ASRock Rack C2750D4I Review: A Storage Motherboard with Management
by Ian Cutress on April 29, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Storage
- Atom
- ASRock
- Silvermont
- Enterprise
- server
- Avoton
ASRock C2750D4I Conclusion
There are many aspects to the C2750D4I that make you sit up and think. The combination of a proper 8-core CPU (even if it is based on Silvermont rather than Haswell) at under 25W powering a GPU capable system with up to twelve SATA drives, dual Intel NICs, up to 64 GB DRAM and management control is merely part of the perspective of this review. The purpose of this motherboard was ultimately cold storage, however many users are finding regular storage uses for it.
Ganesh currently has this motherboard and is more suited to testing the storage aspects of the motherboard than I, however in this review we focused on usability and the package as well as the other system performance.
If we look at the motherboard on paper it makes for interesting reading, and that functionality comes across as positive, however there are a couple of misses. The lack of USB 3.0 might be a cause for concern should a user need to transfer a sizable amount of data that way. The motherboard offers a possibility of a dual NAS/HTPC combination in the home, however the lack of onboard audio means that other methods will have to be used in order to do the HTPC part.
The BIOS and Software stack is server focused, and it is perhaps a shame that more from the channel side was not brought over now that this is a consumer-facing product. The ability to adjust the fans in the OS would be the best place to start, as the management interface fails to offer this and leaves the BIOS as the sole place for configuration. Also updating the BIOS is not as straightforward as ASRock’s channel line.
Having a management interface on a mini-ITX motherboard is rather interesting, especially one that offers control via a Java app and can record what is happening on screen should things go wrong. While it has been said that IPMI is vulnerable to Heartbleed, the interface should not be in a public-facing environment anyway.
Users wanting a storage platform with more than 8/10 SATA devices have in the past needed to invest in a RAID card or something extravagant like ASRock’s Extreme11 series of socketed motherboards or high-end server platforms. Now that the C2750D4I is available for casual purchase at $398, there is that route for home builds. ASRock Rack, the server element of ASRock, needs to develop an understanding of what customer-facing products have to be in order for users to see its products as more than just functional. The choice of Marvell controllers will be bemoaned by some users, especially if the aforementioned reports are prevalent.
When Intel’s next line of Atom-based processors hits the market, I hope ASRock build an updated version in a similar style and take on board the comments of current users. While a niche market, the users in that market are always looking for the ideal system build for their needs and it requires some lateral thinking from the motherboard manufacturers.
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Marquis - Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - link
Nevermind, reading comprehension FTW. The other two are mentioned later....bombshelter - Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - link
Your comment about the reason for using the PLX switch is wrong. First, the PEX8608 is an 8-lane switch and they are using it in a x4 (from CPU) to 4 x1s (to PCIe end-points) topology. The Avoton CPU actually has a total of 16 PCIe lanes, but can only bifurcate to 4 controllers. So the real reason they are using the PLX switch is to be able to have more than 4 PCIe end-points connected to the CPU. There will be no performance degradation or sharing of bandwidth due to the presence of the PLX switch since there is an equal number of lanes going into it from the CPU as as there are end-points connected on the downstream side.Ian Cutress - Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - link
Aha, yes my interpretation of the chipset diagram was a little off. Going to update the review.chang3d - Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - link
Supermicro has two similar board with a few differences of SO-DIMM, USB 3, 4 NICs, and 6 sata headers. It's also cheaper. I think the features of this board is much better than this ASRock board.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
ddriver - Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - link
Is it just me or was this review an extremely bad match to that product? What about NAS performance, which undoubtedly will be one of the major selling points? Instead we get gaming on a product as far from gaming as it gets. And content creation?Ian Cutress - Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - link
According to users on several forums, this board has been the focus of many different types of build. I've done a brief analysis here of usability and interface, but Ganesh is our storage guru and has all the equipment for storage related tests, so I'd rather leave that in his court for a follow-up review rather than fumble through them myself.ddriver - Wednesday, April 30, 2014 - link
No offense, but you have reviewed a rake as a back scratcher :)With such massive storage capacity, dual gigabit onboard, up to 64 GB of ECC ram - computational performance is irrelevant, this product is all about throughput. While it may be viewed as somewhat beneficial to get concrete numbers, yet after all the numbers only confirm this product ain't neither about gaming nor about content creation, so if anything the review is useful at proving its uselessness, which makes it technically useful - which is quite a nice paradox ;)
LastQuark - Monday, May 5, 2014 - link
It's not you. This is perfect to me for what this board is intended for - virtualization, NAS, home web server, backup, even good enough for a Plex or XMBC server. The review made it seem like it is for HTPC and gaming which it is not.DuckieHo - Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - link
Drop the AST2300 for management.Drop BMC/SMB.
Drop IPMB.
Drop TPM.
Drop COM port.
Reduce fan ports (6 PWM to 4 PWM).
Drop a SATA controller (12 ports to 8 or 10).
Increase the size of the heatsink and/or add a fan.
Drop the price in half for a consumer version please!
Rick83 - Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - link
There's a quad-core version of the same board at 3/4 the price. That should be enough for most home users. It's also a 14W part, so has less cooling needs.