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MB for All-in-One

S

shanester

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 1, 2011
Messages
76
I have been doing a lot of reading and searching over the past couple of months and can really use some suggestions from the community regarding the selection of a motherboard in an ESX 4.1 All-in-One solution. The MB will reside in a Norco 4220.

MB requirements:
1. Cost effective $300
2. Intel 1155/1156/1366
3. 32GB RAM min
- 8GB ECC Unbuffered DIMMS for the Sandy Bridge Xeon LGA1155 C204 MBs such as Supermicro X9SCM-F or Tyan S5510GM3NR are unavailable
- I have been unable to find 8GB DIMMS to max out SM X8SIL-F
4. IPMI 2.0
5. Min of 2 Intel NICs
6. DP boards are too costly
 
Last edited:
shanester said:
I have been doing a lot of reading and searching over the past couple of months and can really use some suggestions from the community regarding the selection of a motherboard in an ESX 4.1 All-in-One solution. The MB will reside in a Norco 4220.

MB requirements:
1. Cost effective $300
2. Intel 1155/1156/1366
3. 32GB RAM min
- 8GB ECC Unbuffered DIMMS for the Sandy Bridge Xeon LGA1155 C204 MBs such as Supermicro X9SCM-F or Tyan S5510GM3NR are unavailable
- I have been unable to find 8GB DIMMS to max out SM X8SIL-F
4. IPMI 2.0
5. Min of 2 Intel NICs
6. DP boards are too costly
Click to expand...


More info ? what you building ? what you're plans are ? What you trying to make this do. Is it just a storage server or ?
 
shanester said:
I have been doing a lot of reading and searching over the past couple of months and can really use some suggestions from the community regarding the selection of a motherboard in an ESX 4.1 All-in-One solution. The MB will reside in a Norco 4220.

MB requirements:
1. Cost effective $300
2. Intel 1155/1156/1366
3. 32GB RAM min
- 8GB ECC Unbuffered DIMMS for the Sandy Bridge Xeon LGA1155 C204 MBs such as Supermicro X9SCM-F or Tyan S5510GM3NR are unavailable
- I have been unable to find 8GB DIMMS to max out SM X8SIL-F
4. IPMI 2.0
5. Min of 2 Intel NICs
6. DP boards are too costly
Click to expand...

if you really need that much RAM, you should look at boards with more RAM slots/ RAM channels
otherwise RAM becomes really expensive. a compromise may be a Supermicro X8ST3-F
It has 6 RAM slots with a max of 24 GB RAM (cheap DDR3 ones) and a integrates SAS controller.

If you need more, think about a dual Xeon board from the Supermicro X8..-F series with 5520
chipset like a relative cheap X8DT3-F which includes also the for all-in-one needed second SAS/SATA controller
which saves some money and use one Xeon only (use only half of RAM sockets then)
 
This system will be used for several purposes.
1. File server for home theater and personal data
2. Hosting test servers (VMs)

OI/Napp-it
ESX & OI on a SSD
5 x SAMSUNG F4 HD204U in a RAIDZ pool

@_Gea: Are there any issues with the integrated LSI 1068E SAS controller for passthru?
 
My initial HD config for the All in One will consist of
1x 60GB SSD for ESX 4.1 and OI/Napp-It
5x 2TB SAMSUNG F4 HD204U in a RAIDZ pool (I realize that the 4220 is overkill for this config at this time but there is room for growth)

1. If I use the SM X8ST3-L or Tyan S5512WGM2NR MBs which have the integrated LSI SAS1068E controller, how do I correctly use/cable the backplane(s) to the SAS ports on the MB for the intial configuration of the 5x2TB drives?

2. What additional hardware do I need to have when I create an additional 5 drive pool or max out the capacity of the 4220?

I am not sure if I am going about this the right way.

