X11SBA-LN4F vs A1SRi-2558F

guardian

2 x 4GB DDRL DDR3 modules

Thanks for the input.

Can you please give me a part number for RAM modules?

Also, what is you CPU temp like?

@Engineer:

2 x 4GB DDRL DDR3 modules

Thanks for the input.

Can you please give me a part number for RAM modules?

Also, what is you CPU temp like?

Supermicro is selling this board together with a case from them too! This combination is then called superserver,
and can be often bought ready assembled, only the RAM and SSD will be needed on top of this.
Supermicro SuperServer E200-9B Server SYS-E200-9B

Engineer

@guardian:

@Engineer:

2 x 4GB DDRL DDR3 modules

Thanks for the input.

Can you please give me a part number for RAM modules?

Also, what is you CPU temp like?

CPU temps run from 45C to 52C generally (the four cores). I'll dig up the ram soon. It's Samsung brand, IIRC.

OLBaID

"Supermicro is selling this board together with a case from them too! This combination is then called superserver,
and can be often bought ready assembled, only the RAM and SSD will be needed on top of this.
Supermicro SuperServer E200-9B Server SYS-E200-9B"

This is the system i purchased, on the asset label with the serial and MAC addresses, was revision 1.00. I am going to request them provide me any updates done to my RMA and or new revisions if exchanged so you can know the proper revision without the issue. FYI I just purchased 1333 Crucial 4GB modules for this setup and a Kingston 120gb SSD that worked with no issue. (This system does leverage the Pericom 608GP controller mentioned previously in this thread).

This system also has small 1 small case fan (just a heatsink for the cpu) included and hovered around 38c with pfsense.

Engineer

For anyone interested, I monitored the CPU load while downloading at my new ISP speed (59 Mbps) and it never topped 9%. That's with PowerD on. For some reason, the CPU load shows higher with PowerD turned on than off (I'll test it off later). The CPU hangs between 3% and 5% when idle so added 4% @ 59Mbps download. Temperature was at 55C for one core and 48-49 for the other three cores.

dreamslacker

@Engineer:

For some reason, the CPU load shows higher with PowerD turned on than off (I'll test it off later).

Because the cores are clocked down by PowerD when the load is low, hence, the percentage figure is higher - i.e. If the load needs 200MHz per core avg, then at 2GHz that's 10% but when the cores are clocked down to 1GHz, the load will show as 20%.

dreamslacker

Running a A1SRi-2758f passively in the Supermicro CSE-504-203B chassis without any chassis fans.

System idles at around 56'C (in ~28'C environment) and hasn't overheated till now (running SNORT on a 100M/100M line). I might consider adding a chassis fan once I get my servers and storage in - when the unit will have to be routing multi-gigabit inter-vlans.

I'm still waiting for my custom patch cord order from AMP and my new APC Netshelter (Dell forgot to order the rack). So far, I just have the bare minimum connected to run the office.

robi

There are cases at supermicro offering front-located connection ports, fitting these motherboards. 8)

dreamslacker

@robi:

There are cases at supermicro offering front-located connection ports, fitting these motherboards. 8)

Yes, I just didn't want them because it looks ugly in the rack. This would be part of a rack and stack showcase so it has to look nice. My Netshelter will be arriving in a day's time - Dell decided to expedit my order after screwing up.

On hindsight, I should have gone with the A1SRM-2758F and the SC510-203B. Would have had enough space to stick a sticker from the pfSense merchandise store on that chassis.

Derelict

Umm. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

OLBaID

Just wanted to reply to the thread, got my RMA back and updated and have not had the issue for over 24 hours. wanted to share the notes so anyone that has a supermicro has some help if needed. Thanks again for the contacts and help in this thread.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42296/SuperMicro%20RMA%20notes.PDF

And just to point to the solution that was most likely the issue:

https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/6296

guardian

@Engineer:

@guardian:

If I understand what I've read, the X11SBA-LN4F-O N3700 PCB 1.02
should make a decent pfSense platform – or am I missing something?

Clearly it's no A1SRi-2558F, but in Canada the difference between the
two boards is $141 CDN based on the best prices I could find today.
Unless broadband costs drop a lot, I can't see outgrowing it for 4 or 5
years (Minimum), and by that time I'll likely have a cap dry out and have
to replace whatever I buy anyway, so I might as well put the $141 toward
a case and memory, or am I missing something?

