Pretty well actually. I have ESXi running well, FreeNAS and Sophos both running on top of it. My current system consists of the X11SSM-F, 32 GB RAM, Intel Dual Port NIC card, two IOCREST four port SATA add-on cards, 256GB SSD (boot device), 120GB SSD (VM storage), 1TB 2.5" HDD (VM Storage), and my six WD Red drives forming my FreeNAS pool.
I have already placed my order for an additional 32GB RAM and it should arrive Friday.
So when I started this endevour I had no idea how difficult it would be to get things to work properly and I still haven't configured everything yet. Part of the issues had to do with the X11SSM-F and Skylake CPU being so new that ESXi didn't work properly until only a recent VMware upgrade. Other issues were my learning how to make ESXi do what I want. I started my installation using two old hard drives and created a FreeNAS system using a mirrored pair and placed some files on it. Then I tested booting and shutting down and rebooting the FreeNAS VM to ensure it actually shuts down properly before ESXi turns it off.
I have put a fair amount of time into this rig and testing it to ensure it operates and my data is as safe as it can be.
As for the hardware configuration... The 256GB SSD is my OS drive and hold ESXi, the FreeNAS VM (8GB), and Sophos VM (80GB). Additionally I have a 120GB SSD and 1TB HDD for additional VM storage. All these drives are connected to the MB SATA connectors. The six WD hard drives are connected to the two IOCrest four port add-on cards which are in pass-thru in ESXi. This means I don't need specific drivers for these add-on cards to make FreeNAS work. I have a single Intel Dual Port NIC installed as well which I'm using for the Sophos interface, well for the WAN connection.
Throughput for my FreeNAS is similar to my standalone system while using a common Ethernet port, the throughput moves up and down from about 80Mb/sec to 105Mb/sec and I'm certain this have to do with the E1000 NIC emulation going on. To be honest, I'm actually fine with the performance.
Sophos appears to be working fine as well.
So once I get the rest of my RAM and run MemTest86 for a few days (yet again), then I will finalize the build, button up the case, cross my fingers that it all stays working.
Well that is my update.