Supermicro X7SPA-H
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It's definitely a sweet little board. ICR9R, good Intel NICs, and I can verify that the PCIe x16 slot works with cards other than video. I have a PCIe x4 Intel PRO/1000 PT dual port card and pfSense sees it. I had to take it out though as I don't have a 90* PCIe adapter yet.
Did you find a PCIe adapter yet?
I'm using this case and need to find a 90 adapter also
http://www.mini-box.com/Mini-Box-M300-LCD
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OK
I finally got me one of the X7SPA-HF mobo's.
I have benched it with 4GB RAM, and 64GB SSD using a standard 400Watt ATX P/S on the side.
Still hesitating on a PicoPSU for this though.
2amps on the 5V Standby Rail is shows as a peak level for all the PicoPSUs … with the Max at 1.5amps.Has anyone been able to confirm if any PicoPSU can drive the X7SPA series ?
Or does one need to consider something more robust ?I prefer small and quiet but would hate to invest the $$$ into an M350 case and PicoPSU and then find out it does not work.
Any feedback is appreciated ...
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Mookatroid,
I'm running a picoPSU-150-XT Power Supply with a 80W AC-DC Power Adapter. Going strong now for about 2 weeks. I have to check what its drawing for amps but last time i checked my kill-a-watt it's running around 22watts.
btw, are you planning on running 2.0 or 1.2.3?
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Ya baby !
That's what I wanted to hear :)Guess I'll be ordering up an M350 + PicoPSU-150-XT very soon :)
Will run 2.0 once it's public versus beta .. I can't afford 2 Supermicro mobo's :P
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I just downgraded to 1.2.3 last night… A lot of little things aren't ready with 2.0 just yet...vnstat works with 1.2.3 and not 2.0 with this board.. Dont need it yet but I like knowing my bandwidth usage.
I'm really liking this board, just wish it was a PCI slot instead of a PCIe slot. Trying to find a riser card and its a pain right now. I also may change the my case to something else since I can't use the LCD with 1.2.3 and its really buggy with 2.0...
When funds allow, i may get another one because this board to me seems it would be better as a NAS, then a router.. Tons of USB slots and sata slots. BUT, having IPMI makes a plus for a router and you can't go wrong with 2 Intel nics built in
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Yes !
I almost bought a NAS chassis from Chenbro to put the X7SPA-HF into just in case I changed my mind - router versus NAS.
But for now, I'm going to go with the M350 + PicoPSU … as I already have the M350 VESA mount on the back of my LCD monitor.Re: the IPMI ... one accesses that via HTTP ... so how do you differeniate if you want to access the IPMI GUI versus pfSense ? IPMI does not seem to offer and way to change the TCP management port ...
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Yes !
I almost bought a NAS chassis from Chenbro to put the X7SPA-HF into just in case I changed my mind - router versus NAS.
But for now, I'm going to go with the M350 + PicoPSU … as I already have the M350 VESA mount on the back of my LCD monitor.Re: the IPMI ... one accesses that via HTTP ... so how do you differeniate if you want to access the IPMI GUI versus pfSense ? IPMI does not seem to offer and way to change the TCP management port ...
As far as I can remember, the IPMI has its own IP Address that is configured in the BIOS. The LAN port will respond to either the IPMI IP Address or the pfSense configured address on the same physical port.
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As far as I can remember, the IPMI has its own IP Address that is configured in the BIOS. The LAN port will respond to either the IPMI IP Address or the pfSense configured address on the same physical port.
You are correct. You can manually assigned an IP address that is on the same subnet as the LAN interface from the BIOS. I noticed that downgrading to 1.2.3 from 2.0, the remote keyboard doesnt work. I believe its the HID driver issue that is known with FreeBSD7.2. Works fine with FreeBSD8.0,pfSense 2.0
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Ah
Right
"SHARED" between LAN1/IPMI … just like HP's iLO on their servers ...
GotchaBrain fart
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I'm contemplating the Supermicro X7SPA-HF as well.
