Hi!
Found a good deal on a SuperMicro X9SCM-F motherboard with CPU.
First nas build and im a bit confused regarding how different motherboards will fit physically in different chassis.
I would rather build something based on a “cube” or halftower chassi but from what i can se this motherboard arent right for that. Would appreciate some guidance.
Cheers, JW
The X9SCM-F is a great motherboard!
One of the most popular guides here uses it, the NAS Killer 4.0.
Just about everything you need to know is in that thread.
Thats good to know! 
Actually the reason i started to look for these kind of boards is because of your site, its awesome, thanks!
I bought the board complete with a E3 1230V2 and 16 Gb Ram for 160 USD. Pretty happy with that.
There are two things i cant find info about in the thread though.
I can see this board is intended for 1U chassis right? Is there any way i can use it in a smaller tower chassi? If not i will probably DIY a chassi i think…
Im looking at using Freenas. For a fast OS HDD, what is the best option?
Thanks!
JW
The board works in any chassis that supports Micro ATX, it’s not specifically 1U. The only thing that is 1U specific is the CPU heatsink, which you should definitely replace.
I would highly recommend Unraid over FreeNAS.
Hi!
Havent got the time lately but now i have started to assemble the chassi.
For CPU heatsink i will use the Cooler Master Hyper TX3 EVO.
Why would you recommend Unraid instead of Freenas? I have 0 experience of these Op´s so I’m thankful for the information and I will probably go for your advice.
My server will serve as a photo and a movie library. I’m going to stream to a media player and my backups will be provided by two HDDs in RAID.
With this in mind, what RAID configuration would you recommend that I look in to?
Cheers JW
JW77, as long as your raid backups are not in the same array as your media, meaning either offiste or on prem in another setup that runs a backup nightly of all your machines at 3am. There are tons of great FOSS backup solutions, find the one that best suits your needs (I use Rsync currently). If it’s all in the same setup, I tend to live by the mantra that just using Raid alone in your setup is NOT a Backup. Here’s current list of good backup solutions:
For your unraid box, I would definitely go with Unraid for your usecase.
As a rule of thumb you can stay with one parity disk (RAID5) with up to four data disks, and then using one parity disk for each group of seven data disks, like in the table:
| Parities | Data disks |
|---|---|
| 1/Single Parity/RAID5 | 2 - 4 |
| 2/Double Parity/RAID6 | 5 - 14 |
| 3/Triple Parity | 15 - 21 |
| 4/Quad Parity | 22 - 28 |
| 5/Penta Parity | 29 - 35 |
| 6/Hexa Parity | 36 - 42 |
I really hope this was helpful!
Cheers Live Pono
Hi LivePono!
Appreciate it but im att the level where i have to look up words like “offiste” “prem” “array” “parity” and so on. 
I got two 4 TB HDD´s in the server. Im gonna use it as a movie library and a photo library.
Im gonna test Plex from Playstation to begin with and if that doesnt work well i got a Vero4K mediaplayer.
The server is connected to the WAN port of my router and i will connect my mediaplayer by ethernet to the router also.
So, i guess that my two HDDs will work in som kind of RAID config so that one is a mirror of the other one right? Or can you set up parts of a HDD to be mirrored or how does it work? I thought that would do it. If i should back it up even more, do you suggest another drive, cloud or what?
One more thing. JDMWhat recommended me to go with Unraid and that seemed like a really good idea until i read that it was unsafe. I dont really get how yet but as my server is connected only to the WAN port of my router i guess its as safe as the router is right?
Cheers and thanks!!