-- A sincerely confused noob :)
 
Using an SSD for the esxi/oi drive is a waste. Very little actual I/O involving it, and none that requires SSD speed (and $$$).
 
danswartz said:
Using an SSD for the esxi/oi drive is a waste. Very little actual I/O involving it, and none that requires SSD speed (and $$$).
Click to expand...
Agreed...
You money would be better spent getting another hd for your raid and running your esxi off a flash drive...
The only time you would ever notice it running off a flash drive would be downloading the vi client after you first install it

And why esxi 4.1?
5.0 has all the new features and bells, like usb passthru
 
well remember the datastore cannot be on the flash drive - you need some real HD, but a cheap laptop drive is fine...
 
shanester said:
...how do I correctly use/cable the backplane(s) to the SAS ports on the MB for the intial configuration of the 5x2TB drives?
Click to expand...
Search google for: "sff-8087+to+8087+cable"

shanester said:
2. What additional hardware do I need to have when I create an additional 5 drive pool or max out the capacity of the 4220?
Click to expand...
Either another HBA (host bus adapter) based on the LSI 1068E or the LSI 2008 SAS chipset that you can flash into IT mode (search this forum) and/or use a SAS expander card.
If you max out the drive capacity of the 4220, you can go the DAS route:
http://www.servethehome.com/sas-expanders-build-jbod-das-enclosure-save-iteration-2/ (basically get another 4220, add a SAS expander to that chassis and connected it via an SFF-8088-to-SFF-8088 cable to an additional HBA with an external port in your main system)

danswartz said:
Using an SSD for the esxi/oi drive is a waste. Very little actual I/O involving it, and none that requires SSD speed (and $$$).
Click to expand...
+1

-TLB
 
TheLastBoyscout said:
basically get another 4220, add a SAS expander to that chassis and connected it via an SFF-8088-to-SFF-8088 cable to an additional HBA with an external port in your main system
Click to expand...

If you have a hp expander in case 1, could you connect the external of it to the exton the hp expander in case 2 to link the 2 cases?
 
totalanni said:
And why esxi 4.1?
5.0 has all the new features and bells, like usb passthru
Click to expand...
  1. The free version of ESXi 5.0 is limited to 32 GB RAM.
  2. I don't really see the benefit of USB pass-through for an all in one other than it making the control of an USB-attached UPS a little bit easier.
  3. ESXI 4.1U1 has been out in the field and tested quite a bit. I'd wait for 5.0U1 to have VMware get all the kinks out - which doesn't mean I wouldn't want another system that I can use to play ..errr test with .... ;)
    The SSD caching may be interesting, but I haven't seen any comments on the effectiveness on "small" systems.
-TLB
 
32GB is plenty for home use, unless you are doing something insane.

shanester - i have the X9SCM-F and it works great with OI 151 and ESXi 5.0 with the all-in-one
only one of the NICs works with ESXi though...
 
I have the x0scl-f with 16gb. Only on OI 148 yet - waiting for 151 to get more mileage :) I added a pci-e intel nic for the 2nd one.
 
Consider the Tyan S5512WGM2NR if you want to go for a 1155 socket board. It still has two of the "old" Intel 82574L NICs that work out of the box with ESXi and/or Solaris and a build-in LSI 2008 SAS controller (plus a dedicated IPMI port...).

-TLB
 
Last edited:
I am down to three boards:

1. SuperMicro X9SCM-F
- Lacks Dual 82574L for ESX, so additional $$ for Intel NIC
2. Tyan S5510GM3NR
3. Tyan S5512WGM2NR

I guess my decision comes down to MB/Vendor quality & reliability as well as the IPMI functionality/differences between SM and Tyan. Unfortunately I have no experience with either.

Are there any 'gotcha's' that would sway my decision away/to one of these boards?
 
shanester said:
@_Gea: Are there any issues with the integrated LSI 1068E SAS controller for passthru?
Click to expand...

1068/ 2008 based SAS controllers works perfectly with pass-through unless
they are behind a pci-e switch like two of the four pci-e slots on a Supermicro X9 board
 
Why the heck do you need so much ram? I run Solaris 11 Express with 8GB allocated, and 4 Windows Server 2008R2's, 3 linux VM''s and still have ram left. What on earth are you planning to run on this thing!

