controller Intel® i217LM Dual NIC
http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C226M WS#Specifications

MSI C236M - Chispet C236 - Skylake Processor - NIC Controller RTL8111H
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/C236M-WORKSTATION.html#hero-overview

These board are generally +-200$ each CDN, supermicro's are way more expensive here.
Ideally i like to spend $$ on new materials and the Asrock is 2-3years old.
MSI and Realtek.. not sure, was never a good fit on Vmware.

I could also use an old HP z400 with 6GB ECC and a Xeon 3550, but its way older...

Any advices, comments, suggestions, ideas, reference.

 

[Ericloewe]

NIC Controller RTL8111H

Eeeeewww...

Ideally i like to spend $$ on new materials and the Asrock is 2-3years old.

I'd take an even older model over a Realtek NIC any day of the week.

 

[joeschmuck]

I could also use an old HP z400 with 6GB ECC and a Xeon 3550, but its way older...

You need 8GB RAM minimum to run reliably.

My advice is to buy the better motherboard you can purchase. While you could get away with my test rig for a cheap price, you might want to buy a nice Supermicro board like the one linked here for $240 Canadian, or this one for $210 Canadian. Or go for one with more SATA ports. If you must choose between one of the two you listed above, the ASRock is the one to choose.

But when pricing a system, make sure to price all the parts as an entire unit. You may find components on sale. For my RAM, I found it cheaper on Superbiz.com, so my point is to shop around.

 

[pDesm]

You may find components on sale. For my RAM, I found it cheaper on Superbiz.com, so my point is to shop around.

Yeah no rush, I'm restoring the ASUSTOR to working condition while shopping all around.

Shopping on 20sites everyday for deals + PC Part Picker Alerts + seeking everyday 24h deals + whatever we trash at work that could be-reused like the Z400, old hp servers. but thats a Power Sucker.
I'll stick to Intel .. if i need to i'll add a Sata card if needed. Trying to do a freenas on a spousal budget as i already have plenty of machines all around.

All my core processing runs on ESXi with SSD's, plex transcoding and stuff, the NAS is really only to share data, and i lost faith over OTB NAS like (qnap, synology and asustor) / overpriced above 4 disks.

Thanks guys, appreciate your feedback.