Custom M-ITX board
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Most Mini-ITX cases require a riser so that the expansion board runs parallel to the motherboard. Almost any board that uses a desktop CPU, even a low powered one, is going to need a heat sink so large that the expansion slot won't work.
You could try and add it to the side of the board, like Soekris does with their products, but that would put you outside the Mini-ITX spec and then you'd need a custom case as well.
I'd say just bag the expansion slot.
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Hi guys as you can see i am brand new to this forum as i frequent another forum OCAU (not sure if your allowed to state other forums?? will edit if is a problem) however i am very interested in registering an interest in a board for evaluation proposes. im guessing you are talking about the portwells WADE-8011 board http://www.portwell.com/products/detail.asp?CUSTCHAR1=WADE-8011 as this is the one me and some fellow members on OCAU are trying to get, hec i might even be talking to the same people from ocau hahah??? but what i was thinking is if we can combine our efforts we have a better chance of getting a run of these boards made!!
If you guys are interested in combining forces so that we can get this board into reality that would be truly great and i totally agree 4x NIC would be great to have on the board
i would like to recommend that if we went with 4 NIC ports that the 2x2port usbs be sacrificed so that the 4nics can be used.
My preference for rear i/o would be audio stays the same, remove of rs232 ports to be replaced with NICs or USBs replaced as there a mid board headers, removal of HDMI port for display port. what do you guys think??
please contact me via pm or post a reply to this post asap so i can talk to the other ocau members so we can work something out ;D.
thanks for your time
Regards
Robert
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To me a serial and/or a remote KVM are necessary for life. Without its not complete…
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Hi guys just wanting to know if any of you want the standard board as i am arranging a group buy here:
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=970825
obviously you cant post on there unless your a member however, if your interested in getting one of the boards post a comment stating your interest and the amount your after in this sense boards thread and ill add you to the list of group buy members.
Cheers.
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What kind of price are we looking at?
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Im currently finding that out off the manufacturer but i would assume around $200-$250 mark, obviously once i know for sure i will post up the actual price.
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Regarding the PCI riser and heatsink issue, how tall is the riser and how tall is the heatsink? I see some risers that push the card out almost flush with the motherboard itself which wouldn't work with ANY heatsink. I'm also seeing some that push the card up ~1.5 inches. I recently built some AMD Athlon II 250 systems for desktops at work and the stock HSF that came with the CPU is very short, possibly 1.5 inches or less. This CPU has a much higher TDP and temps aren't an issue, lower power CPUs should have no trouble with a HSF that size or smaller. Obviously if the board gets mounted in a 1U case you've only got 1.75 inches to work with which limits the choices of everything. Then again if it's a normal 19" rackmount case you could also easily have the card go the other way and sit to the side of the board and short of the HSF physically covering the slot you shouldn't have any issues.
So on the board itself, here's what I think. The 4 onboard NICs are a VERY good idea. I haven't seen that in anything short of a standard ATX board. As stated serial ports would be good for console redirect, LCD options, UPS shut down, whatever. I doubt you need anything better than an RS-232 though. Some kind of onboard video would be good for performing the install and maintenance if Web/SSH/Console access is unavailable for whatever reason (it also helps keep the board more versatile and not limited to headless duties only).
A PCIe x16 (x8 at a minimum) slot would be good, even if you don't have the free 16 lanes to wire to it, wire what you can. Almost anything you can get in PCI you can get in PCIe nowadays and even some things that are PCIe only. It just makes sense to go PCIe. I've never seen a M-ITX board with more than one slot though but two x8/x16 slots wouldn't be a bad idea if you have the room/lanes. It's rare to see anything but a video card have an x16 connector on it, usually the biggest you will see is x4 or x8 but being able to stick an x16 card in even if it has to connect at a lower rate is a good investment. This would let you add in even more NICs or a crypto card or whatever you want.
