SUPERMICRO SYS-5015A-EHF-D525 1U Intel Atom D525 Dual Gigabit LAN w/ IPMI Server Barebone

Pros: I purchased this system via buying the motherboard and chassis separately and installed 8 GB of Crucial RAM (CT2KIT51264BC1339) and a 4 GB micro USB flash drive, the latter I purchased at Staples to run the embedded version of PfSense. The system runs like a champ and is an elegant solution . . . except for the heat issue . . .

Cons: As other reviewers have noted, the Atom CPU runs hot without proper chassis ventilation. I could see no point in cooking my motherboard to a slow death, so I came up with my own solution to the problem . . .

Overall Review: Save yourself some aggrivation and DON'T BUY THIS SYSTEM IN THIS CONFIGURATION! Instead, do what I ultimately did in buying the Supermicro CSE-SC510-200B chassis and the Supermicro MBD-X7SPE-HF-D525-O mini-Flex motherboard (be careful not to buy the mini-ITX version) via New Egg as separate items for a little more than the same price as you would pay for the pre-assembled SYS-5015-EHF-D525 system. The CSE-SC510-200B chassis features two cooling fans and is only 1.5 inches deeper than the CSE-SC502L-200B chassis that comes with the system on this page. You will also need a GELID Solutions 350 mm PWM Y Cable Model CA-PWM to run the two system fans off the single CPU fan header on the motherboard. In comparison to the CSE-SC502L-200B chassis included in the SYS-5015-EHF-D525 system, the CSE-SC510-200B chassis runs the system some some 29 (system temp) and 33 (CPU temp) degrees C cooler and fan noise is very low!

Pros: This little supermicro box does everything its supposed to. No complaints here.

Cons: No complaints about the server. However we bought this as part of newegg combo 677077. The combo is for a server, hard drive and memory. You would expect the memory in this combo to be something that would fit this server but it is not. Make sure you read the combo deal closely. We had to return the ram (and the hard drive which was damaged) and re-order the correct ram. Newegg said that just the way the do the combos, they don't always match the parts. Thanks for wasting our time newegg.

Overall Review: Nice server. We added 4G of DDR3 and a 40G SSD to use as a Nagios box and OpenVPN server running on Ubuntu 10.04.

Pros: small, quiet, efficient

Cons: Have not discovered any yet

Overall Review: The RAM modules offered in the bundle with this machine are not compatible with its motherboard. The RAM in the bundle is 240 pin DDR3 whereas the motherboard of this server requires NOECC/NOBUF 800MHz DDR3 SODIMM with 204 pins.

Pros: Super quiet with passive PSU.

Cons: Newegg doesn't sell the PicoPSUs last I checked.

Overall Review: I replaced the built-in PSU with a PicoPSU-80 + 60W Adapter Power Kit and a PCI slot cover for the power feed-through, and the supermicro is (obviously) dead silent now. I've had no issues with stability and temperatures are within range (~60C case, 75C CPU) albeit on the high side. Power drain is now below 20W at idle and mid-twenties on load. The SATA power cable that comes with the PicoPSU only just reaches the HDD mount - it's a little too taut for my likings, but you can pull the same power from the motherboard if you have the proper cable.

Pros: Instead of having all of the junk components that consumer level Intel Atom systems have this server has 2 onboard intel gig nics and uses the ICH9R southbridge. I use this server with 4 gigs of ram to run VMWare ESX 4.1. Runs great. The only issue with this is since the Atom D525 doesn't have VT-x I can only run 32bit guests, but on a server such as this that isn't a real issue. Uses 35 Watts at full load and is nearly silent.

Cons: So far none...

Overall Review: I currently have 5 VM's running. m0n0wall for routing, and 4 Slackware 13.1 VM's.

Pros: Good little system for basic services.

Cons: I bought the bundle with this chassis. a Samsung SSD and 4 GB of memory. I assumed this configuration had been verified however when I received it I got 1 4GB RAM chip. I installed it and just recieved a long beep. After reviewing the Supermicro documentation I found that this system support 4GB total memory with a max DIMM size of 2GB so the 4GB chip will not work. Beware of the bundle.

Pros: Great performance. Low cost. Low power. Perfect for a firewall or device server (what we use it for).

Cons: Gets too hot too fast (problem solved in other thoughts). No extra IPMI port. Cannot dual purpose eth0 for both a secondary ethernet and IPMI.

Overall Review: I was testing it's temperature durability by running mprime for several hours and noticed temperatures around 75C. This isn't an issue as this atom is rated at 100C. However, these temperatures change dramatically when BLOCKING THE VENTS. I wanted to see if the system would shut down when too hot so, I taped the vents closed expecting the system to overheat. The exact opposite happened. It now holds 55-57C at 100% cpu load. What must be happening is that the air is pushed across the cpu through the psu's fan. When too many vents are open, the average air velocity over the cpu goes down. Close, them and the air throughput goes up. For anyone having temperature issues: Block the front and side vents. I noticed a 20C drop in temps immediately.

Pros: Small, low power, works beautifully out of the box (with memory). Been a great little server running PFSense. Far better with mods in the cons.

Cons: The builtin power supply fan is loud. Sure initially it isn't but as the power supply warms up, it get somewhat beastly loud. Not so much the volume but the whine of it. In a datacenter or closet it would be fine - perhaps even quiet - but not in a living space. Opened the powersupply (voiding warranty) and replaced the fan with: Noctua A-Series NF-A4x10 40mm[Newegg]. (and some duct tape to fill in the gaps from the narrower fan) Infinitely quieter and PS stays cool enough. Make sure if you do something like this - you don't then fill the machine with hard drives and a power hungry GPU or something silly. Limiting the airlflow is fine on a 200W supply if you are only drawing 35W total! :-) Also needs airflow modifications to keep the CPU cool(it runs 60C stock, 70C with the quieter fan). Technically this is fine - but cooler is always better. I added a second Noctua fan to the back left side (opposite the supply) then blocked off ALL the vents with the *exception* of the vent right by the power supply in the front. By doing this air is pulled over the CPU and keeps it around 45C under modest load and still basically silent. Server would have been nicer if some of this had been taken into account when it was "designed" ... but its easy enough to do.