Just want to inform some other people planning to build their unraid systems using the ECS A740M-M board.
Please check your board version first, seems like some boards are shipped with the Altheros L2 (10/100 baseT) chip, instead of the Altheros L1 (Gigabit) chip. I just found that out when i got my board, and realized that the Altheros L2 chip is not yet supported. Luckily i had a spare NIC lying around and managed to bring my unraid system online (plugged it on the PCI bus).
Not really a deal breaker for me since I am only on a fast ethernet network, and will be primarily using this as a file repository and an ftp server. (not to mention the fact that I'm lazy and don't want to go through the headache of returning the board in exchange for a different one.) I chose this board primarily for the fact that its one of the cheapest available from the store nearest to my place, and has 6 sata ports (and I thought it had gigabit ethernet), oh well, 2 out of 3 for me was not that bad.
System Configuration:
1 x 500GB Seagate Barracuda SATA HD (parity)
1 x 320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA HD
Athlon 64 single core
ECS A740-M-M ver 1.0A
1GB Kingston DDR800 DDR2
Sandisk Micro Cruzer Skin 4GB
1 x 320GB Seagate Barracuda PATA (to be installed after files are transferred)
currently running on just 2 drives, while transferring the contents of a 320GB Seagate Barracuda PATA to the SATA drive, and will add the PATA to the array afterwards. I am hitting 12.5 MB/s on the file transfer, seems like I am maxing out the network.