All your X11SSH-F questions answered here!

[Raiz]

As I believe I'm the first person to get the X11SSH-F board up and running with a Skylake processor (Merry Christmas to me!), I'm willing to subject myself to any tests you guys would like to do as well as answer any questions people have.

Configuration:
Motherboard: X11SSH-F
Processor: E3-1230v5
RAM: 2x Samsung 16GB DDR4-2133 M391A2K43BB1-CPB (32GB total)
HDD: 4x WD Enterprise 2TB, 2x Samsung 2TB
Raid Config: RaidZ2 with the 6 HDDs, 7TB available storage
Boot: Crucial M4 128GB SSD
OS: FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201512121950
PSU: Seasonic G-series 650W (overkill, but I found it for the same price as lower watt PSUs)

Initial notes:
1. FreeNAS would not boot from a USB drive. I tried everything I could. It just wouldn't work. I think we need an xHCI update to FreeBSD before it'll work.
2. IPMI worked out of the box. In fact, I never had to apply power to my system and I could log into IPMI. No monitor was ever needed if you understand how to configure your system using IPMI.
3. The onboard video hardware worked great. The E3-1230v5 doesn't have built in video, but it wasn't a problem. I plugged a monitor into the VGA port and watched the system boot with the onboard AST2400 graphics.
4. The Samsung RAM listed above was $106/ea at Superbiiz at booted correctly the first time.
5. One of the enterprise HDDs had bad sectors and had to be replaced. These were well used drives and this was expected. I was alerted to this with the red stop light on the "Alert" icon in FreeNAS.
6. Plex, CouchPotato, and Transmission are running great. I have the system connected to my Amazon Fire TVs throughout the house and am able to stream at least 4 streams so far over my Netgear NightHawk R7000 router.
7. USB mouse and keyboard work fine on first bootup.

That's all I've tested so far. Any questions or things you'd like me to try?

 

[DrKK]

1. FreeNAS would not boot from a USB drive. I tried everything I could. It just wouldn't work. I think we need an xHCI update to FreeBSD before it'll work.

https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/12400

 

[dr_pepper97]

How do you like the board so far? Thinking of going for one for my build.

 

[Raiz]

There really isn't anything not to like. Everything works the way it should. It would be nice to have the boards with a built in 10gb enet, but they aren't released yet. Installation was easy. IPMI worked out of the box.

 

[cyberjock]

I would be curious to know if FreeNAS 10 can install and run. It is beta, so not going to be good for production use. But if it installs and runs from USB that would be interesting to know.

It would also be interesting to know if the IPMI feature in the WebGUI works in FreeNAS 9.

Is the networking stuff stable?

 

[Ericloewe]

I would be curious to know if FreeNAS 10 can install and run.

I'll be sure to try that on my X11SSM-F when it gets here. XHCI is at the top of my list of things to try out.

It would also be interesting to know if the IPMI feature in the WebGUI works in FreeNAS 9.

You'd think so, it's an ASpeed 2400, like the X10s.

Is the networking stuff stable?

I certainly hope so, they're Intel i210s, just like the X10s (no i219s on X11 boards, they're all dual-i210).

 

[Heras]

Raiz,

I'm also looking to move from synology to Freenas with a config based on this motherboard together with the intel Xeon E3-1260L V5 or the E3-1240 V5.

Powerconsumption is also important for me so can you tell me how much your system consumes?

Thx,
H.

 

[Ericloewe]

E3-1260L V5

Don't expect that one to be any more efficient than a non-L model.

 

[Raiz]

Powerconsumption is also important for me so can you tell me how much your system consumes?

Sure, as long as you don't mind the reading coming from a Kill-A-Watt meter. I'll plug it in tonight and see what she reads.

 

[Heras]

Sure, as long as you don't mind the reading coming from a Kill-A-Watt meter. I'll plug it in tonight and see what she reads.

