SuperMicro CSE-933T-R760B NAS Network Storage Server - $499 to $599

[prostuff1]

A whack of vendors have appeared selling the LV version of the chip! $25 each.

 

Here's one with 10 available:

 

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Dell-PowerEdge-2850-2800-2-8GHz-1MB-CPU-SL8RW-W8383-/290490692049?pt=COMP_EN_Networking_Components&hash=item43a29831d1#ht_2826wt_906

 

 

And the 3 GHZ version @ $45 each:

 

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Dell-PowerEdge-2850-2800-3-0GHz-2MB-CPU-SL8SV-CF837-/290490641861?pt=COMP_EN_Networking_Components&hash=item43a2976dc5#ht_3276wt_906

 

 

I'm not sure if the 200mhz and extra MB of cache is worth it or not... Anyone more knowledgeable about UnRaid's cache requirements?

 

It will make almost no difference and the little difference it does make will most likely not be noticeable by you.

[DoeBoye]

It will make almost no difference and the little difference it does make will most likely not be noticeable by you.

 

Thanks prostuff1. That's kind of the feeling I had. That means for $50 (or even $25 if you go 1 chip as heffneil suggested), these could be run fairly inexpensively...

[teamhood]

Well I picked this up and brought it inside. It's completely brand new (the one that was selling for $599.00 FYI I talked them down to 499). It comes in original box and still had all the plastic wrap etc on it.

 

I've turned it on, but I can't seem to get UNRAID 5.0beta2 to boot. I reformatted my old 'spare' thumb drive and copied 5.0beta2 over to it. When in the BIOS it comes up under the boot menu and under hard drives (not removable media).

 

Not sure if there is a BIOS setting that I need to adjust or not... Any ideas?

[Giraffeninja]

FedEx has mine delivering Monday morning. By monday night I should have power and performance benchmarks up.

 

I am hoping the power usage is moderate, however I will probably change to the LV chips either way. I ran unraid on at atom 330 at home for about a year with no issues, it only had 1 MB L2 and it was shared between the 2 cores.

 

teamhood: aside from the obvious (thumb drive issue) if you can see it as a boot device in the boot menu, it should at least attempt to boot off it. Is it not getting the the boot loader screen? If not do you have a drive to test out of a working unraid server?

[teamhood]

I got it to boot into UNRAID. I forgot that the thumb drive was formatted for use win Windows and that it needed to use that syslinux to make it bootable...

 

FYI - the build quality on this is top notch. I love that it's already assembled and even the sata cables are labeled on both ends! Very nicely done!!!

 

The noise is something else... If you don't have a basement or some room to put this, best of luck with that!! 

[DoeBoye]

I got it to boot into UNRAID. I forgot that the thumb drive was formatted for use win Windows and that it needed to use that syslinux to make it bootable...

 

FYI - the build quality on this is top notch. I love that it's already assembled and even the sata cables are labeled on both ends! Very nicely done!!!

 

The noise is something else... If you don't have a basement or some room to put this, best of luck with that!! 

 

Glad to hear you solved it! You had me a bit worried .

 

Any chance you can take a look in the bios and see if you have the option of under clocking/under volting the chip?

[Giraffeninja]

Looking more at the board specs I have hope for the noise.

 

- Total of eight 4-pin fan headers

- 8x fans with status monitoring

- Status monitor with firmware/software on/off control

- Low noise fan speed control

- Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) fan connector

 

Also, after reading through the newest bios it looks like under-volting should be possible.

[teamhood]

Looking more at the board specs I have hope for the noise.

 

- Total of eight 4-pin fan headers

- 8x fans with status monitoring

- Status monitor with firmware/software on/off control

- Low noise fan speed control

- Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) fan connector

 

Also, after reading through the newest bios it looks like under-volting should be possible.

 

I'll have to look at updating the BIOS as I see in the BIOS where you can set it to 3pin server, 3pin workstation, 4pin server, 4pin workstation...  Then you see the fan speeds and below that the voltages...

[Giraffeninja]

Here it is monday, and FedEx hasn't updated their tracking info since friday. I have run power tests as well as performance tests on my existing i3 unRaid to give me a baseline.

 

-i3 Server-

 

135 watt startup

76 watt parity

58 watt idle (drives spun down)

 

62 MB/s Network Transfer (cache drive)

 

92MB/s parity (30 min average)

 

Let me know if there are any other tests you want.

 

The second FedEx rings the doorbell I'll get started on the new one.

[DoeBoye]

Here it is monday, and FedEx hasn't updated their tracking info since friday. I have run power tests as well as performance tests on my existing i3 unRaid to give me a baseline.

 

-i3 Server-

 

135 watt startup

76 watt parity

58 watt idle (drives spun down)

 

62 MB/s Network Transfer (cache drive)

 

92MB/s parity (30 min average)

 

Let me know if there are any other tests you want.

 

The second FedEx rings the doorbell I'll get started on the new one.

 

I hate it when they do that! Such a tease!

 

Thanks for the numbers! 58w idle looks good! I bought a killawatt knockoff over the weekend (Blue Planet something or other. Appears to do the same thing), and my idle (spun down) watts are in the 70s.... I'm going to have to improve on that!!!

[wix2]

I got mine this morning. It pretty much worked right out of the box, didnt have to change any bios settings. I had a bit of trouble with the network... Not sure if unraid understands eth0 and eth1 dual interfaces? Setting a manual address seems to have helped.

