Custom M-ITX board
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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.
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The E1220 doesn't have an integrated GPU though. So that board will either need to support booting without graphics or have some form of embedded VGA. Or have bios redirected to serial.
I can't imagine a healthy reason for a firewall to need a GPU, with perhaps the exception of a specialty latent IDS fingerprinting masking system… But even then, really? Save the space for something more useful like an FPGA or backdoor microcontroller. At most, other then storage and network, you're going to want serial and maybe a simple LCD screen for a status device...
Or maybe I've just avoided having to look at the micro/pico ITX consumer CPU boards for so long that BIOS doesn't get sent out to serial by default. World clearly coming to an end... Wow, and even the new Intel embedded dev board has a GPU (http://intel.ententeweb.com/bsps/product_detail.asp?item=DEVBOARD-1-d510) Please world, more haptics, less retina magnets! Keep those fields programmable.
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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!!
So what are your thoughts on the boards? Updates???? What is the price on them? That does look like the perfect solution depending on the price/functionality/reliability/warranty.
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Got the 8 test boards in. 4Gb RAM SODIMM RAM is fitted…....still no CPU's.
These are 2nd Gen laptop Sandy Bridge CPU's that are needed and i cant find that many places that sell them. I did find what i wanted eventually. Now we sit and wait for funds to clear (international T/T) and then they will be on their way out here.
These boards are very promising. I've searched high and low for Mini ITX boards suitable for running PFsense on. Most all of them had one or two ethernet ports on board. If you wanted ethernet interface 3,4 or more you are forced into using an add on card. Have you seen the prices for an intel 4 port Gbe card !!
To me this board is the closest i have come to finding a commercially available non special order board that fits the bill.
The really special part would be to get the onboard SIM card holder in one of the mini pcie slots working with a 3G modem and addressable as an additional WAN. I've got someone looking into this.
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Will try to get something together tomorrow if time permits - first thing on the agenda is getting the Land Cruiser gear box fixed for the next field trip….. hmm - its not looking good - oil under the car everywhere !
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[HEAVY OT]What else you can expect from toyota?[/HEAVY OT]
seriously i prefer landgruisers over land rovers -
These are 2nd Gen laptop Sandy Bridge CPU's that are needed and i cant find that many places that sell them. I did find what i wanted eventually. Now we sit and wait for funds to clear (international T/T) and then they will be on their way out here.
The really special part would be to get the onboard SIM card holder in one of the mini pcie slots working with a 3G modem and addressable as an additional WAN. I've got someone looking into this.
That's kind of bad news as I was hoping you could use a cheap 1155 Pentium or Celeron in this. Adding a laptop CPU is surely going to increase the cost quite a bit.
Do you want to be able to use a 3G modem just as a fail-safe if the regular WAN goes out?
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These are 2nd Gen laptop Sandy Bridge CPU's that are needed and i cant find that many places that sell them. I did find what i wanted eventually. Now we sit and wait for funds to clear (international T/T) and then they will be on their way out here.
The really special part would be to get the onboard SIM card holder in one of the mini pcie slots working with a 3G modem and addressable as an additional WAN. I've got someone looking into this.
That's kind of bad news as I was hoping you could use a cheap 1155 Pentium or Celeron in this. Adding a laptop CPU is surely going to increase the cost quite a bit.
Do you want to be able to use a 3G modem just as a fail-safe if the regular WAN goes out?
You're probably looking at around $150-200 for one of the "Pentium-branded" chips, around $250 for an i3, $300-400 for an i5, and $400-1000 for an i7, that is assuming of course that you can actually find one.
I usually go to LogicSupply when I need specialty CPUs but their stock on these is limited to a single i5 for $300 and a quad i7 for $470, though they claim that the Pentium B810 will be available on 10/22. Maybe try calling them for alternatives.