Supermicro X7SPA L/H/HF ATOM serverboards (Level 1 Tested)

[Rajahal]

I found that due to the peculiar PCIe slot position, I had to unscrew the mounting bracket on the card and flip it to the other side to get a better alignment with the case slot.

 

That's a good thing to point out, I had to do the same.  I was stumped for a minute before I figured that out.

[Auggie]

 

EDIT: FYI, I also got my AOC-SASLP-MV8 card and other than the "normal-sized" backplane not able to fully seat down (tho the board is fully implanted into the PCIe slot), the mobo booted up and recognized the card immediately and UnRAID saw it and its attached drives too.  Truly plug-n-play, which was my hope!  It does take a bit longer to fully boot to UnRAID, but now I can expand up to 14 drives if and when the need arises!

 

Hi Auggie,

 

I'm about to build a similar system to yours.  I have the X7SPA-HF, and I'm considering getting the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 as well.  I'm a bit confused about how this add on card works...  Are the ports on the card SAS or SATA, it seems some secondary board is necessary for SATA?  Did you have to install any driver for this to work w/ unRAID?  Did you add this card in later, or have it installed from the beginning.  Any other useful info?

 

The ports on the AOC-SASLP-MV8 are electrically compatible with both SAS and SATA drives; you just need the appropriate breakout cable to attach it as the card uses mini-SAS connectors.  The cable I got was a Tripp Lite 18IN Internal SAS Cable Mini SAS SFF-8087/SATA 7PIN.  There are 2 mini-SAS connectors and each can connect up to 4 drives, so you would need 2 breakout cables if you are going to connect more than 4 drives to the card or want to spread them evenly across the two mini-SAS connectors.  Everything worked out of the box with no problems.

 

No driver installation is necessary as it's part of the unRAID package; this is the primary reason why I bought the AOC-SASLP-MV8 as it has been "blessed" by unRAID.  And yes, I added this card later after I already had my unRAID up and running, though I was still in the process of copying my data over to the drives.

 

This is truly a plug-n-play experience.  Nothing needs to be configured.  Drives connected to the card will show up just like any other drives connected to onboard SATA ports.

[rassi]

Any tips for this?

 

First i got problems with SO-DIMMs, board just beebs.

, then i noticed this thread and i definetly wasnt first one. New SO-DIMMs and i got

MB started, start was always slow, about 10 secs before display gets signal and wakes.

 

Then connected 4x ´Green´ SATA HDD and 2.5" HDD from laptop, booted to Ubuntu and

created RAID5 array, i did installtion in few days, some times i did got problems to boot MB at all, it did´t

just say nothing, then some rearrange with HDD power cables and voila system was up and running.

 

Then went a day or two and i want to make final software installations and now motherboard is complete dead, it just don´t say anything, no LED´s no nothing, expect keyboard light flashes ones after connect power cable.

 

Tested also with another PSU, no help.  Does anyone has some tip?

 

I did try to clear CMOS also, AC cable away, battery away and shorted those pads on motherboard...no help..

 

Is quality of supermicro this bad?

 

 

edit: There is now connected only ATX power cable and 4-pin alongside it.

[DingHo]

Hi All,

 

Just an update that I've got my new system (mostly) up and running.  I was finally able to pick up the Lian Li PC-Q08 that I've been waiting quite some time to become available here.

 

My system consist of:

 

SuperMicro X7SPA-HF

2GB Kingston RAM (whatever was mentioned earlier)

Lian Li PC-Q08

Corsair 400W (although modular PSU would have certainly been handy for this small case)

2x WD EARS 2TB

1x WD EADS 2TB

1x WD ?? 1TB

 

Drive temps ~37-41C while writing

Transfer rates of ~50MB/s (w/o Parity)

Parity build of 50+MB/s

 

Currently parity is quietly building in the background while flawlessly streaming to my WDTV. 

 

Anything else I should do besides running smartctl on each drive before adding my old data disk to my unRAID array?

 

Thanks!

[Joe L.]

Hi All,

 

Just an update that I've got my new system (mostly) up and running.  I was finally able to pick up the Lian Li PC-Q08 that I've been waiting quite some time to become available here.

 

My system consist of:

 

SuperMicro X7SPA-HF

2GB Kingston RAM (whatever was mentioned earlier)

Lian Li PC-Q08

Corsair 400W (although modular PSU would have certainly been handy for this small case)

2x WD EARS 2TB

1x WD EADS 2TB

1x WD ?? 1TB

 

Drive temps ~37-41C while writing

Transfer rates of ~50MB/s (w/o Parity)

Parity build of 50+MB/s

 

Currently parity is quietly building in the background while flawlessly streaming to my WDTV. 

 

Anything else I should do besides running smartctl on each drive before adding my old data disk to my unRAID array?

 

Thanks!

Yes... run the preclear_disk.sh script on it.

 

If you do not, your array will be off-line as it clears the drive... AND it will not exercise (pre-read/post-read) the drive to have it re-allocate any un-readable sectors.

