SUPERMICRO SYS-5018A-MLTN4 1U Rackmount Server Barebone (Black) FCBGA 1283 DDR3 1600/1333

Pros: - Slim - Good performance/price ratio. - 4 Gbe port is nice! - Work like a charm!

Cons: -Hard drive doesn't allow to screw from the side, which is usually to way to go when fitting a 2.5" drive into a 3.5" adapter. I ended up screwing the drive into the front cooling vent. -Lot of empty spaces inside, could probably be smaller

Overall Review: Depth is 14", it can fit into a 12" deep rack using some 4" extension brackets. The 10" version of that server is about 250$ more expensive, brackets are <20$

Pros: Cheap small No issues with PSU so far. Running solid for over a year as a PFSense router Energy efficient

Cons: Poor mounting options for 2.5" drives internally

Overall Review: No hotswap bays Would've only taken off half a star for lack of 2.5" mounting options if it were possible. Annoying but not that big of a deal.

Pros: Short depth, quiet, straightforward design. no fru-fru, accepts lots more memory than earlier SM Atom based designs.

Cons: no front panel i/o

Overall Review: We are using this as a web server (apache under FreeBSD) and have had no troubles.. I was pleasantly surprised that it accepted a pair of random Crucible memory sticks. Other Supermicro systems have been limited to difficult to obtain memory. No rails are included, or necessary. No riser card is included. The mount for 2.5" drives is the same as earlier SM 1us - MCP-220-00044-0N but the fit is a little tight. Still no documentation for the IPMI. In the end we decided not to turn the IPMI on, largely because updating the IPMI firmware would require a reboot, and we didn't want to have to bring down the system just because a vulnerability in the IPMI was announced.

Pros: Extremely light comparing to other 1U chassis/bare bone. C2550 is adequate for NAS/basic web server/DNS server. Currently I'm one stick of 8GB Crucial ram to test in a pre-production environment. The C2550 will be mirrored with another E3 in the cabinet to provide HA. So far C2550 can handle the requests in the case of E3 failure, however the CPU usage does go up by quite a bit (Nginx + PHP-FPM + GraphickMagick for portfolios).

Cons: Though Supermicro claims that you can mount 4x2.5" with the cage MCP-220-00044-0N. Again, poor design by Supermicro's OEM manufacturer. The front panel connector is completely blocking the right side (behind the PSU). Only one screw can be used to mount the cage. But if are going to mount 2x3.5" or 1x3.5"+2x2.5", it is totally ok. ALSO, PCIE-E RISER WAS NOT INCLUDED. NO RACK MOUNT SCREWS WERE INCLUDED.

Overall Review: If you check the Supermicro website for manual (http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/superserver/1U/MNL-1581.pdf), it reads: "The box the SuperServer 5018A-MLTN4 was shipped in should include two sets of rail assemblies, six rail mounting brackets and the mounting screws you will need to install the system into the rack. Follow the steps in the order given to complete the installation process in a minimal amount of time. " It suggests that you SHOULD have the rails. But it did not.

Pros: 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.

Cons: No redundant power supply option - prefer this for mains-only and mains+UPS+Generator legs (also makes moving from one circuit to another a much easier task). Fixed drive bays make changing out failed disks more difficult than it needs to be. There's a PCIe 8x slot, but you'd need to find the right riser kit for it (it's not included with the server). Similarly, rack-mounting rails are not included and need to be purchased separately (though, to be fair, the server is VERY light and can probably survive hanging from the rack ears alone, if needed).

Overall Review: I'm using this to run Untangle at home since about June 2016 (now November 2016). All I needed to add was a disk (1TB SATA) and some RAM (4x 4GB DDR3). Installation was done via virtual mounted ISO on the IPMI port (I pre-configured IPMI in the BIOS via a real KVM - all of about 5 minutes work). So far, after installation and configuration, the CPU has never peaked at more than about 10%. It's been running basically non-stop the entire time and has never locked up or otherwise crashed on me. The server comes with 2x 3.5" drive brackets and enough cabling to connect 2x SATA disks. If you want to mount 2.5" disks, you'll need to order different brackets: MCP-220-00051-0N is for the single 2.5" mounting (replaces one of the 3.5" brackets) and MCP-220-00044-0N is for a double-2.5" mounting (again, replaces one of the 3.5" brackets). You'll also need to make sure to get additional SATA cabling if you plan to install more then 2 disks. Overall, I'm very pleased with it.