 

It is loud, but I have it in a closet and the door seems to stop most of the noise. Rack mount braces are for a four post rack or cabinet and it was a tad difficult mounting on my rack. I love the build quality.

 

I've only put in two HDs so far while I evaluate unraid vs. Open filer but I'm loving it so far.

[Joe L.]

Not sure if unraid understands eth0 and eth1 dual interfaces?

unRAID only uses eth0.

 

Joe L.

[Giraffeninja]

Perhaps I just imagined ordering the server and getting a tracking email? So far it has been sitting in the same spot 30 miles from my house for 96 hours with no update.

[heffneil]

Mine showed up today. Looks good. I'm not sure if it came with power cords but mine did come with rails. I haven't powered it up but opened it up for a looksy.

 

Nice and neat. I wonder about the card placement as stated above. Also it's worth noting that there is no internal bays. Norco has one or two bays but supermicro is much nicer build. I think a ssd to use with the 16th port might be good!

[Giraffeninja]

Mine made it shortly after I posted.

 

Still working on some settings.

 

Changing fans to workstation 3 pin lowers the noise considerably. Still loud, still need another room to put the server or replace them.

 

No drives connected shows idle power consumption at 217 watts.

 

No options in the bios to undervolt, checking for updates.

[Joe L.]

No options in the bios to undervolt, checking for updates.

Under-volting would not normally be in a server class motherboard. 

 

Typically servers run at full speed, as users NEVER complain if it runs too fast, and ALWAYS complain if it is slow.

[Giraffeninja]

Decided to start pulling out parts to figure out the power usage.

 

Usage is watts each.

 

Processor 42

P Supply 15

Rear Fan 7

Front Fan 4

Raid Card 4

 

Leaves about 50 watts for the hot swap bays, motherboard and ipmi card.

[teamhood]

Decided to start pulling out parts to figure out the power usage.

 

Usage is watts each.

 

Processor 42

P Supply 15

Rear Fan 7

Front Fan 4

Raid Card 4

 

Leaves about 50 watts for the hot swap bays, motherboard and ipmi card.

 

I know nothing about what is a good/bad/middle rating when it comes to power and watts... So is it safe to assume that this uses a lot of juice?

[Giraffeninja]

Not overly so for what it is.

 

It is extreme for what unRaid uses though. Especially if you tend to have your server run 24/7.

 

My current server is an i3 with 10 drives that idles at 58 watts, this one with no drives is at 217.

 

I just bid on those 4 low power xeons on ebay, I plan to test them as a single chip in here to see how it performs. If it works out I'll let you know and ship the other 3 off to who needs them.

[teamhood]

Not overly so for what it is.

 

It is extreme for what unRaid uses though. Especially if you tend to have your server run 24/7.

 

My current server is an i3 with 10 drives that idles at 58 watts, this one with no drives is at 217.

 

I just bid on those 4 low power xeons on ebay, I plan to test them as a single chip in here to see how it performs. If it works out I'll let you know and ship the other 3 off to who needs them.

 

Instead of trying to outbid you on those as I have it on my Watch... how about you count me in We only need one?

[Giraffeninja]

I'm running it with only one processor in at the moment for benchmarks. I'll have them posted a little later, going to watch Inception in my Theater.

 

Nothing I have thrown at it seems to choke (rebuilding parity right now). As long as nothing pegs the processor in my testing I see no reason we should run both.

 

If they work...

1. GiraffeNinja

2. Teamhood

3. ?

4. ?

[teamhood]

Can you test the usage with both CPUs in there too?

[Giraffeninja]

Overall performance is excellent. Outside of power usage and noise I am extremely happy with this server. The way it comes stock seems to provide the best performance.

 

So after testing for quite some time...

 

-Dual Processor Server-

 

344 watt startup

315 watt parity

214 watt idle (drives spun down)

 

58 MB/s Network Transfer (cache drive)

98.8 MB/s parity (30 min average)

 

-Single Processor Server-

 

267 watt startup

242 watt parity

190 watt idle (drives spun down)

 

56 MB/s Network Transfer (cache drive)

58 MB/s parity (30 min average)

 

* Moving the SATA card from 4 to 3 actually lowered parity performance

 

I plan to install the low voltage Xeon's once they arrive and I'll post the results.

[teamhood]

Excellent job on the testing! It will be interesting to see how the LV CPU's stack up against these stock ones.

[DoeBoye]

Overall performance is excellent. Outside of power usage and noise I am extremely happy with this server. The way it comes stock seems to provide the best performance.

 

So after testing for quite some time...

 

-Dual Processor Server-

 

344 watt startup

315 watt parity

214 watt idle (drives spun down)

 

58 MB/s Network Transfer (cache drive)

98.8 MB/s parity (30 min average)

 

-Single Processor Server-

 

267 watt startup

236 watt parity

185 watt idle (drives spun down)

 

56 MB/s Network Transfer (cache drive)

58 MB/s parity (30 min average)

 

* Moving the SATA card from 4 to 3 actually lowered parity performance

 

I plan to install the low voltage Xeon's once they arrive and I'll post the results.

 

Fantastic! Thanks for all the benchmarks!

 

I'm really surprised performance decreased after moving the SATA card from 4 to 3... I wonder if the bandwidth required for the lan card was eating into the performance...