But I'm in great doubt whether my WAN/LAN/WLAN setup (cable 90Mbps/1Gbps/Wifi-N)
including PFsense config (snort, squid, openvpn) will serve me well with this Atom chipset.Could any of you with an Atom D510 chipset post more information about your PFSense config including CPU + memory statistics and your WAN/LAN setup?
Thanks!
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I want to buy this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101262and put this RAM in it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231018I will be installing 1.2.3
I have a large file server with over 4TB of data that I would like to be able to access anywhere in the world down the road. Obviously bandwidth is an issue but with that aside.
I download files all the time and run a Tech help desk and connect to clients computers using Crossloop remote connection software.
I am running a phone server on my current pfsense box (I think it is freeswitch not sure or how that part works I have a friend that helps with that part).
I am going to need a vpn connection down the road and share my files with my friend.
Also need wireless on the box with a wireless card, anyone with information on that part would be greatly appreciated.Thank You
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Does anyone know of a small enclosure that would be suitable for this MB?
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http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=54
I assume it would fit
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is there anything similar to this motherboard discussed but cheaper.
also this motherboard is very hard to get in parts of Europe ie uk
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Hi all, first post! But I've been lurking the boards here for several months. :D
This looks like the board to get for pfsense in my case. quality hardware, all solid caps and passive cooling, low power consumption… the dual intel nics seem to be the biggest selling point for me though. I'd like to toss in a pico psu, 1GB ram, and a flash storage for pfsense.
I'd like to hear peoples experiences though.. I don't think i'd ever need a 1gbps gateway, or at least for quite some time, but 50-100mbps seems reasonable to expect for the lifetime of this project.. I'm planning on running pfsense on this board with 1-4 clients, 1 vpn user at the most (and i don't expect anything greater than 2mbps for vpn), and light traffic shaping.
My main concern is gaming. I'm a regular FPS player, and latency seems to be the biggest factor in my performance. I'm currently running a D-Link DGL4500for a router, but i plan on retiring it to a dedicated WAP,. If a pfsense setup is going to have any negative effect on latency in comparison to a consumer grade hardware router like this, I might as well stick with what i have.
Any feedback on this board would be great. I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be any hard stats on this setup as far as latency/bandwidth/vpnbandwidth/cpu usage goes..
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Some admin needs to remove and/or increase the TIMEOUTS on this board.
Selecting the "Forever" aspect when logging in does not help.
I am NOT typing all that in again.Anyway … in quick summary - before a TIMEOUT logs me out again - this board is awesome.
I am running the X7SPA-HF ... the X7SPA-H is slightly cheaper but you don't get the IP-based virtual KVM.
It is in the M350 case with a pico PSU.
Getting the board involved patience ... my order took 3 weeks to arrive.
I have been running the setup for over a month without issue.
I been playing FPS's (mainly UT2k4) for years .. no complaints.
My service is 25mbps/2mbps ... and I get 2.8MB/sec consistently.Hope this helps.
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That certainly sounds promising, sounds like you could be saturating your connection, have you tried sticking a 1gbps client on the wan side and testing throughput? by the looks of thing's i'm going to be ordering the parts tonight. ;D
It would be interesting to see some other stats with this board as well. you mentioned you had the M350 chassis and a PicoPSU, I was also looking at these parts and hoping i could go all passive cooling.. Did you end up needing extra cooling with this setup? manage to get any temps?
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Completely passive cooling.
No problems.
Dead quiet … and have never worried about the temps to even think of checking.
I have never had the time to bench a 1gbps WAN-to-LAN, so can't comment there. -
Good to know. i plan on running the embedded version of pfsense off a bootable usb thumb drive, then disabling everything on the board thats not being used, ie. ide, sata, video, and anything else that i can.
Here's a very through review i found as far as cpu usage/power consumption goes.
http://sorenragsdale.livejournal.com/19875.html -
Running embedded on an SSD at the moment.
Me thinks I will get another one of these boards and build a FreeNAS box.