1. SuperMicro X9SCM-F
- Lacks Dual 82574L for ESX, so additional $$ for Intel NIC

+ 5 Billion for this mobo.

Also, adding the second nic to a "roll your own" esxi CD is a walk in the park!

I've created a custom esxi 4.1 install iso for the mobo in about 5 min's which caters for the "unsupported" Intel 82579LM nic. Now, both nic's will work from day 1.

Followed this guide and used this oem.tgz.

Basically you just fire up Ubuntu, download the script, the esxi iso from vmware, the oem.tgz and slap them all into the one directory and run the script. Done.


Also, personally, I would not and did not go 1068's (even though I have 4 of them on the shelf) as they do not handle 3TB drives. Go a 2008 controller...ie. M1015's flashed with LSI firmware...cheap and good.
 
Last edited:
_Gea said:
1068/ 2008 based SAS controllers works perfectly with pass-through unless
they are behind a pci-e switch like two of the four pci-e slots on a Supermicro X9 board
Click to expand...
I had no idea the X9-boards didnt support passthrough on all slots!

do you know of any 1155-boards that have 4 pci-e slots not behind a pci-e switch? otherwise, you just wrecked my all-in-one plan :eek:

so for my fallback solution, any boards at all that support passthrough of minimum 4 pci-e ports? (preferably more!)
 
yes, 30+ drives

4x LSI SAS 2008 controller

I'd prefer some extra slots for potential extra NICs and other goodies!
 
_Gea - why do you suggest that the X9 motherboards will not pass through all four PCIe slots? I just double checked the block diagram in the manual on SMs website - there is no PCIe switch or bridge on either the X9SCM or X8SCL series boards. All of the PCIe slots are served directly by either the CPU or from the Couger-Point southbridge chip. Both connections are supported for passthrough by ESXi.

Does anybody have actual hands-on experience with this board that shows passthrough does not work right?
 
PigLover said:
_Gea - why do you suggest that the X9 motherboards will not pass through all four PCIe slots? I just double checked the block diagram in the manual on SMs website - there is no PCIe switch or bridge on either the X9SCM or X8SCL series boards. All of the PCIe slots are served directly by either the CPU or from the Couger-Point southbridge chip. Both connections are supported for passthrough by ESXi.

Does anybody have actual hands-on experience with this board that shows passthrough does not work right?
Click to expand...

I rechecked and yes you are right
the problem with pci-e slots behind a bridge was on a SuperMicro X8 board, not the X9
( http://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/f101/zfs-stammtisch-570052-51.html )
 
_Gea said:
I rechecked and yes you are right
the problem with pci-e slots behind a bridge was on a SuperMicro X8 board, not the X9
( http://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/f101/zfs-stammtisch-570052-51.html )
Click to expand...
Yup. More specifically, exactly one of the X8 series boards - the X8SIA. The other boards in that series did not have this problem (they also didn't tend to have very many PCIe ports available either...).

It appears that the SM X9SCL+-F is a perfect board for the OPs application, though I have to admit I do not have direct first hand experience with it. Make sure you look at the one with both the "+" and "-" in the model number as the other one without the "+" has two difference NIC chips and one of the NICs does not play nice with ESXi.
 
davros123 said:
Why the heck do you need so much ram? I run Solaris 11 Express with 8GB allocated, and 4 Windows Server 2008R2's, 3 linux VM''s and still have ram left. What on earth are you planning to run on this thing!

1. SuperMicro X9SCM-F
- Lacks Dual 82574L for ESX, so additional $$ for Intel NIC

+ 5 Billion for this mobo.

Also, adding the second nic to a "roll your own" esxi CD is a walk in the park!

I've created a custom esxi 4.1 install iso for the mobo in about 5 min's which caters for the "unsupported" Intel 82579LM nic. Now, both nic's will work from day 1.

Followed this guide and used this oem.tgz.

Basically you just fire up Ubuntu, download the script, the esxi iso from vmware, the oem.tgz and slap them all into the one directory and run the script. Done.