First, thanks for the update on PCB 1.02. No, I don't think you're missing a thing. Thing has been rock solid since the change (running 2.2.5). Very low power and excellent IPMI setup (in my opinion). More processing power than I need right now and hope it lasts for a long time. 10-11 watts for entire system @ wall with no fans:

SM board
Antec ITX-110 with 90W supply
2 x 4GB DDRL DDR3 modules
120GB Sandisk Plus SSD

Quite happy with mine as of right now. TWC is supposed to bumping speeds soon so I'll give it a whirl once that happens and report back.

Hi Engineer & All..

Just wondering if you have any updates, or have things still been working?

BTW: What throughput are you getting/What is your connection?

Engineer

@guardian:

@Engineer:

@guardian:

If I understand what I've read, the X11SBA-LN4F-O N3700 PCB 1.02
should make a decent pfSense platform – or am I missing something?

Clearly it's no A1SRi-2558F, but in Canada the difference between the
two boards is $141 CDN based on the best prices I could find today.
Unless broadband costs drop a lot, I can't see outgrowing it for 4 or 5
years (Minimum), and by that time I'll likely have a cap dry out and have
to replace whatever I buy anyway, so I might as well put the $141 toward
a case and memory, or am I missing something?

First, thanks for the update on PCB 1.02. No, I don't think you're missing a thing. Thing has been rock solid since the change (running 2.2.5). Very low power and excellent IPMI setup (in my opinion). More processing power than I need right now and hope it lasts for a long time. 10-11 watts for entire system @ wall with no fans:

SM board
Antec ITX-110 with 90W supply
2 x 4GB DDRL DDR3 modules
120GB Sandisk Plus SSD

Quite happy with mine as of right now. TWC is supposed to bumping speeds soon so I'll give it a whirl once that happens and report back.

Hi Engineer & All..

Just wondering if you have any updates, or have things still been working?

BTW: What throughput are you getting/What is your connection?

Been up 150+ days with no issues. My connection is only 60Mbps down / 5Mbps up. No issues at all. Max 9% CPU but that's with PowerD turned on, which was explained to me above to show a higher percentage because the CPU is running at a lower frequency. Once frequency jumps, the max CPU % should drop (which is why I a lower CPU % when PowerD is turned off).

guardian

I'm wondering if anyone is running this rig with anything faster?

I'm going to be going to Rogers 250/20… plan on doing a lot of filtering/running Snort or something similar... still have to figure that out....

I hope the X11SBA-LN4F will do the job.

guardian

Here are a couple of reviews that I though the community might appreciate seeing.

They provide some good overall info on the design.

SUPERMICRO X11SBA-LN4F REVIEW – SWEET!
http://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-x11sba-ln4f-review/

SUPERMICRO A1SRI-2758F REVIEW – HELLO RANGELEY
http://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-a1sri-2758f-review-rangeley/

enodeb

Just to give some more feedback: I've been running pfSense on the Supermicro board (rev. 1.02) for a few months now and it has been rock solid. It can easily handle the 150Mbps that I get from Comcast without breaking a sweat (including some Snort rules). Temperatures are usually in the 50-55 degree Celsius range (at Californian summer room temperatures ;)), using an Antec ISK110 case. I'm using two 4GB SO-DIMMs and an mSATA SSD on the board.

Love the 4 Intel NICs and the IPMI interface (tip: you can access the BIOS over SSH via SOL by logging into IPMI and running the commands "cd system1/sol1; start" in the SMASH CLI). I have not been able to redirect the pfSense serial console though, since SOL uses COM2 and pfSense seems to only support COM1 for console output.

Jailer

Where and when did you purchase your board?

enodeb

@Jailer:

Where and when did you purchase your board?

I bought it from Newegg, I think in February or March.

Engineer

My repaired board has been up 192 days with no issues now! :)

nomofica

@enodeb:

@Jailer:

Where and when did you purchase your board?

I bought it from Newegg, I think in February or March.

Did it work out-of-the-box for you? I'm currently looking at deploying this board in home lab/home office environment and was about to pull the trigger until I came across this thread. If I can avoid RMAing just to get it to work for pfSense I would be so happy.