Great, then I have a reference!
Thanks

 

[Raiz]

It's sitting at a constant 55W idle, 78W while playing 2 1080p movies in PLEX, downloading a few torrents, and copying some files. You should be able to use the system description in my signature to backwards rationalize which pieces of my system are consuming what amount of power.
6 HDDs, 1 SSD, 2 sticks RAM, 1230v5 proc, etc etc...

If nothing was downloading I would assume an idle draw of a bit less power than the 55W I measured.

 

[Heras]

Thanks a lot for the info!

 

[religiouslyconfused]

Great info in this thread. I am in the planning stages of building a FreeNAS.

 

[zeroprime]

How did you go about the install? Did you load the image on your SSD and then install to the SSD after the installer loaded up? I just received the X11SSM-F and IPMI worked great on the board right out of the box but I have been having issues getting the installation started.

Install from USB obviously didn't work (I didn't even see where xHCI was an option that could be disabled in the X11 BIOS). When booting with a lone SSD, FreeNAS install will load from the image on the drive, but when I tell it to Install/Upgrade, the system states there are No drives available. But going to Shell, "camcontrol devlist" identifies my SSD at scbus0 target0 lun0 (ada0, pass0).

I think my next step is moving which SATA port the drive is plugged in to.

 

[DrKK]

How did you go about the install? Did you load the image on your SSD and then install to the SSD after the installer loaded up? I just received the X11SSM-F and IPMI worked great on the board right out of the box but I have been having issues getting the installation started.

Install from USB obviously didn't work (I didn't even see where xHCI was an option that could be disabled in the X11 BIOS). When booting with a lone SSD, FreeNAS install will load from the image on the drive, but when I tell it to Install/Upgrade, the system states there are No drives available. But going to Shell, "camcontrol devlist" identifies my SSD at scbus0 target0 lun0 (ada0, pass0).

I think my next step is moving which SATA port the drive is plugged in to.

You're having a misunderstanding.

To install FreeNAS, you need *TWO* devices, the device which boots the install .ISO, ****AND**** a second device as a target.

As we have stated many times, the X11 series (and really, the entire Skylake universe) does not support pre-xHCI stuff AT ALL, meaning, the only USB you can even *have* on the platform is xHCI, so naturally, you can't turn it off in BIOS. This is why there is no USB booting, at the moment, for FreeNAS, on the 1151 socket stuff.

In order to make this happen, you need a bootable device for the FreeNAS installation software, *AND* a bootable device for the installed FreeNAS, plugged into SATA ports. (Of course, once you're installed, the FreeNAS installation device is removed permanently).

 

[Ericloewe]

An interesting suggestion someone provided was to add a not-quite-el-cheapo USB 2.0 controller card, which naturally uses EHCI. Not sure you can easily find one of those, though.

 

[Raiz]

How did you go about the install?

As DrKK said, you need 2 devices. I did the full install on my Windows 7 computer because it was easier to get the install onto the SSD for me.

1. I burned the FreeNAS ISO file to a CD, and powered down my computer.
2. Then I opened up the case to my Win7 computer and plugged in the SSD (my future FreeNAS boot drive) into a SATA port on the motherboard.
3. I booted the my Win7 computer to the CD and followed the install steps from one of the youtube guides. Make sure you select your installation drive to be the SSD.
4. After install, power down your computer, and take the SSD over to your FreeNAS computer and boot it up! If it's connected to your router it should automatically give you an IP that you can use to bring up the GUI and finish setup.

 

[zeroprime]

You're having a misunderstanding.

To install FreeNAS, you need *TWO* devices, the device which boots the install .ISO, ****AND**** a second device as a target.

Ah thanks, that's a huge help. Total newbie mistake. And thanks for the clarification on the pre-xHCI support.

 

[DrKK]

An interesting suggestion someone provided was to add a not-quite-el-cheapo USB 2.0 controller card, which naturally uses EHCI. Not sure you can easily find one of those, though.

I like that idea Eric. SOmething like this: http://www.microcenter.com/product/278531/51_Port_USB_20_PCI_Adapter

 

[DrKK]

Ah thanks, that's a huge help. Total newbie mistake. And thanks for the clarification on the pre-xHCI support.

It is my pleasure to assist you sir.