For a firewall I can't see needing more than 2 USB ports, obviously other duties will possible need more. Even then the two ports might not ever get used. Say one for a keyboard occasionally if that and maybe one to house a 3g/4g modem? What about an onboard CF slot or similar like SD or even USB? Would be good for embedded installs and not just pfsense related, ESXi or many other things could put it to use. USB would be more versatile and is being included on many name brand servers for embedded hypervisor installs so it should be robust enough but I'm sure there will be many die hard CF fans out there too (and there's nothing wrong with CF).
Again, for a firewall you wouldn't need more than 2 SATA ports and they don't even need to be 6 Gbps variety. If you don't do CF/SD/USB or just want a real drive, two ports is all you need for a RAID 1 setup (would of course also need a controller or ICH or similar in the chipset). Then again in the interest of other uses more ports would be good. I'm not so sure how usable 6 Gbps ports would be still but 4-6 ports of any flavor wouldn't be bad, are likely already supported by the chipset anyway and won't take up much room. Maybe have one of the ports wired to an eSATA port on the back panel for external expansion in other uses of the board?
Got any pics yet by chance? At the price this sounds like an awesome deal. It would for sure be a great board for use in space constrained environments or even in a data center. For that matter since it's capable of so much more and waaaaaaaaay overkill for firewall duties I'd recommend ESXi and pfsense as a VM along with whatever else you want. Would put those extra SATA ports to use lol.
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Im currently finding that out off the manufacturer but i would assume around $200-$250 mark, obviously once i know for sure i will post up the actual price.
Sounds good, count me in as interested. :)
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Regarding the PCI riser and heatsink issue, how tall is the riser and how tall is the heatsink? I see some risers that push the card out almost flush with the motherboard itself which wouldn't work with ANY heatsink.
You've been looking at right-facing risers (from the front of the board). There are left-facing risers that extend outwards. (in fact, almost all PCIe risers are so). For right facing, you'll want to get flexi-risers instead.
So on the board itself, here's what I think. The 4 onboard NICs are a VERY good idea. I haven't seen that in anything short of a standard ATX board. As stated serial ports would be good for console redirect, LCD options, UPS shut down, whatever. I doubt you need anything better than an RS-232 though. Some kind of onboard video would be good for performing the install and maintenance if Web/SSH/Console access is unavailable for whatever reason (it also helps keep the board more versatile and not limited to headless duties only).
Agreed. Some kind of onboard video that is well supported by most OSes (Matrox/ ATI Rage) would be nice. This would also increase the amount of interest in the board (say for NAS or simple home server duties) and can help bring down the costs if the volume is increased sufficiently.
A PCIe x16 (x8 at a minimum) slot would be good, even if you don't have the free 16 lanes to wire to it, wire what you can. Almost anything you can get in PCI you can get in PCIe nowadays and even some things that are PCIe only. It just makes sense to go PCIe. I've never seen a M-ITX board with more than one slot though but two x8/x16 slots wouldn't be a bad idea if you have the room/lanes. It's rare to see anything but a video card have an x16 connector on it, usually the biggest you will see is x4 or x8 but being able to stick an x16 card in even if it has to connect at a lower rate is a good investment. This would let you add in even more NICs or a crypto card or whatever you want.
I think a PCIe x4 electrical is good enough. There is no need for a PCIe x16 mechanical slot, a PCIe x4 open-back slot would suffice and would actually save circuit board estate space (low profile ICs can be mounted behind the PCIe x4 slot as opposed to an x16 slot which eats into the board mounting surface).
For a firewall I can't see needing more than 2 USB ports, obviously other duties will possible need more. Even then the two ports might not ever get used. Say one for a keyboard occasionally if that and maybe one to house a 3g/4g modem? What about an onboard CF slot or similar like SD or even USB? Would be good for embedded installs and not just pfsense related, ESXi or many other things could put it to use. USB would be more versatile and is being included on many name brand servers for embedded hypervisor installs so it should be robust enough but I'm sure there will be many die hard CF fans out there too (and there's nothing wrong with CF).
