Ultimate 1u appliance board?

The Spyder

2[H]4U
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
2,628
Check this out:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/QM77/X9SPV-LN4F.cfm

The Supermicro X9SPV-LN4F offers 3rd Gen Core i7 mobile processor, 16GB DDR3 ECC, 4x 1GB ethernet, Sata 3, USB 3.0, and IPMI. I requested a sample board for a project we are working on at work. Can't wait to toss Untangle or PFsense on it. :) The $800 price tag though might be hard to swallow. Hopefully Barracuda and others will switch to it, rather then the MSI crap they use now.
 
Check this out:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/QM77/X9SPV-LN4F.cfm

The Supermicro X9SPV-LN4F offers 3rd Gen Core i7 mobile processor, 16GB DDR3 ECC, 4x 1GB ethernet, Sata 3, USB 3.0, and IPMI. I requested a sample board for a project we are working on at work. Can't wait to toss Untangle or PFsense on it. :) The $800 price tag though might be hard to swallow. Hopefully Barracuda and others will switch to it, rather then the MSI crap they use now.

God damn! Sweet! $$ is pricy though!!
 
The big question is why would you even do that, there are far more limiting issues than CPU such as pf still being single threaded although work is in progress.
//Danne
 
Wish they'd drop the Matrox G200 graphics, although at least HD4000 is an option with this one.
 
Substantial overkill for PFSense unless you're routing for an entire large city.
Unsure of Untangle (Debian) fully supporting that chipset or driver controlleres...so stability may or may not be an issue.
Past experience with Supermicros support isn't that great.
 
Past experience with Supermicros support isn't that great.

I've had some experience with Supermicro support- They don't always come off as professional, but they get the job done. They had an engineer call me back on a very minor case backplane (their somewhat swappable window) issue.
Dell just gives me the run-around and bounces me from one script reader to another. I'm not big enough to make Dell even blink, much less give me meaningful help. At least Supermicro will call me back and help with the issue.
Their documentation can stand to be more clear, but once you are familiar with them, it gets easier.

And to spin this post towards being on topic, it is hard to imagine a base pfSense install being under-powered on any reliable hardware. When you start adding fetures and packages (where many ARE multi-threaded and run accordingly) you spin-up hardware requirements to match. I have a stack of PE1750s I use for pfSense installs and I can't get them to break a sweat. An i7 would be massive overkill.
 
The big question is why would you even do that, there are far more limiting issues than CPU such as pf still being single threaded although work is in progress.
//Danne

This, until pfsense is multi threaded a big ole powerful cpu just isnt needed. I ran gig speeds through a C2D and it didnt even hiccup.

That much horsepower just isnt needed for it. Atoms will do. But I've never been much of a fan of atom's. An i3 runs just as cool, silent, and uses marginally more power at idle. An i3 can also be repurposed. Not much more you can use an Atom for.
 
I've had some experience with Supermicro support- They don't always come off as professional, but they get the job done. They had an engineer call me back on a very minor case backplane (their somewhat swappable window) issue.
Dell just gives me the run-around and bounces me from one script reader to another. I'm not big enough to make Dell even blink, much less give me meaningful help. At least Supermicro will call me back and help with the issue.

Exact opposite for me....took several e-mails just to get one reply out of supermicro..and even then I was basically out of luck...felt like "we got your money no go piss off".

Dell on the other hand...at least with their business grade workstations, laptops, and especially servers...solid help within minutes and I use their support frequently...like at least once a month. Pain free as can be. Less work and effort on my part is better so I can turn around and do billable projects. Sounds like you were dealing with their home grade support...which...in a business should not be.
 
Oh, nice little board.

There's also a couple lower-horsepower variants that have only two ethernet ports that come in at less than $600 (e.g., X9SPV-F-3217UE).

These could also be great for a small ZFS NAS in cases where an Atom-based board just isn't up to the task.

They're also selling them as barebones systems.
 
Exact opposite for me....took several e-mails just to get one reply out of supermicro..and even then I was basically out of luck...felt like "we got your money no go piss off".