Also, personally, I would not and did not go 1068's (even though I have 4 of them on the shelf) as they do not handle 3TB drives. Go a 2008 controller...ie. M1015's flashed with LSI firmware...cheap and good.
Click to expand...

I am familiar with the esx 4 fix, but I don't think it has been resolved for 5 yet. I had already purchased a M1015 for $50 and flashed the firmware.

PigLover said:
Yup. More specifically, exactly one of the X8 series boards - the X8SIA. The other boards in that series did not have this problem (they also didn't tend to have very many PCIe ports available either...).

It appears that the SM X9SCL+-F is a perfect board for the OPs application, though I have to admit I do not have direct first hand experience with it. Make sure you look at the one with both the "+" and "-" in the model number as the other one without the "+" has two difference NIC chips and one of the NICs does not play nice with ESXi.
Click to expand...

I had looked at this board. Yes, it would resolve the NIC issue (+) but I lose a PCIe slot and 2x SATA III slots (one of them I will use for the boot disk/OI datastore).

I think i am going to pull the trigger on the following config:
1x SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O
1x Intel Xeon E3-1230 / 3.2 GHz processor
4x Kingston ValueRAM memory - 4 GB - DIMM 240-pin - DDR3
5x HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 (0F12117) 2TB 32MB
1x Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
1x Sony Optiarc AD-7710H - DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM drive - Serial ATA
1x Norco RPC-4220 4U Rackmount Server Case
1x SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold ((SS-650KM Active PFC F3))
3x Scythe SY1225SL12H 120mm "Slipstream" Case Fan
2x Noctua NF-R8 Raised-Blade design and SSO Bearing Fan_ Retail
2x NORCO C-SFF8087-D SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 Internal Multilane SAS Cable - OEM
2x NORCO C-P1T7 4 Pin Molex 1 Male to 7 Female Power Extension Splitter Cable - OEM
1x GELID Solutions 350 mm PWM Y Cable Model CA-PWM
 
that's basically what I run. very nice. just be aware 64gb is pretty small for a datastore...and as theother guys pointed out, no value really if you are just running one vm on it....just get a laptop drive instead.

the only reason for an ssd for the datastore drive is higher iops if you are using it to store/rum multiplev ms on.
 
davros123 said:
that's basically what I run. very nice. just be aware 64gb is pretty small for a datastore...and as theother guys pointed out, no value really if you are just running one vm on it....just get a laptop drive instead.

the only reason for an ssd for the datastore drive is higher iops if you are using it to store/rum multiplev ms on.
Click to expand...

I was thinking that the 64GB SSD might be on the small side. This bootdrive is for ESX and the OI datastore. I could go with a 128GB SSD but want to keep costs down. Maybe I should just go with the Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 for the boot drive instead.
 
I run a 128gb ssd and it's got solaris, 2 x Win2k and a Linux vm on it...cramped!

I am running the other vm's from the San over iscsi....but am considering moving from the ssd to a laptop drive.
 
Rectal Prolapse said:
I thought someone modified the VMWare Intel NIC driver source to work with the 82579L. Have you guys tried it yet? It was even mentioned in this forum a short time ago.

http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2194&start=130

^^^ port to ESXi5 should be out. EDIT: Oops nope not yet.

In fact, davros mentioned it here (for ESXI 4.1 at least).
Click to expand...

Its actually the 82579LM that is the troublesome NIC chip. The driver is available and can be installed on 4.1. Doable, but a little bit of a PITA.

Nothing for 5.0 yet. The driver install tool is out, but VMWare hasn't released driver souces (yet) so there is nothing to modify. They will release them eventually - they have to since the base driver code is covered by the Linux/GPL. I do find it odd that VMWare fixed 5.0 to add support for various consumer NICs chips (realtek, broadcom, etc) they didn't update to support the Intel variant. Just strange.

Even though support for the oddball NIC is available, if you get the right board from SM then you don't have to worry about it.
 
Last edited:
Hi,
I'm using an Asus P8B WS, everything works smooth and fine it should fit your expectations.

NICs VT-D etc works 100% fine with that board.
 
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