I think 4 USB slots would be a better option. One for Kb, one for mouse, one for perhaps a communication device like a 3G/ dial-up modem and one more for UPS. Rather than to limit to purely 2 ports which may not be sufficient in the event that you want to connect a UPS via USB and do occupy the other 2 slots with a USB KVM and a dongle of sorts.
Again, for a firewall you wouldn't need more than 2 SATA ports and they don't even need to be 6 Gbps variety.
The chipset supports it and 4 more SATA slots don't take up that much space. Throwing in the extra slots means that this board can be used as a quality NAS unit (6 SATA slots and multi-Intel GBe). Makes for increasing the market interest, which, again, can mean better pricing with larger volume.
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I hate to break it to you guys talking about customization but i dont think thats going to be happening anytime soon as you need a minimum order of 300 boards and have to pay a fee for them custom designing your board.
so i would just like to find out who is interested in the portwells WADE-8011 board if you google it you can find all the specs for it.
cheers
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Hi guys i would just like to direct you to a thread i have created at OCAU (of course if this is not allowed i will remove it)
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=970825Again if your interested please comment so i can add you to the list on OCAU cheers
Regards
Robert
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I hate to break it to you guys talking about customization but i dont think thats going to be happening anytime soon as you need a minimum order of 300 boards and have to pay a fee for them custom designing your board.
so i would just like to find out who is interested in the portwells WADE-8011 board if you google it you can find all the specs for it.
cheers
Did you read the OP at all? A custom board is already in the works with an initial run of 200 units.
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@dreamslacker - don't wanna do all the quoting you did cause I just have a few things to add lol.
I did see the left facing risers, wasn't sure if they would work though in a desktop chassis, rackmount sure but you have more room there anyway.
I completely forgot about the open back slots and have even seen them in person before. You are very true on the real estate issue, if it's short enough it can go behind the slot and not interfere with a long card installed. The real question becomes how many free PCIe lanes will be available for a slot. True that you don't need a full 16 lanes but if you wanted to add a RAID card to this to beef up it's use in a NAS environment you would need an x8 slot most likely (for a high end card like an Areca, 3ware, LSI, Adaptec, etc). If you just wanted to add an HBA then even an x1 slot would likely be sufficient for that but I don't think that will be the case. Aside from a RAID or extra NICs card I can't think of anything that would get installed. Something beyond a 1 port NIC would likely need an x4 or x8 slot (depending on configuration and port count of course). So yeah, x16 slot not needed but x4 would be my bare minimum, x8 would be better.
True that 4 USB would be better than 2, it won't take up much extra space anyway. If you had a UPS and 3g card you've filled all available ports so where does your KB/Mouse go? 4 is better, though there is always a cheap hub…
On the SATA ports, I wasn't really saying only have 2 ports, that's not enough for other uses. For firewall duties it is though. To keep the board more open ended and not locked into one purpose, you will have to do more SATA ports. And like you said, comparatively they don't take up much space.
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Yeah do you have an eta on this run of 200 boards??? otherwise its just speculation, i would like to get something happening with the next 2-3weeks
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Why not buy a supermicro board for similar costs that you know is properly designed and broad support? I'd not trust any critical use to a small run board from some unknown vendor….
I know someone who is having a custom m-ITX board made. 200 copies of this board will be made in the first run. The board will be based on the new C206 chipset and will take any of the E12XX series Xeon CPU range as well i3, i5 and i7 procs.
The E1220 Xeon is interesting….20w TDP. The i3 proc could be interesting to run a fw on as well.
I need 20+ boards myself so have got involved in this custom board. I have asked for 4 x Intel 82574L Nics to satisfy my requirements and they have said this can be done.
Is there anything else desirable to include on this board for pfsense use you can think of? The E12xx Xeons and the i3/5/7 have the encryption acceleration instruction set onboard so that's covered already. Anything else? I am wondering if a daughter board that takes 2x Fiber connections would be useful - any of you think that would be useful?
