YouTube Video Review - Supermicro SuperServer 5018D-MF

We've just uploaded our latest YouTube video - a review of a Supermicro SuperServer 5018D-MF based server solution for a customer of ours.

We built 4 of these systems for a customer intending to use them as render nodes in a cluster.

The SuperServer system is sold by us as either a complete solution, tailor-made to our customers’ requirements, or sold as a barebones kit, the SYS-5018D-MF – which is available on our site.

The server is a fantastic bit of kit and in its short depth 1U form factor quite cute! It is perfect for small applications where an energy efficient, quiet server is required. Due to its low cost it is perfect for even the smallest of budgets and due to its expandability it can be upgraded easily, so a customer can start off with a low cost solution initially and then upgrade its CPU or RAM, or add extra add-on cards as their requirements grow.

The chassis itself is 1U rackmountable. There are no rails included and due its super short depth it doesn’t need any, so will mount easily directly on the rack cabinet rails itself. Because of this it is perfect for installation in wall cabinets that are naturally restricted in depth. It can also be installed in a traditional server rack, back-to-back, which is a favourite for high density computing clusters. The cabinet needs sufficient cooling, but the logistics of datacentre designs aside this means you could install up to 84 servers in a single 47U cabinet. The extra space would be used for switches and power distribution. This makes these small servers perfect for high density cloud computing or cluster based technologies.

The system itself is barebones, so it includes the motherboard, copper-based CPU cooler for a Socket 1150 Intel CPU and power supply.

The motherboard included is a Supermicro X10SLL-F, which we sell on their own or included in this system as a barebones machine. This motherboard is the latest 10^th Generation (X10) from Supermicro and supports Intel Xeon E3 V3 CPU’s and the latest Intel Core i3 4^th Generation Haswell CPU’s. In this instance our customer opted for an Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 CPU, which is a quad core. Another popular option is to go for the Intel Core i3-4130, which is a dual core.

The motherboard will accept up to 32GB of RAM, ECC Unbuffered. In this install our customer opted for a combination of 4 or 2 sticks of 8GB Hynix 8GB PC-12800 1600MHz ECC Unbuffered DDR3 RAM.  

The chassis will accept 2x 3.5” SATA Hard Drives. Power for these drives is provided by either a SATA power cable or a standard 4-pin Molex connector, for both drives, so this allows for older generation SATA drives to be used. In the system we built for this customer we used Western Digital RED 1TB Drives. These are NAS drives and designed for 24/7 use. They an excellent option for performance, reliability and price. Their MTBF is 1,000,000 hours – which is superb!

All of the products seen in the video review are available on our site to purchase individually, however if you would like to talk with us about a custom server configuration please call us on 0800 652 1649 or email us on [email protected]

Check out the video here!