SUPERMICRO SYS-5015A-H 1U Intel Atom 330 Dual-Core 1.6GHz Dual Gigabit LAN Server Barebone

Pros: • Good Price • Small • Low Noise • Low Power / Low Heat • Stable

Cons: • PCI slot is useless, PCI Express is useless without Supermicro's overpriced riser. • The case screws are easily stripped (obviously this is really minor).

Overall Review: I have 5 of these, 2 of them are pfSense routers, 2 are Linux web development boxes and one has Windows Server 2008 on it. Also, someone mentioned the NIC's not being recognized in their firewall distro. They work great in pfSense. These are the perfect boxes for pfSense — cheap, reliable and the built in dual port ethernet is great. Enable pfSense 2's built-in PowerD service for additional power savings.

Pros: Works great. Incredibly useful for smaller businesses. Very quiet, fast (for what it is), and professional looking.

Cons: Well, the northbridge is old (Intel 945GC). Only fan on the mobo is on the Northbride. (Though it is still quiet)

Overall Review: I am using these as untangle boxes and they are working nicely. I have only used with a 3.5 hdd, so I can't comment on the optional 2.5 hdd cage. Also, I don't use the expansion slot (buyers may want to test everything fits before promising anything to anybody) There are a ton of fan headers on the mobo too, so if you need a lot of fans shoehorned into, you can.

Pros: Convenient size for home use. Can be used for a variety of applications

Cons: Lack of included riser board Lack of included 2.5" drive mounts Minimal amount of USB ports makes initial configuration difficult Biggest Gripe: SUPPORT. I own 4 of theses systems, one has a possibly failed temperature sensor as it goes into the overheating panic mode within a few minutes of operation. I sent in an RMA in 09/29/2011 and shipped it and followed through with the process. The last contact was received on 12/13/2011. I have made multiple attempts to contact support regarding the RMA and have not heard anything. (as of 4/26/2012)

Overall Review: If the atrocious support did not turn me away from the SuperMicro brand, I would still buy additional systems as needed given the few options available for a small rackmount server

Pros: Nice for the price. Works out of the box Trying some old 2 X 1GB OCZ memory. Will not pass Memtest+ 4.20 or 4.10 but probably due to cra**y OCZ memory I have laying around. Have some G-Skill DDR2-800 2X2GB on order and will update compatibility when it comes in the mail. Installed Ubuntu 11.10 desktop and server no problem and have done about 48 hours of burn-in on each. No problems there either. Using a 1 TB Enterprise Fujitsu SATA HD.

Cons: Not passing Memtest. But not a big deal. I suspect RAM I just had laying around is the culprit and still installs Ubuntu fine. Am very nervous about power supply though. I hooked up DVD/CD burner for OS install to the 200W internal PS and the thing just started cooking. Might have fried the DVD/CD drive but it appears that the 1U Server and PS are fine. I would strongly recommend separate power source for the DVD/CD Drive if you want to hook up such temporarily to the unit for OS install action. If you have OS on USB thumb drive - that may be safer option. Could have been the DVD/CD Drive but I find this not likely. The unit should be able to power a CD / DVD drive with the included 200 W PS. Be careful with hooking up anything other than hard drive to the internal PS.

Pros: Although the specification from NewEgg and Supermicro states that 2 GB of RAM is the maximum configuration, but this is not correct. The product incorporates the Intel 945GC Northbridge, and this is one of the very few 945-type Northbridges which support 4 GB of RAM. Other supported configurations include: 1) 1 GB as 1 x 1 GB, 2) 2 GB as 1 x 2 GB or 2 x 1 GB, 3) 3 GB as 1 x 2 GB + 1 x 2 GB and 4) 4 GB as 2 x 2 GB. I have tested the 1 x 2 GB and 2 x 2 GB configurations. I have also developed Lion and Server Lion DSDTs which support all configurations (each RAM configuration requires a different DSDT). These can be found on tonymacx86's site and are used with UniBeast and MultiBeast to effect a Lion or Server Lion installation. Additionally, the product's ICH7R Southbridge supports RAIDs, and two internal 2.5" drives, using an accessory bracket, and two external drives are possible.

Cons: None

Overall Review: This product is exceptionally well-designed and is certainly suitable for use as a web server, where Server Lion would be one obvious choice. However, with the installation of the available PCI-e "riser" card accessory, one or even two external SATA drive housings with integral "port multipliers" may be used to dramatically expand the amount of data, either as JBODs or as RAIDs, which this product can host as the ICH7R supports RAIDs. I would recommend the Rosewill 4-drive housing and its included Highpoint RAIDRocket card. I own and use two of these are am quite pleased with them.

Pros: Only 10" deep 1U Quiet for a rack mount server Dual gigabit nic Has BIOS redirect over serial/null modem cable

Cons: Riser card required to use PCI-E 4x slot. 2 unusable PCI slots on motherboard, just seems wasteful. internal USB port does not allow normal size flash drive to be used, must use a very tiny one.

Overall Review: I bought this to save on power and space. Had old HP desktop running as pfsense router that this replaced. I am using 1GB of ram and a very tiny Verbatim 4GB USB flash drive in this barebone server running pfsense 1.2.3. I only need 2 nics right now WAN and LAN however I plan to get another internet connection in the future so I like that this server has a PCI-E 4x slot. This board does not come with a riser card and riser cards can be expensive so watch your budget. The system has been running 24x7 since I set it up and has not had any hiccups. Note on initial setup of pfsense embedded: With pfsense embedded nothing is displayed over VGA, you have to connect it to another computer using null modem cable and hyper terminal to configure the network interfaces on initial setup. This is how any computer behaves when using embedded install of pfsense. On another note the BIOS has BIOS redirect over serial so you can turn on BIOS redirect and access the BIOS through hyper term

Pros: Small, quiet, low power consumption, lots of connectors on MB.

Cons: None for my application of the machine.

Overall Review: Received quickly, popped in memory and HDD (from Combo pack), set the Bios settings according to my needs. For install, I ended up pulling out an old IDE CD/DVD drive and connected it to the internal IDE port on the board which was nice to see. I installed Xubuntu first, got full resolution 1280x1024, nice color and no real noticeable lag. VERY nice, but not gaming quality of course. Ubuntu 9.10 Server was my final choice. It is now a headless machine running in my server closet. Was able to quickly consolidate 4-5 virtual machines I had running on 3 old Dell Servers onto this box. It is primarily running MySQL, Apache (only on SSL for Subversion) and Cherokee Web Server for other development and live websites. It is also performing offsite backups for 5 remote VPS client servers using rsync. Now that those old servers are off, much power will be saved. Probably at least a 10-1 power savings. Plan is to get one more for an Untangle Firewall.

Pros: The main selling point is the small size and low power usage. Mine takes about 40W after I included a hard drive and memory. The system is quite capable and relatively quiet. All hardware is included (screws).

Cons: of course with the small size, there is limited expandability. A regular desktop hard drive will fit nicely, but there is no fan for the drive unless you add one (and then, there are no real venting holes). But this is not meant to replace workhorse servers. I use it as a firewall and it works great. I added a second network card, which required a PCI-E spacer board (not easy to find, but only $10). There is a PCI bus slot, but I don't think it can be used as there is no spacer available for it.

Overall Review: its exactly what it says it is: A small, low power, rackmountable server. Don't buy it to run a database or a VMWare server. But for a small project, a home web server, a fire wall: it is exactly right.