Supermicro X10SL7-F $63

[Cybertron]

Finally got mine up and running and was pleasantly surprised to find the onboard LSI controller is a 2308 Mustang which is a 6GBs part. For some reason I thought it was a lessor 3GBs controller. I went with 16Gb of UDIMM RAM which I already had on hand instead of spending more money on 8GB modules. It'll do the job. All is well, for 50 bucks it's a steal.

I thought this board can only take 32GB of ram, 16GB sticks actually work?

 

[Aestr]

I thought this board can only take 32GB of ram, 16GB sticks actually work?

I read it as 4x4GB DIMMs

 

[techtoys]

One lot left 2 x 8G for $63
8G are more than 2 x 4G sticks I find.
You can pick up 4G cheaper from people that upgrade their Mac and want to dump the original RAM.
... got lucky on this board and found 4x4G for $25 total.

 

[Fritz]

I read it as 4x4GB DIMMs

Yup, this is correct.

 

[Cybertron]

I read it as 4x4GB DIMMs

Yup, this is correct.

And that would make more sense, lol.

I'm considering using this as a FreeNAS server to replace my X9 setup with dual CPU. I just dont need the power and would like to reduce my electrical spend. My only concern is that i have 64gb now, and i run 8x8TB... Can anyone comment if i'm making a bad choice, do i Really need 1gb per tb as they suggest?

 

[pricklypunter]

And that would make more sense, lol.

I'm considering using this as a FreeNAS server to replace my X9 setup with dual CPU. I just dont need the power and would like to reduce my electrical spend. My only concern is that i have 64gb now, and i run 8x8TB... Can anyone comment if i'm making a bad choice, do i Really need 1gb per tb as they suggest?

I don't know about FreeNas memory management, or what you are doing with it, but I run ZoL on a Debian Buster VM at home with 12GB of RAM allocated for my storage needs. I am also running 8 x 8TB HGST disks plus 8 x 3TB HGST disks. I have no issues at all with that. I found the sweet spot for me to be 8-12GB, but I have used 6GB in the past without issue when I needed a little extra for something else, so I think you'll be fine unless you are doing something else on FreeNas, beside using it as a filer, that's memory intensive

 

[Markess]

I just ordered bought one of these, same vendor. $48 was autorejected, $50 was autoaccepted. So the going BO price doesn't seem to have changed.

For the folks that bought these, were there any irregularities or gotchas in setting it up? If it's not already on it, I'll be putting IT firmware on the SAS 2308 controller. Is one firmware better than another for this (i.e. 9207 vs 9217 vs etc.)?

Thanks

 

[ajs]

I just ordered bought one of these, same vendor. $48 was autorejected, $50 was autoaccepted. So the going BO price doesn't seem to have changed.

For the folks that bought these, were there any irregularities or gotchas in setting it up? If it's not already on it, I'll be putting IT firmware on the SAS 2308 controller. Is one firmware better than another for this (i.e. 9207 vs 9217 vs etc.)?

Thanks

No gotchyas really... just update the SAS, BIOS and BMC firmwares to the latest. Also, this board will only take unbuffered ecc memory.. so keep that in mind. ECC udimms carry a bit of a premium and are harder to come by. Non-ecc udimms or rdimms won't work.

 

[Fritz]

I believe it is already IT.

 

[Markess]

No gotchyas really... just update the SAS, BIOS and BMC firmwares to the latest. Also, this board will only take unbuffered ecc memory.. so keep that in mind. ECC udimms carry a bit of a premium and are harder to come by. Non-ecc udimms or rdimms won't work.

Thanks! Its replacing an X9SCL + HBA, and I was going to try to reuse the memory out of that. At 1333, its at the low end of the range for this board, but I'm hoping it works. DDR3 ECC UDIMMS are still crazy expensive for how old they are, so I figured I'd try to reuse what I had first!

 

[Wolfstar]

In all honesty, I would not bother with running the onboard 2308 in IT Mode; the default IR Mode firmware works just fine and automatically passes through any unconfigured disks to the OS. I'm running mine exactly like that with 3x 4-disk RAIDZ1 VDEVs with no issues whatsoever.