In general would sort of features would make this board kick ass for a fw use?
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Yeah do you have an eta on this run of 200 boards??? otherwise its just speculation, i would like to get something happening with the next 2-3weeks
I can understand you want to get something together now and that's fine, some people here might even join in on your group buy. But that doesn't mean you get to come into someone else's thread and say what they are putting together is speculation and not going to happen anytime soon. Of course they know it requires a quantity and have to pay a fee for it to be built, that's common sense. The way I take the info from the OP is that he knows someone who is already doing this and has everything lined up. Now he is just looking for "what would you do with this" type responses. Since they are making 200 boards, the person that originally started this probably doesn't need anywhere near that many and is looking for others that might want to share in the 200 boards with their own customized versions (small enough customizations that it can be applied to all of them without major retooling). Similar to the group buy you are trying to get started with an already built board.
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Count me in for three boards if the motherboard contains:
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4 x Intel 82574L NICs
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1 x IPMI like NIC
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(at least) one x8 PCIe slot
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16 GB DDR3 RAM
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mini-ITX or mini-DTX form factor
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6x SATA ports
Ideal board to be used for:
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Firewall (PFsense)
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NAS
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VM
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Update on this custom ITX…...
It was still born during birth......... too bad.
A few of us were pursuing this with vigor. The NRE and 200 boards were covered. The deal breaker ?.......7 months lead time!
Moved on now to use a board designed by someone else ...much easier and less arrows in the head. Now, now...all of you saying "i told you so"....... we tried , we failed, we've moved on.
Now going to use this board.... http://www.commell.com.tw/News/News/News_20110617_LV-67H.htm
the interesting thing is that it has 2 x 82574L NIC's onboard and can take 4 more 82574L NIC's via mini-pcie expansion slots. Since each mini-pcie expansion slot takes a card that has either 1 or 2 82574L's on board it means we can configure the board with either 2/3/4/5/6 82574L NIC's
The board can take 9-24V input OR ATX power...nice!
i3/i5/i7 compatible and up to 16GB RAM ( but 8GB Ram sticks = $$$$$$ so not really practical - better to stick to 4GB Ram sticks)
I think that ticks all the boxes........ up to 6 x 82574L NIC's, 9-24V DC input or ordinary ATX power supply, Sandy Bridge i3 compataible and up to 16GB Ram all on a m-ITX
And its available now...not in 7 months time!!!!
I have 8 sample boards inbound now. Should be here next week. If this works as advised it is my version of the perfect pfsense m-ITX!!
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This is a better link to read about the board….. http://www.commell.com.tw/Download/Datasheet/LV-67H_Datasheet.pdf
Also one other interesting thing.....one of those PCIE mini slots has a SIM card socket on it .....so it may be possible to rig up a 3G modem as a backup WAN link with a PCIE mini card modem? Need to look into that. It may be the icing on the cake
and the 82574L PCIE mini card NIC's....
http://www.commell.com.tw/Product/Peripheral/PCI%20Express%20mini%20card/MPX-574D2.HTM
http://www.commell.com.tw/Product/Peripheral/PCI%20Express%20mini%20card/MPX-574D.HTM
and yes those mini card nics work on the LV67H - i phoned them and asked.
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The AES-NI instructions are worthless on pfSense, at least in 1.2.3 and 2.0, as they are not supported until FreeBSD 8.2.
EDIT: Some additional notes:
- There is little point in using the C206 chipset as your choice of CPU would be limited to those with built-in video. You should really be using the C204 and an add-on video chip, Matrox, whatever.
- The 82574L NICs you want are supported in pfSense but the integrated 82579 is not. Are you going to have it disabled?
- Expansion options? Most Mini-ITX boards have one slot. I'd use an x8 PCI-e 2.0 if you can fit it.
I'm running a DH67CL which has the 82579 onboard nic and it's working with no problems.