 

If you pre-clear a drive, the array will only be off-line for a few minutes.  (The time needed to power down to install it, and reboot, and then the time to stop the array and assign it, and re-start the array)

 

The preclear_disk.sh runs smart reports before and after the clearing process and shows you the "diff" between them.

 

Joe L.

 

Joe L.

[arnold76]

Curious if anyone has had success running in S3 sleep mode + wake on USB with an APC UPS? I'd like the APCUPS software to wake my server from sleep via USB, and power down safely in the event of a power failure/low battery event. From what I gather, the server has to be always ON for the UPS to properly communicate the shut-down command - any thoughts?

[Joe L.]

Curious if anyone has had success running in S3 sleep mode + wake on USB with an APC UPS? I'd like the APCUPS software to wake my server from sleep via USB, and power down safely in the event of a power failure/low battery event. From what I gather, the server has to be always ON for the UPS to properly communicate the shut-down command - any thoughts?

I don't think the USB communications from the UPS will wake the server, but you can always with a wall-wart and a small relay fake a RI signal on a serial port.  Most BIOS that support WOL will support a wake-on-ringing

[herman82]

Anyone else have a problem with the chassis intrusion sensor? I have a Chenbro ES34169 with a intrusion switch - but the senor on the mb gives me a warning when the case i closed, and not when its opened. I have tried to turn the connector upside down with no result... are there different types of intrusion switches?

[BRiT]

I don't even use the intrusion detection switch on my Chenbro ES34169. Problem solved. 

[Ford Prefect]

A new Atom board (X7SPE-HF) just popped up on the supermicro site: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/

 

The only difference that i could find with the X7SPA-HF vs X7SPE-HF is that the new board is +- 2 cm longer.

Looks like they moved some stuff from near the memory slots to the bottom.

I can only guess, but this might result in a pcb with less layers (cheaper to produce).

 

The boards are both mentioned in the same user manual: http://supermicro.com/manuals/motherboard/ICH9/MNL-1166.pdf

 

...and here comes the next one, based on the D525 processor, here

Looks like it has all the features from its predecessors,

but runs at 1.8GHz compared to 1.66GHz of the D510 (same TDP of 13W)

and supports DDR3-800 RAMs only.

[Simon]

I'd been meaning to monitor my set-up with a kill-a-watt and I finally got around to doing it last night - the results are pretty much the same as the 'official' findings in the first post of this thread.

 

I have the X7SPA-HF-O with 4GB of RAM (2 sticks of Corsair PC2-5300 2GB DDR2-667) and a Antec Earthwatts 430w PSU.  The case has either one or two fans (I forget...).

 

Anyway, the kill-a-watt shows the server uses 29watts with all the disks spun down, which I think is pretty good.

 

I'll leave the kill-a-watt connected and next time I do a parity check I'll report the numbers (5 disks including the parity drive).

[MvL]

I did not read this topic completely, but has someone ever thought about using 18 ports (6 ports onto mobo) controller with this mobo in combination with the Norco RPC-4224?

[theone]

I did not read this topic completely, but has someone ever thought about using 18 ports (6 ports onto mobo) controller with this mobo in combination with the Norco RPC-4224?

 

Where do you find a 18 port controller?

 

[MvL]

I did not read this topic completely, but has someone ever thought about using 18 ports (6 ports onto mobo) controller with this mobo in combination with the Norco RPC-4224?

 

Where do you find a 18 port controller?

 

 

Did a quick search, but can find any.  :'(  Mostly 8 ports. Only sas expanders have more ports.

[jtown]

Honestly, if you're planning a build that has a good chance of growing beyond 14 2tb hard drives, this is the wrong motherboard to start with.  Best to start with one that has 8 on-board ports and a pair of x4 or better PCIe slots and balance the drives across the built in ports and a pair of 8-port Supermicro cards.  If you can survive with a mere 26tb of fault-tolerant storage, the X7SPA's a great platform. 

[MvL]

Honestly, if you're planning a build that has a good chance of growing beyond 14 2tb hard drives, this is the wrong motherboard to start with.  Best to start with one that has 8 on-board ports and a pair of x4 or better PCIe slots and balance the drives across the built in ports and a pair of 8-port Supermicro cards.  If you can survive with a mere 26tb of fault-tolerant storage, the X7SPA's a great platform. 

 

Thanks for your input jtown.

 

I probably will purchase a supermicro motherboard which can hold more expansion cards. It bit pity the X7SPA has only one expansion slot.

[stanger89]

Hey all, I haven't posted much (anything) here before, but after a stint experimenting with unRAID under ESXi, and abandoning the endeavor (for other reasons), I purchased an X7SPA-HF for my "production" unRAID build.  Unfortunately I've had a bit of trouble getting it going.  I fear either a bad board or incompatible memory from what I've gleaned from this thread, but I'm hoping there's something else I can try that I haven't thought of.

 

The memory I got is Kingston KVR667D2S5/2G, which is listed on Kingston's site specifically for this board, and also mentioned previously in this thread.

