Newbie, please comment on my (planned) setup.

paulsnoop

The ASrock microATX baytrail board does indeed have a physical x16 slot, however keep in mind it only runs at 4x max. This isn't a problem for most dual/quad port NICs, you should be able to pick up a HP branded Intel card off ebay for £25-£50.

Escorpiom

Thanks stephenw10 and paulsnoop for the tips.

Putting /var on the ramdisk will limit my Squid cache somewhat, at the moment I've dedicated 10GB for Squid on a raptor disk.
If I go the "ramdisk" way, there will be at most 5GB of space for Squid, taking into account the (memory) space needed for PfSense and other packages.
It may be even less.
Still, for me it's worth going with ramdisk simply for the speed. Reading from ram is faster than reading from disk. However, the difference may be not that big when using SSD drives.
Sticking in another 8GB of memory (total 16GB) seems not an option, all J1900 boards can accommodate a maximum of 8GB (2x4GB).
Perhaps someone has experimented with the ramdisk size, if so please share your findings.

As for the expansion slot, in another topic here we found a solution to populate the mini-pci-e slot with a dual port Intel gbit card.
Here two links:

http://linitx.com/product/jetway-dual-gigabit-lan-mini-pci-express-card/13534

http://www.logicsupply.com/components/expansion-cards/admpeidla/

Not expensive at all and it will expand connectivity on the Gigabyte board with extra two gigabit ports, making a total of four ports.
This can be extra rewarding for mini-itx cases where a normal expansion card wouldn't fit.

Cheers.

Escorpiom

It has been a few weeks, and the parts are slowly being delivered here in Colombia.
I would like to report on what I actually bought.

Supermicro seemed the way to go. Gonzopancho has been talking about the 2000 SoC and how future versions of PfSense will take advantage of its features.
So I ended up getting this:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/atom/x10/a1srm-2558f.cfm

For the PSU I got a PicoPsu. Accidentally bought the 20 pin version, but it worked just fine in the 24 pin onboard ATX connector.
The power brick is an ADP 180AB Gateway power adapter. One brick (180W) should power both my PfSense box and the storage server.

The memory is Samsung "green" memory, low voltage (1.35v) non-ECC. Two sticks 4GB each for a total of 8GB.
I wasn't sure it would work because the mem is not on SM's list, but it did work flawlessly.

Apart from the onboard 4 port Intel nic, I installed an HP dual port Intel PCI-e x8 network card.
I was pleased to see that the bios listed it as a PXE boot option.

Storage will be a SLC DOM that's still underway, it will take another week or so. In any case I've got an Intel 2500 SSD ready if the "itch" to build becomes unbearable.

Measured AC power consumption (kill-a-watt) with Intel SSD drive: 22 watts. Can't comment on load consumption yet, no PfSense was installed.
Anyway for my uses the SoC won't be pushed at all, so with PfSense running I expect to stay under 30 watts.

I also tried to measure power consumption with a Seagate 500GB conventional harddrive connected. At once it jumped to 30 watt, so the spinner took more than 8 watts.
That's a good reason to get rid of old spinners when possible. Sadly I have 3 harddisks 4TB each for my storage server, so those disks alone would consume together 24 watt.

In the end I was a little bit worried about the flashing led at mid-board. I read some comments here about bad sensors on SM boards.
It was a false alarm however, the led indicates the IPMI heartbeat, flashing is normal.

Perhaps those first impressions can be useful for people looking at some similar setup.

Cheers.

kejianshi

"Storage will be a SLC DOM that's still underway"

Which DOM? How big?

Escorpiom

We talked about that. You don't remember that?
It's the two channel SLC DOM 32GB, when it arrives I'll put PfSense on it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kingspec-Industrial-Disk-on-Module-SATA-DOM-7Pins-32GB-SLC-2CH-for-POS-Machines-/161279269555?talgo=origal&tfrom=151281943955&ttype=price&tpos=unknow

Seller specifies that the module will last for 80 years, writing 10GB a day. It's impossible to verify that claim at the moment, but if this proves to be true, it's a hell of a deal.
No worries letting squid and logging do it's thing.

Cheers.

Edit: First it says write endurance "8 years at 100GB/day", further down it says 80 years at 10GB/day.
Can't take this seriously, but let's wait and see.

kejianshi

Yes - I do remember talking about it and thought it was you, but didn't see my comment in the thread so thought maybe I was confused. Good - I'm anxious to get feedback on the entire build, but especially that DOM (-:

stephenw10

If you were testing the power consumption without any OS installed you will probably find it actually decreases. The bios setup usually doesn't (I've never seen it) have any power saving code or features enabled.

Steve

Wolf666

@Escorpiom

I have a similar setup. Can you report your operational temperature? What case are you using?

Escorpiom

@stephenw10: You're right, I didn't think of that. Anyway it may be necessary to tweak the firmware settings a bit also once the OS is installed.

@Wolf666: Yes, when the SSD module comes in I'll test something more and will also take temperature readings.
Keep in mind that the board is mATX, I've got enough space. The case is a cheapo desktop mATX.
The SoC heatsink is only a bit warmer than ambient.

Cheers.

Escorpiom

Ok, I've got it set up :-)

For Wolf666: Temperature is at 53 celsius. That's in a desktop mATX case, pico psu 90, no fan at all.
Ambient temp is a bit high also, this is a warm country.

I had some difficulties setting it up, mainly because I'm a n00b. But not ashamed to elaborate on it.

My SSD SLC module still has not arrived from China, so I just went ahead and put in the Intel 2500 SSD.

First on the UTP cables. No idea if Intel LAN cards are more picky than other brands, but for the life of me I couldn't get them to negotiate at 1000baseT.
Had to change the cables for others, some cat6 cable here is from a very bad quality it seems.
After swapping two cables, the ports negotiated at 1000baseT full duplex.

After that, I had quite some trouble setting up vlans.
It was not clear at the beginning that the LAN interface had to be removed after setting up the vlans. Found that comment elsewhere here on the forum.
In my stupidity, I used a /32 mask for the interface and could not get to the webGUI for some hours. Finally figured it out.

Some trouble with Squid install, not relevant for this section however.

After testing, it is quite a bit faster than my old server. Considering I'm on 2.2 beta, it may even get better (Multi threading perhaps, quick assist).

Cheers.

kejianshi

WOW - They didn't deliver your SSD… STILL!? Do you live in a remote jungle or are they just that bad at delivering?

Escorpiom

Remote jungle.
Any somewhat fancy tech has to be imported, but I can't do it directly, it would be way to expensive.
Merchandise has to be send to Miami, FL first.
There it will be consolidated and send to Colombia.

We are paying approximately 30% more for any tech, because of this.

Cheers.

kejianshi

I understand. Hope you get to test that soon. Glad your machine is working well.