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

[Giraffeninja]

I purchased 4 of them, Fedex dropped them off just over 2 hours ago and it takes about 40 min each test (between reboots and the 30 min party check).

[teamhood]

Thank you for the testing results. I would love to see the 2 LV's and see what kind of power/parity you see!

 

THANK YOU!!!!

[Giraffeninja]

Good thing I keep extra thermal paste around...

[teamhood]

Good thing I keep extra thermal paste around...

 

HAHAHAHAHA! Just view it as practice on applying it PERFECTLY!!!

[Giraffeninja]

These numbers will be a little harder to compare as I haven't had 2 processors in here for a while, and I never ran the dual stock processors Hyperthreaded.

 

-Dual LV Processor- (Hyperthreaded)

265 watt parity

175 watt idle

95 MB/s Parity (over 30 min) (processor usage was only at ~25%)

 

-Dual LV Processor-

269 watt parity

175 watt idle

98 MB/s Parity (over 30 min) (processor usage was at ~50%)

 

The bottleneck on my system seems to be either the drives or the PCI-X bus. I had these same drives on a 4x PCI-E card and was only able to achieve 98 MB/s, which leaves me to believe it could be the drives.

 

*Interesting how Hyperthreading uses less power, maybe because it's not working as hard?

*Hyperthreading on vs. off doesn't seem to affect idle, always good to know.

[Giraffeninja]

Whew! Now that's all done, I'll tell you what I'm thinking.

 

LV processors seem to be the way to go.

- Machine runs much cooler (wasn't watching temps too much but I had 58c Stock and 44c LV running parity)

- Uses less power (~25 watts less per processor)

- No noticeable speed difference (1MB vs 2MB cache)

 

Hyper-threading seems to only really matter for single processors.

- unRaid Parity seems to be the most intensive task.

- 2 processors are right at the bottleneck (at least in my system)

- It doesn't really consume more power. (since the processor doesn't have to work as hard)

 

I guess the question now is, Single or Dual? I'm leaning towards Single LV Processor Hyper-threaded. Cost less, uses less energy, performance is within 10% of Dual processor. Anyone else's thoughts?

[Giraffeninja]

Final test.

 

-i3 Motherboard-

163 watt parity

115 watt idle

97 MB/s Parity (over 30 min) (processor usage was at ~5%)

 

End result, i3 530 is overkill for unRaid?

[Rajahal]

For stock unRAID, yes.  For CPU intensive add-ons, it is perfect.

[Giraffeninja]

I'm running quite a few add on's, which ones are considered "CPU Intensive"?

 

I personally think it's the best choice for someone building a new system, but nothing I have thrown at it seems to take it over 15% usage.

[Rajahal]

Do you have unMenu installed?  If so, you can use 'top' to see how much of your CPU each process is using (just like Task Manager in Windows).  I'm sure there's other ways to do this as well, but top is pretty simple.

 

In general, the most common add-ons that will benefit from more CPU horsepower are video encoding (handbrake), video transcoding (PS3MS, Airvideo, etc), and VMs.

[aiden]

Remove the middle guide on the fan connector using an X-acto knife.

 

Drill a hole in the bottom and feed the excess wire though.

 

Use electrical tape to secure the excess wire, keep the wire towards the front of the fan for clearance.

Um... these images aren't working for me.  Also, were you able to keep PWM capability to the fan headers, or are the fans running at full speed all the time?

[dgaschk]

I just opened my $499 server. I moved 2 SATA cables to the MB SATA ports. Now the PCI-X cards have only 6 and 7 connections respectively. This should keep the PCI-X bus from topping out.

[heffneil]

Did you perform any before and after testing? I haven't powered up my machine yet but I am curious of the results!

[dgaschk]

Did you perform any before and after testing? I haven't powered up my machine yet but I am curious of the results!

 

No. I only have 4 drives for it right now. I'm hoping it will help in the future.

 

Maybe someone with more drives would like to try this...

[teamhood]

Giraffe: How the hell did you achieve 98kbps Parity check? I've got my 15 drive system up and running in the SuperMicro and I'm seeing about 60kbps with 1 LV CPU Hyperthreaded!! You blew my numbers out of the water!

[Giraffeninja]

My tests were only 30 min long so they should have been in the faster area of the drive. All of my drives for the test were the same size and brand (Samsung 154UI's as well as empty although that should not have affected anything) so that also eliminated the possibility of one of the drives skewing the numbers.

 

I'd run the drive test in unmenu just to make sure one of your drives isn't much slower, next time I do a full parity I'll let you know the end results.

[dgaschk]

I think the CMOS is bad in my unit. I'm unable to get the boot order to save. When I restore the BIOS defaults nothing happens nine times out of ten. Does anyone have any suggestions? I guess I'll be trying to return it this week.

[heffneil]

Maybe it's just a bad battery? Easier to buy one from the shack or home depot before you go shipping that monster back. Also I don't know for sure but I would imagine there is a jumper for resetting. Make sure that it is there and correct! If you think it is try it the other way 

 

Neil

[dgaschk]

I tried to clear the CMOS but it did nothing. It is supposed to report when the battery is low.

 

I'm also unable to find the IPMI config in BIOS.

[heffneil]

Very strange.  Maybe remove the IPMI card and see how it works?

[dgaschk]

I tried removing the ipmi card. You have to in order to clear the CMOS. It had no effect.

[dgaschk]

Vendor is sending me a new system board.

[dgaschk]

I got the new main board and I can boot UNraid  .  Is IPMI configurable in BIOS? I cannot find the setting under the Advanced tab in BIOS. Do I have to use the ipmicfg utility?

 

EDIT:

I never found the IPMI config in BIOS, but I used the static version of the linux config util. It works in UNRAID.

[Joe]

I have a similar Supermicro with IPMI and had to download the config program on a floppy and use it to set it up the first time.  I also did the same to upgrade the firmware on the card.  It works great now.  No more running down the basement to turn it on and off.  Can also use it to pre-clear multiple drives without using SSH or telnet.  Just use the ALT F1, Alt F2 keys, to get multiple console screens once connected.  Your will need Java on your windows box for it to work.

Joe

[amp1]

Stock fans

Rear Fan   7 watt

Front Fan   4 watt

 

Blademaster

Rear Fan   2 watt

Front Fan   3 watt

 

Parts Used

4x http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0034AFDL4

2x http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030DSECK

 

The new BladeMaster fans you list above are all 4-wire fans.  The stock fans that came in my two SuperMicro CSE-933T-R760B chassis are 3-wire fans (though they do have 4-pin connectors with one unused pin).  The fan connectors in my SuperMicro chassis are 3-pin connectors.  The pin that's missing on the chassis fan conectors is the 4th pin that would allow PWM control of fan speed, and without that pin the fans run at full speed.

 

The motherboard in these systems (SuperMicro X6DHE-XG2) can support either 3 or 4 wire fans, but the chassis (at least the two I bought) seem to have only 3-wire connectors for the fans.

 

Giraffeninja -- Were your stock fans 3 or 4 wire, and are the connectors in your chassis 3-pin or 4-pin connectors?