 

[Markess]

Good to know thanks! I've got zero experience with LSI newer than the SAS2008 chips, so every bit of advice there is helpful to me.

 

[Wolfstar]

Good to know thanks! I've got zero experience with LSI newer than the SAS2008 chips, so every bit of advice there is helpful to me.

No problem. I will note that I did flash mine to IT mode, but it was flaky for some reason (I think I used a generic LSI firmware) so I ended up flashing back to the IR firmware that Supermicro supplied, and it worked great.

 

[Markess]

Thanks. I'll have to see what it comes with. If its old firmware and needs updating, it looks like SM has both IR & IT firmware on their website. Maybe I can flip a coin

www.supermicro.com - /wftp/driver/SAS/LSI/2308/Firmware/

 

[TXAG26]

The IT firmware linked above is the most recent version (it is from 2016). LSI/Broadcom/Avago have that same version on their support site.
FWIW, I have two of these X10SL7-F boards with the LSI 2308 onboard and cross-flashed both of them, plus some external adapters, all to IT mode and have had zero issues with them.

 

[raiderj]

These are great boards. I've been running one for years now, hosting FreeNAS. It's been rock solid. Buying one myself, if nothing else just to have a backup board.

Years ago I ran ESXi on this board, passing in the onboard SAS controller to a FreeNAS VM. Then had VM's for my other Plex-related apps. More than enough horsepower for a nice all-in-one homelab server.

 

[Markess]

Oh well. After a couple days without shipping, the seller just notified me that all their remaining boards have tested bad and I'll get a refund. Next lowest price for U.S. based seller on Ebay, Google Market, etc. is $279 (same seller actually but new). No way I'm spending that much on Haswell gear.

Guess I'll have to go on the hunt for something else. Too bad though, I'd already bought the I/O plate and cables

 

[raiderj]

Oh well. After a couple days without shipping, the seller just notified me that all their remaining boards have tested bad and I'll get a refund. Next lowest price for U.S. based seller on Ebay, Google Market, etc. is $279 (same seller actually but new). No way I'm spending that much on Haswell gear.

Guess I'll have to go on the hunt for something else. Too bad though, I'd already bought the I/O plate and cables

Had the same experience. Guessing the seller realized they could raise their prices and decided to cancel the sales. They are good boards, but considering their age, I would go for something newer if prices go over $100.

What's everyone use for boards to run FreeNAS? Onboard SAS is nice, but add-on controllers are pretty cheap these days(?)

 

[Markess]

Had the same experience. Guessing the seller realized they could raise their prices and decided to cancel the sales. They are good boards, but considering their age, I would go for something newer if prices go over $100.

What's everyone use for boards to run FreeNAS? Onboard SAS is nice, but add-on controllers are pretty cheap these days(?)

Yeah, it was definitely a good price. On the other hand, they only had a few left, out of over 50 to start with, so maybe they really were all bad?

This was supposed to be a relatively cheap/easy upgrade for me. Current NAS is Sandy Bridge components + HBA running Unraid in a case with a 15 bay non-expander backplane. Besides being newer, I was hoping this board would help with "taming" the SATA cable bundle. I tend to get pretty OCD about cable managment

 

[zack$]

Oh well. After a couple days without shipping, the seller just notified me that all their remaining boards have tested bad and I'll get a refund. Next lowest price for U.S. based seller on Ebay, Google Market, etc. is $279 (same seller actually but new). No way I'm spending that much on Haswell gear.

Guess I'll have to go on the hunt for something else. Too bad though, I'd already bought the I/O plate and cables

Alternative?: Inventec B420GA0 1150 motherboard w/e3-1220 v3/16GB ECC/82599 10g/LSI 2008 SAS | eBay

I have this board and it is rock solid. Intel 10g nic that does sr-iov on ESXI 6.7 and 7.0. + sas2008. The pcie slot is 4x off the PCH though.