Dell on the other hand...at least with their business grade workstations, laptops, and especially servers...solid help within minutes and I use their support frequently...like at least once a month. Pain free as can be. Less work and effort on my part is better so I can turn around and do billable projects. Sounds like you were dealing with their home grade support...which...in a business should not be.

Just goes to show- luck of the draw...lol.
I've dealt with all levels of Dell support, from Home to Enterprise Gold. I recommend to my customers they purchase from the SMB store to get the better support, but I don't have final say. The biggest difference I see between Home and SMB support is SMB is typically North-American based- you still cannot expedite troubleshooting/service call by explaining how you diagnosed the issue and the part you want.
Enterprise Gold support used to allow you to e-mail your troubleshooting, diagnosis, and request a part(s)- delivered next AM. Last time I used Enterprise Gold, It was still a 3-hour phone call to get a new MoBo (not including the required 5-hour self-diagnostic).

I have SMB 3-year Next-Day support on all of my Dell equipment; that does NOT lower the amount of time I spent on the phone. It also did not get me a competent Tech who did not have to ask me to borrow tools and ask for help fixing my Precision M4400.

I live and work in the middle of nowhere; the nearest dispatch center is 3 hours away.

Everyone is going to have a different experience. I'm no Supermicro apologist- I can definitely see how my eventually positive experience would leave a bad taste in one's mouth. Personally I use my own experiences with support to hone/guide my own support. IT is essentially a service industry; anyone wishing success will approach it in that manner.

For the obligatory (somewhat) on-topic post, I'd like to see a top(ish) tier OEM produce a vanilla board- no HDMI, no DVI, no 6-channel sound, and optional video. I think there would be high interest in an i5/AM3 socket board with 2-4 RAM slots, 4-6 SATA RAID 0,1,[10,5] PCI-E x8, Serial port, video optional.
It seems to get one of the above, you wind-up with everythin else.
 
Just goes to show- luck of the draw...lol.
I've dealt with all levels of Dell support, from Home to Enterprise Gold. I recommend to my customers they purchase from the SMB store to get the better support, but I don't have final say. The biggest difference I see between Home and SMB support is SMB is typically North-American based- you still cannot expedite troubleshooting/service call by explaining how you diagnosed the issue and the part you want.
Enterprise Gold support used to allow you to e-mail your troubleshooting, diagnosis, and request a part(s)- delivered next AM. Last time I used Enterprise Gold, It was still a 3-hour phone call to get a new MoBo (not including the required 5-hour self-diagnostic).

I have SMB 3-year Next-Day support on all of my Dell equipment; that does NOT lower the amount of time I spent on the phone. It also did not get me a competent Tech who did not have to ask me to borrow tools and ask for help fixing my Precision M4400.

I live and work in the middle of nowhere; the nearest dispatch center is 3 hours away.

Everyone is going to have a different experience. I'm no Supermicro apologist- I can definitely see how my eventually positive experience would leave a bad taste in one's mouth. Personally I use my own experiences with support to hone/guide my own support. IT is essentially a service industry; anyone wishing success will approach it in that manner.

For the obligatory (somewhat) on-topic post, I'd like to see a top(ish) tier OEM produce a vanilla board- no HDMI, no DVI, no 6-channel sound, and optional video. I think there would be high interest in an i5/AM3 socket board with 2-4 RAM slots, 4-6 SATA RAID 0,1,[10,5] PCI-E x8, Serial port, video optional.
It seems to get one of the above, you wind-up with everythin else.

With Dell I always just use the online chat and within 10 minutes I have a replacement part shipped and here in a day or two. Painless using the online chat. We don't have any real partnership either, we just business grade laptops and desktops and servers.
 
With Dell I always just use the online chat and within 10 minutes I have a replacement part shipped and here in a day or two. Painless using the online chat. We don't have any real partnership either, we just business grade laptops and desktops and servers.

