Pros: This server is very light weight and low power (and quiet!). The dual NICs make it perfect for acting as a static IP web server with an inward facing port for internal network access capability. I am presently using it as a LAMP/Joomla! web server + samba network storage and have not noticed any performance issues for the small business application (5-8 simultaneous local accesses + low traffic / sub 1000 hits daily to the web server; it can probably handle a lot more, but I haven't stress tested it).

Cons: The power supply cables are configured in such a way to make it very difficult, if not impossible to make two of the SATA power connectors reach over to the hard drive bracket side of the chassis. If you intend to install more than one hard drive, I would recommend ordering either a SATA power Y-splitter cable, or a legacy molex to dual SATA splitter adapter cable along with this. It also only comes with one SATA data cable (although this is actually a pro, since I wasn't expecting any). Not really a con, more of a n00b frustration; but you cannot boot from the USB3.0 ports. I am new to booting / installing through USB, so it was a little frustrating to be continuously thinking I was creating the boot flash wrong when the issue was actually that the BIOS will not recognize a boot device on a USB3.0 port. Just plug your flash drive into one of the 2.0 ports instead and it works fine.

Overall Review: I installed 2x4GB SO-DIMMs for 8GB total DDR3 1333 and it successfully performs a RAM test on all 8GB. I have not benchmarked real world performance of application configurations that consistently require more than 4GB, though. For internal expansion, it actually comes with a right angle adapter embedded for the PCI slot and has room for a full height card in that right angle configuration. There are bottom mounting holes for two 3.5" hard drives or two adapter brackets. These brackets can be single 2.5" drive brackets or dual 2.5" drive brackets. If you are using a PCI card, you should use the single 2.5" brackets so the card has room to go over them (fits with basic COM / USB cards, probably wireless cards too, but I can't speak for anything hefty like a PCI GPU.) If you do not need a PCI card, you can use up to two dual 2.5" drive brackets (but it only has two SATA ports, so 1xdual drive bracket + 1xsingle drive brackt + 1xSATA PCI (short length) adapter would be the largest real solution) These are specialty SuperMicro brackets, and you will need at least one if you intend to install a 2.5" drive internally (very few generic adapters have the bottom mount holes) 1x2.5": N82E16816101376 2x2.5": N82E16811994023

Pros: Small, lightweight, IPMI, low-power

Cons: This thing has a 5 volt PCI slot for expansion. So, if you want to use a decade old PCI card, you're in luck. But, if you want to use something from this decade, you're out of luck. There's also no soft raid. I just want to build a domain controller but need to find something that can have a RAID1 boot drive. Since there are no more PCI raid cards on the market, I am RMA'ing this thing for something more suitable.