 

What I'm seeing is basically nothing, no video, no apparent post activity.  I did (I think) get IPMI going, as I can connect to it and power the system up and down via the IPMI app, but the KVM console reports "No Signal".

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[aiden]

During post you should hear diagnostic beeps that indicate status, and you should be seeing multiple lights on the board.  The appendix in the manual can explain what they all mean, but basically if everything is green and everything sounds right, then it's not your RAM.  Another easy way to test your RAM is just use one stick at a time.  It's very rare to have two bad sticks at once.  Remember this board has a separate video controller, so it is plausible that it is bad.  If you identify it's not the RAM, you should contact SM support and see what they say.

[aiden]

I probably will purchase a supermicro motherboard which can hold more expansion cards. It bit pity the X7SPA has only one expansion slot.

My next unRAID board will probably be the X8SIL-F.  It has been well vetted on the forum, and has all the same features with more expandability and more horsepower.  Of course, it has double the power consumption as well...

 

 

[MvL]

My next unRAID board will probably be the X8SIL-F.  It has been well vetted on the forum, and has all the same features with more expandability and more horsepower.  Of course, it has double the power consumption as well...

 

Yes a very interesting board. This is from X8SIL-F topic...

I measured power consumption with a Kill a Watt. At idle with all drives spun down it was at 48W. This is with a G6950 CPU, 550W 80+ Corsair PSU, IPMI enabled and a AOC-SASLP-MV8 card.

 

I think this configuration has a acceptable power consumption. I very curious about the power consumption if you put the i3-530 in this board.

 

Edit:the X7SPA use 53 W all drives spin down (12 drives, AOC-SASLP-MV8, 4GB).

[Ford Prefect]

[...] I very curious about the power consumption if you put the i3-530 in this board.

 

..Here's an interesting article around the X8SIL-F and power consumption with i3-530, XEON, IPMI and such.

 

I am also looking into this board with an L3426 XEON in order to (re-)start my virtualization frenzy  

 

Edit: ooups, you already might know about that article...saw it's been mentioned in the X8SIL-F tread here in the forum 

[aiden]

I think this configuration has a acceptable power consumption. I very curious about the power consumption if you put the i3-530 in this board.

 

Edit:the X7SPA use 53 W all drives spin down (12 drives, AOC-SASLP-MV8, 4GB).

Ah yes, but the details point to a 20W increase in power consumption for 12 drives even when the drives are spun down, over a system with no drives.  So really it's a 34W system (with one Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8) before you add the drives.  That's your baseline.  Doing the math for the drives you get about 2W per drive or so.

 

From the X8SIL-F thread:

Configuration:

 

Motherboard - Supermicro X8SIL-F

Processor     - Intel Xeon X3430

RAM            - Crucial 2x2GB CT25672BA1339 Unregistered ECC

SATA Card   - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Hard drives  - 3x 500GB Seagate drives, 2x 320 Seagate drives (7200rpm I believe), 1x 2TB WD20EARS green drive

Seagates are in the array, and the WD is outside the array for now.

PSU            - Corsair HX620W, rated up to 85% efficiency as per Corsair's spec sheet

 

OFF                       - 4W

Start                     - 235W (this is the highest spike I registered), then dropped off to 125W during post

UnRaid boot            - 139-141W

UnRaid Booted         - 95-97W, all 6 drives spun up

All drives spun down - 66W

This configuration is 6 drives, and although they're all different types, you can still estimate that you're getting about 12W or so when spun down.  That means this system is probably around 55W without drives.  That's about 20W more than the Atom.  Of course, we're talking about less than double the power consumption of the board for 6 times the performance. 

[stanger89]

During post you should hear diagnostic beeps that indicate status, and you should be seeing multiple lights on the board.  The appendix in the manual can explain what they all mean, but basically if everything is green and everything sounds right, then it's not your RAM.  Another easy way to test your RAM is just use one stick at a time.  It's very rare to have two bad sticks at once.  Remember this board has a separate video controller, so it is plausible that it is bad.  If you identify it's not the RAM, you should contact SM support and see what they say.

 

I'd actually started typing a reply a few days ago, but I've been a bit under the weather so never got back to finishing/debugging.

 

I'm afraid to say I feel very much like an idiot right now.  Long story short, as I was getting back to replying, I was thinking I had no way to test my memory, then I remembered my laptop, which has DDR2 800 ram.  As soon as cracked it open I found my problem, and felt like the aforementioned moron.  My ram wasn't seated all the way.  I seated it properly and what do you know, it fired right up.

[aiden]

Lol.  Don't feel too bad.  I did the same thing with the RAM on that board.  You think you have it pushed in all the way when you don't, and it let's you push it down and click even if it's not making contact.

[Spectrum]

I've had mine up and running solid for 2 weeks now for Level 2 test, syslog attached.  Anyone see any bugaboos or things to worry about for Level 2 so far?

syslog-2010-11-21.zip