I think this is the best board you can get for the SNAFU build. It has both 10GbE x2: X540-T2 and LSI 2208 on board which the GA-7PESH2 also has but I see a handful of benefits.
Edit: I was incorrect about the SAS controller as the GA-7PESH2 actually has a LSI 2008 on board which is much easier to flash to IT mode than the 2208 as pointed out by @itronin
Pros
E-ATX instead of SSI-EEB
6 PCI-Express x8 instead of 2
Supports 3 more USB 2.0
4 more SATA2
All PCI-Express is 3.0 instead of 2.0
Cons
Narrow ILM instead of Square (The price to pay for E-ATX)
1 PCI-Express x16 instead of 2
No PCI-Express x4 (But has plenty of x8)
LSI 2208 instead of 2008
@SystemViper From my understanding X10 boards do not support the LGA2011 socket / V2 CPUs which I was disusing the best board for the LGA2011 socket so those would not be viable.
@JDM_WAAAT According to your spreadsheet, STH’s review and the manufacturers website (plus Supermicro’s standard naming convention) it does, unless I am completely reading it wrong. I don’t mean to be rude at all but every piece of information I have says it is has 10GbE on board.
Hope I am not completely miss understanding this, I am a complete novice but it seems most people on here are trying to get there hands on a GA-7PESH2. These boards have very little availability and so do the X9DRH-7TF boards but I was able to find a bunch and from reading stat sheets on the manufactures website it is arguably a better choice.
This board is a combination of both the X9DRH-ITF which has 10GbE and the X9DRH-7F which has the on-board SAS controller. The X9DRH-IF is the base model. T=10GbE and 7=SAS controller. All these boards are very similar with the only differences being the SAS and 10GbE which is why they all share a manual.
Best way I like to look at these boards is the Supermicro naming.
X9 - board is the newest board to support the V2 processors which I plan on running
D - for dual CPU, R for the socket type
H - (not entirly sure seems to be non standard)
7 - for SAS
T - for 10GbE
F - for IPMI
I had two SM servers with the X9DRH-7TF inside mis-shipped to me. I tested them before I exchanged them with the seller for the correct boards.
I can confirm the X9DRH-7TF has 10Gbase-T, it works for ESXI and FreeNAS - sorry all I tested.
BE AWARE the SAS controller is an LSI 2208 which is a hardware raid controller. At a guess you’re planning to use Unraid which wants an IT mode controller. This controller is NOT a 2308. The 2208 can be flashed to IT mode (making it think its a 2308 but at the end of the day it is NOT a 2308).
There’s a thread on this site about the cross flash process, and another one @STH. If you have never cross flashed something I strongly recommend you read the process over more than a few times and make sure you understand the pitfalls and recovery process if you make a mistake before you try and cross flash this board.
By comparison the GA7-PESH2 has a 2008 which is an easy cross flash to IT mode and easy recovery if you make a mistake.
IIRC the boards are going for between 275 and 350 or so when a seller has them.
I did not notice that, thank you for the heads up, I have only done a little bit of research on flashing to IT mode but I have 2 SAS cars which is more than enough for now.
Not sure, I guess I am not exactly sure what is being referred to as X10. X10 boards is an entire generation of boards and many of them definitely had 10GbE. The X stands for Xeon/enterprise and the 10 just means 10th generation.
I am fairly new to ServerBuilds so if this is referring to some other popular board that I don’t know about sorry for the confusion.
