Recommend hardware with gig ports?

kc8apf

kc8apf, Any idea of how much power that takes? I'm looking for a step up from an ALIX board, so something that like would be good, but I have my eye on an Atom based appliance too.

The 7520 runs about 20W at full load. I don't know about the 7560, but the Lanner rep has been very willing to provide any details via email.

dreamslacker

@tommyboy180:

When I say short for the SATA cable I mean 3 inches. Thats all you need since the SATA ports are right next to where you will house the HDD.

I am running the latest 1.2.3 snapshop. Working just fine.

My DVD Drive is actually USB external and is only connected when needed for installs.

No problem, if you are interested in pictures check my blog post on the hardware: http://www.tomschaefer.org/web/wordpress/?p=255 There is a link at the bottom for the Gallery or click http://www.tomschaefer.org/web/Slideshow/SuperMicro_Router_28Jan2009/

You just need to mount the HDD the other way around (so that the connection ports face the rear of the chassis). The typical SATA cable supplied with motherboards (30cm to 50cm) aren't that long as with server boards (1m) so those will work just fine.
If the cable is still too long, just fold it lightly and zip tie in the middle (don't let the ends kink).

Bok Bok

OK, gang.

I'm burning in my setup as we speak. I basically went with tommyboy180's exact setup except I used the supermicro 1u cooler, which is like as heavy as the whole rest of the setup. Also, using the celeron 430 for the lower wattage (plus anything more is probably overkill for the target environment).

I love the form factor of this supermicro 1u. It's so little and just drops right in with your switches. Fan noise isn't too bad if you tone down the rpms in BIOS.

I'm glad you guys convinced me to ditch the extra interfaces and just VLAN everything (well, LAN-wise, anyway). It's made everything so much easier in my test environment, and it'll make provisioning new networks a breeze in production.

Anyway, haven't installed pfsense on the new 1u setup - still burning in - but I'll let you all know how it goes.

Ktims, tommyboy180, others, thanks for all the guidance.

tommyboy180

Glad to hear you like it, sounds like your going to be a SuperMicro fan from now on.

Let us know if you have any problems.

Bok Bok

I've been a SuperMicro fan ever since my first dual socket (slot) PIII SuperMicro board. ;)

Thanks again!

Supermule

How long does spareparts take to arrive from Supermicro???

I live in Europe and need day to day in a production environment…..

Are they able to do that??

tommyboy180

When I was in Japan it took about a week and a half to get a riser card from them, but I didn't pay for over night.

mrbostn

@ktims:

I haven't yet deployed this configuration, but I've done a lot of research and come up with the build below. It should be able to pass 1Gbps without too much trouble, is fairly low cost and fairly low power, and built from quality parts. You can save a few bucks and get a bit more flexibility building it in a non-rackmount (or more RU) case, but I need a 1U unit:

SUPERMICRO CSE-502-200B Black 1U Rackmount Server Case
SUPERMICRO MBD-PDSBM-LN2+-O - 2 onboard Intel PCIe NICs
Intel Core 2 Duo E5300 2.6GHz - could probably get away with a Celeron 400 or E1xxx/E2xxx series, but the Core should have no trouble at 1Gbps
Kingston 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM ECC
Dynatron P199 - Stock fan won't fit in a 1U

If you need more than 2 NICs, add either a single or dual Intel PCIe server adapter with a Supermicro CSE-RR1U-E8 riser (not available at NewEgg, but fairly inexpensive elsewhere - or just use a larger case).

I am planning on running the build from an industrial CF card in a SATA->CF adapter, but you could add a proper disk if you wanted.

With 3xGigE this setup will cost you ~$500, less if you don't need a rackmount solution.

I just deployed a Supermicro PDSBM-LN2+-0 with an E2200 and 2GB inside a SUPERMICRO CSE-512L-260B case. The system Is humming along. Out of the box the system can be loud but the case fan, and the cpu fan both have 4 pin connectors, so you can throttle down the speed in the bios.

tommyboy180

Still liking it?

I still have yet to have an issue with my supermicro pfsense rtr.

mrbostn

Still humming along. It doesn't have a huge load on it. A T1 for the internet, two ipsec vpn's and 5 openvpn clients. 19 internal users. Perhaps overkill I don't know.

In the next month or so, I hope to get the Supermicro Atom mobo (I forget the model, but it has dual intel nics) and use it as a test