Same here......during the few moments I'm at my office and doing stuff like phone calls or billing or quoting....I'll get Dell Support Chat in my other monitor window..and order up onsite support for my clients. Takes yeah...a whopping 10 minutes...and most importantly to me....I'm doing other work and being productive.

2 days ago late in the afternoon we got a motherboard replacement for a PowerEdge Server in about 5 minutes..the part arrived at our office the next morning. A few weeks ago I have a client in another state...the AC jack on their Latitude laptop was going. 10 minutes of my time on Dell chat...Dell dispatched a tech to go onsite to my client and replaced the motherboard on their laptop. Used Dells onsite techs many times (I'm talking hundreds0...whoever they've contracted with has been good.

And I definitely expedite things by telling them, either on chat, or over the phone, what troubleshooting steps I've taken. SMB and Gold support....or just plain business support. I'm an authorized reseller but I often just use their regular support number/chat.
 
I guess I'm doing something wrong... lol. I use chat too, just to multi-task. I can't order a link to a download in 10 minutes, much less a part. I'll give you one thing- Dell has a whole lot more potential, and when they get it right, they really are a sight to behold.
 
In the past I've had some pretty bad luck with Dell. It makes me really mad when I have to re-troubleshoot everything (or claim to) for a tech, twice, when I already know what's wrong prior to calling - I promise I know better what's wrong than you, Dell guy. I haven't used them in a couple years though.

I have had absolutely stellar support from a Supermicro VAR though. The odd problems I encounter I can either say "I need part X" and I get it overnight, or I can say "WTF is going on, it's doing X" and I get a couple Engineers discussing the problem with me the same call. No bullshit, no questioning my prognosis, no 4-hour turnaround.

I'm sure you could get these boards from a VAR for the same price and have great support. Even if it's a show-stopper, they'll do the dealing with SuperMicro for you.
 
In the past I've had some pretty bad luck with Dell. It makes me really mad when I have to re-troubleshoot everything (or claim to) for a tech, twice, when I already know what's wrong prior to calling - I promise I know better what's wrong than you, Dell guy. I haven't used them in a couple years though.

The guy on the other end of the phone does not know your level of experience or your credentials. For all he knows you could be the secretary.

I have this problem with Verizon. I play around with the router alot, have swpped out pfsense, untangle, and other junk as the router/firewall. Each time I do this it requires a call into support to get them to break my DHCP lease.

Sometimes I'll get someone that will take my word for it. Other times I get the script reader who asks me about the internet lite that my custom router doesnt have lol.

Whatevs, part of dealing with tech support.
 
As for chipset I'm very sure that support on both Linux and FreeBSD is as good as it gets since Intel rarely breaks backwards compatibility/changes how hardware is handled. Looking at server and workstation hardware I'm very pleased with Fujitsu (former Fujitsu Siemens). Generic hardware in terms of implementation (rarely custom solutions) and choice of chipsets/components. Pretty much everything works OOTB in Linux/FreeBSD (BIOS support) and they've very well designed hardware such as cases. Not really what I can say about Dell but from what I gathered they're hard to beat price wise in US/CA. For those wondering why G200 still is used it's for compatibility and due to the fact that not all server CPUs have graphics integrated.
//Danne
 
The guy on the other end of the phone does not know your level of experience or your credentials....Whatevs, part of dealing with tech support.
QFT. I may think I'm being reasonable, they may think I'm the a-hole of the day.
I hate dealing with CentruyLink- they always want you to reset the modem, wiping the bridge mode settings BEFORE even checking on their equipment.
"Hey, I'm seeing a total loss on packets to and from your gateway; my equipment is tested and looking good"
CL- "Yeah, first let's restart every computer in your organization, reset the modem, power-cycle the router for 10 minutes and de-gauss the tape storage."
"Um... just letting you guys know I'm seeing a fault on your network..."
CL"Listen, do you want us to troubleshoot this or not? We can't troubleshoot unless you have ALL your computers in safe mode for at least 20 minutes..."
Click.
 
Back
Top