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Recommended Hardware

Lucas Holt edited this page Nov 25, 2023 · 6 revisions

Users often ask what hardware is recommended for MidnightBSD. This changes frequently so it's difficult to give updated results. Here is a list of hardware that's known to work or partially work on MidnightBSD.

Other products may work just fine, but we don't have data on them.

Disk Recommendations For ZFS or RAID configurations, we currently recommend Seagate IronWolf drives. If you choose to go with WD Red, be sure it's one of the CMR models.

For conventional boot hard drives, Seagate, or Toshiba drives are fine.

  • SSD
  • Samsung
  • Intel
  • Sandisk
  • Toshiba
  • ADATA

All of these work for desktop workloads well. For servers, it's better to get Samsung or Intel enterprise drives. If you must use consumer SSDs, use Intel Optane or Samsung drives if possible for these workloads.

  • Optane 900P / 905P
  • Samsung 970 PRO
  • Samsung 870 EVO
  • Samsung 750 EVO
  • Samsung 860 Pro
  • Samsung 860 EVO
  • Samsung 860 QVO
  • SAMSUNG 830
  • ADATA SX6000NP m.2 nvme (must be running midnightbsd 1.1 or higher)
  • Toshiba THNSNJ128GCSU
  • Seagate Firecuda SSDs
  • Seagate IronWolf 125
  • Sandisk
  • INTEL SSDSC2KG480G8

Avoid WD Black SSDs without a cache, such as the SN770 / SN770se. A number of users have reported issues with burst reads. This is also an issue on FreeBSD with an open bug https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=262969. Also, see https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/14793

Video Cards (desktop)

See nvidia GPUs

See AMD GPUs

Wired NIC

In general, we recommend Intel networking gear.

  • Intel Ethernet Controller 10-Gigabit X540-AT2
  • Intel X550 nbase-T
  • Intel 1000/Pro series
  • Realtek 8211/8168/8411
  • Broadcom NetExtreme II

WiFi

Most 802.11ac devices and newer are not supported currently.

  • Belkin F7D1101 v1 basic wireless adapter
  • TP-Link USB Wifi Adapter for PC N150 Wireless TL-WN725N

Motherboard Chipsets

Motherboards

  • GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3H LGA 1155 Intel B75
  • ASUS Prime X370 Pro
  • ASUS TUF B350
  • ASUS TUF B450
  • SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-O LGA 1155 Intel C202 Micro ATX
  • ASUS AMD AM4 ROG Strix X570-E Gaming ATX Motherboard (wifi not supported)
  • ASRock z490 steel legend
  • ASRock x570 steel legend wifi ax
  • Asus PRIME Z590-P

Sound Cards and Audio devices

  • Most onboard audio with Realtek chipsets
  • Sound Blaster Audigy
  • Logitech headsets
  • Steel Series USB Audio DAC + Pro headset
  • Built in audio on NVIDIA GTX 1080ti with nvidia driver installed NOTE: creative labs audio generally does not work. Any SoundBlaster after the original Audigy series is likely not to work.

Keyboards

  • Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth 2014 Edition Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard.
  • Logitech Keyboard K120
  • Corsair K63, K68, K70 Lux (will not work with old MidnightBSD releases older than 1.0) In general, corsair keyboards need special patches with the USB stack to work. If you get a newer model that doesn't work, please provide USB ids and we can get them added. WARNING: updated firmware for these models will break compatibility entirely! Do not update with icue!
  • Steel Series Apex 3 / Apex 5
  • Any standards-compliant keyboard.

Webcam

  • Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920

Laptops

  • Lenovo Thinkpad A485 - works with a loader.conf workaround. Video is not accelerated, audio works but sound mixer is unreliable. Display dimming is not working. Onboard WiFi does not work. Onboard NIC does work.
  • ASUS Laptop X200MA-US01T Intel Celeron N2815
  • IBM Thinkpad T430