Slightly off topic -
Rimblock - how are you finding the S1200BTL, i'm in the process of speccing a whitebox ESXi build and this board keeps popping up.
I think we are pretty much off topic already, sorry OP. May be worth starting up a generic ESXi thread as there are clearly a number of people using it in home and enterprise.
Back to your question....
I like the BTL in a number of ways. You get the basics and then can choose to add on or not. It comes with AMT 7 (IPMI) but not KVM. Basic KVM is an add-on and KVM with dedicated NIC is another add-on. One other item of note is that you can add a SAS daughter card which does not take up a motherboard slot, has 4 sas ports with differing abilities (depending on which of the 4, IIRC, sas addon cards you choose). This is great for putting in a 1U case with 4 drives. The SAS add-on cards are cheaper than a comparable PCIe SAS card with the same abilities (i.e. the IBM M1015 or Intel equiv) and leave the motherboard slot free for a nic or something else in a 1U.
Mine is running happily with a IBM M1015 (flashed to a LSi 9211-8i), a LSI 3081E-R, An Intel ET quad (found out passthrough does not work with this card
), Intel CT nic, Intel GT nic. All are working fine.
Now for the down side. The rear ports for the board are right on the edge of the ATX I/O chassis cut out section. For putting in a case which takes a standard ATX I/O shield, this is fine but putting it in to a 1U case can prove to be problematic. I put it in a 1U
Supermicro 813MTQ-600CM case and the motherboard VGA/NIC ports were hard against the side / bottom of the I/O rear hole, so much so that attaching a VGA cable bends the port up a little. Using washers to raise the board up a little may help. The real kicker is that Intel do not supply a 1U I/O shield for this board either with the board or standalone. They do provide the board in their own 1U chassis as a all in one unit but they do not sell the chassis alone and the I/O holes are stamped out of the back of the chassis rather than it using an I/O shield. I had to make a custom rear shield for this combination.
So, in conclusion, great for a standard board you can add options to if you need them. Great for a 1U system with the SAS daughterboard but need to think about the rear I/O port shield. Lots for expansion possibilities with the number of available slots. ESXi certified. Both onboard nics are supported by ESXi but only one is supported for the ESXi management network.
Other alternatives I have build with include the Supermicro X9SCi-LN4F (4 network ports fully ESXi supported inc management network for all) which is in the first screenshot posted above. Supermicro X9SCM-F also works fine. The difference with Supermicro is that you get all the features with the board (and pay in the initial price) with no up/downgrade options afterwards to tailor to your specific needs.
Note, 8GB Unbuffered ECC ram prices have dropped a great deal recently and are pretty easy to get hold of, at least where I am.
RB
