Supermicro X7SPA-H
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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. -
Time to update this thread.
-It's not clear searching the forum whether vnstat is working on 2.0 yet.
-jimp added a nice little package "RRD Summary" that will show you your usage for the last 2 months using any day of the month as start date.
-Supermicro x8 pcie riser cards now listed on ncix.
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=29194&vpn=CSE-RR1U-E8&manufacture=SuperMicroAnybody got some benchmarks? So far all we know for sure from this thread is that 25/2 is not a problem, but that's not saying much; I can get 80 mbps through my net5501-80 using iperf and 4 threads. No reason an Atom @1.6x2 shouldn't do at least 2-3x what a Geode @500MHz can do. (Something a little more 'real world' than iperf would be nice too).
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-Supermicro x8 pcie riser cards now listed on ncix.
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=29194&vpn=CSE-RR1U-E8&manufacture=SuperMicroWould this work with a x16 slot? Don't understand why they used a x16 physical slot for x4. I need a right slot riser for it to work in my case :-( Last time i search, I couldn't find anything that would work for me. Using M300-LCD as my case.
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Normally with PCI-e you can put a card into a slot that is as long or longer, so this x8-length riser should work in a x8 or x16 slot. If your x16 slot has only 4 lanes feeding it then whatever you plug into your x8 riser should normally operated normally but with the bandwidth of the 4 available lanes.
Hope that helps.
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Finally the board is available in the Netherlands, so I ordered one.
For reference purposes the following hardware configuration has been ordered:
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Supermicro X7SPA-HF
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Kingston HyperX KHX5300S2LLK2/4G (4 GB in total, was actually cheaper than the ValueRam series)
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OCZ Vertex Series SATA II 2.5" SSD 30GB
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Lian Li PC-Q07
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Be Quiet! Pure Power L7 300W instead of
Corsair HX520W (I know overkill, but is being reused from my current config) -
SuperMicro AOC-SG-i2 (2 port GBit NIC add-on-card)
I'm "upgrading" from an old spare Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz, 2GB RAM, raptor 73GB, 3 Intel GbE NIC's (one dual PCI-X nic). This system draws 80 Watts. My cable connection is 90/9.
Hopefully at the end of July my config is up and running. I'll post some detailed benchmarks later on.Status update (22 July): the board is expected to be delivered in the first week of August…
Status update (04 Aug): board has arrived today and Be Quiet! Pure Power L7 300W is going to be used as PSU (instead of the Corsair). Reviews are very positive about the be quiet! PSU. Seems to perform almost equally to a PicoPSU!
References: http://www.be-quiet.net/be-quiet.net/index.php?StoryID=17&ProductID=46&websiteLang=en and http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57573Status update (06 Aug): Up & running. See for performance and throughput figures the screen captures @ http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,27223.msg142085.html#msg142085. Also the igb driver (for the add-on-card) does have a very severe performance penalty bug! My WAN for now is connected to the add-on lan card. Follow instructions @ http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,22986.msg118380.html#msg118380. Download went up from 50-500 kB/s (average to max) to on average 5 to 6 MB/s. Unfortunately cannot find a site/location where I can stress out my cable connection…
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@Ibor:
- Corsair HX520W (I know overkill, but is being reused from my current config)
FYI. The HX520W was a great PSU, but not very efficient at low usage. The Atom is going to come in MUCH lower than the curve and you'll be wasting quite a bit of power. Whether buying a whole new PSU outweighs the cost depends on your situation, but the HX520W is still in demand and might be able to sell it.
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@Ibor:
- Corsair HX520W (I know overkill, but is being reused from my current config)
FYI. The HX520W was a great PSU, but not very efficient at low usage. The Atom is going to come in MUCH lower than the curve and you'll be wasting quite a bit of power. Whether buying a whole new PSU outweighs the cost depends on your situation, but the HX520W is still in demand and might be able to sell it.
You're completely right. I've done some research and I'm still scratching my head around this subject. The Corsair HX520W would have a 5% load with an Atom system…..
The only other viable candidate in my opinion would be a PicoPSU. Supermicro recommends a PSUs with a 24 pin connector in combination with the X7SPA motherboard (see FAQ http://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=9876).The closest PicoPSU with a 24 pin connector is the picoPSU-150-XT + 102W Adapter Power Kit or even the picoPSU-150-XT + 80W Adapter Power Kit would be fine. According to silentpcreview (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article601-page3.html) the 120 with 80 versus 120 Watt adapter has an impressive 77 - 79 % efficiency at 22 W load. The 150 would likely drop a few percentages. 75% efficient perhaps for my X7SPA-HF configuration?
Has anybody experience with PicoPSU?
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I've used Pico PSU's in the past but not with an Atom. It should be fine.
Post your question on the Silentpcreview forums and I'm sure somebody will steer you in the right direction.
As I'm sure you've noticed in your research, it's impossible to get a standard ATX 80 Plus Gold PSU at low wattage. I could use one too.
Edit: I bought one of these for a 1U rackmount server (firewall) I built with a mini-ITX board. It wasn't an Atom, but a mobile processor on a Mini-ITX board. My setup consumes around 22-35W - about the same your Atom will.
http://www.idotpc.com/TheStore/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=67&idproduct=831 -
Will one of these work:
http://www.mini-box.com/Power-Supplies-Kits
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Yes it should. Ask the people at mini-box. They will tell you.
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I use the picoPSU-150-XT + 80W Adapter Power Kit with the board with no issues. about 23-25 watts of power