- NVME and SATA ports - Supports ECC ram with Ryzen 9 - Turn a desktop cpu with ECC into a super server for cheap - I own 8 of them
Tons of IO ports and storage options
- Fits 12 U.2/SATA HDD in the front. Most 1U servers only have 10. - Three available PCIe slots plus one OCP 3.0 slot. Many other 1U NVMe servers require the use of some PCIe slots to serve the backplate, leaving you with only one or even no available PCIe slot.
It's power-efficient and more than powerful enough for a small- to medium-sized business router/firewall appliance. Could also make a great low-powered VM node for things that don't need a lot of CPU. Dedicated IPMI network port means you don't need a direct KVM connection nor will you chew up a regular network port for system management duties. The 4x onboard Intel-based NIC ports are nice for router/firewall duty. Those same NIC ports can be trunked/aggregated for VM duty, as well.
Ordered this model based on the desire to optimize power consumption, noise, and heat management within my environment. The support for the latest Skylake Xeon E3 v5 CPUs, combined with flexible disk configuration options, an expansion slot, and up to 64GB of RAM makes for a home-friendly virtualization host. The SuperMicro IPMI/KVM solution offers all of the necessary functionality for setup and management without the expensive licenses normally associated with other brands/manufacturers. Unit fits flawlessly in standard 2 and 4 post racks. Exceptionally quiet compared to other 1U servers. Value proposition for case, motherboard, power supply and heatsink included with this kit cannot be beat!
I've had this server running a bare metal install of pfSense 2.4.4-p2 (current as of this review) for a couple of weeks now. I added a 256GB Samsung SM961 M.2 NVMe SSD and a pair of 8GB ECC DIMMs. Rock solid. Running Suricata in in-line mode on multiple interfaces, Squid w/ClamAV, OpenVPN server, and a few other bits. Plenty of CPU to handle my current load with lots available for future bandwidth increases or more features. The PSU wires are well managed in the box I received. No issues with them rubbing the closest DIMM. I had seen a review on another site from a user complaining about this. Maybe SuperMicro updated their build process to better manage the wiring between the time of that review and when my box was assembled.
+ Compact form factor, good quality + Great specs/capacity + Plenty of network interfaces + IPMI
Small form factor. Low power consumption. 6 onboard NIC's, 2 SFP+ ports and 1 IPMI. Factory installed processor and heat sink. Plenty of fans for cooling (including installed peripheral cards). Reasonably quiet after boot. High value/ high ROI when compared to other competitive security gateway platforms.
silent, runs cool, easy to build, front to back cooling, top mount 900 watt power supply, perfect size midtower, lots of room, the performance of a HP z840 and a 10th the price, and kicks but*. Build it - don't mess with it - it will run forever.