I have many years of experience with Intel (SR1325, SR2200, SR2300, etc) and HP ProLiant DL servers, and have come to love HP. Their ILO2 remote management/power/KVM/VirtualMedia feature is hands-down the best I've used, and for me it's been 100% rock-solid reliable (unlike the horror stories heard about Dell DRAC cards flaking out and locking up when you need them most).
Now there's something shiny catching my eye-- the Supermicro 1U Twin systems.
Given my long positive history with HP, I'm reluctant to consider another brand, but it is hard to ignore double-density servers with colo prices (rackspace costs, not just power costs) spiraling upward.
I would love to hear from folks who have used both HP and Supermicro boxes in production. Specifically, about reliablity of the Supermicro platform in general AND about the reliability of their IPMI management modules even under Murphy's Law situations. The last thing I need is not to be able to remote-console or power cycle an unresponsive server because the IPMI card is flaky.
I get HP servers one at a time either directly from HP or CDW. Right now I need to order a few servers with the same config in bulk and I am looking for any HP proliant resellers who can give a good deal for bulk orders.
I have an HP ProLiant ML110 G5 - Dual-Core Xeon 3065 2.33 GHz which has 1GB DDR2 SDRAM – ECC 800 MHz PC2-6400 DIMM 240-pin Unbuffered RAM. (KINGSTON KTH-XW4400E/1G )
I have read that the HP ProLiant ML115 G5 AMD Dual-Core Opteron 1214 / 2.2 GHz, which has 512MB of the same ECC RAM installed will happily run non-ECC RAM along side the ECC RAM.
Does anyone know if the HP ProLiant ML110 G5 - Dual-Core Xeon 3065 2.33 GHz will run non-ECC RAM aswell, along side the ECC RAM?
I've just received an off-lease DL380 (G3) machine. It's up and running in CentOS 5.3 now, and seems to work great... But I'm wondering what people using these machines recommend for updates / firmware / monitoring. I'm mostly a "whitebox" guy with limited experience with Dell's OpenManage, but his HP stuff is all foreign to me.
I've been running a Proliant DL380 G2 for awhile now, and today Ive run into a new problem. But first...
* When I setup and installed Windows 2000 on the server, I had installed a sound card in it as well. * I then installed all the necessary software to run the server, and one of the drivers that were installed throttled down the fans.
Everything has worked flawlessly for 24/7 for 9 months up until today. Today I uninstalled the sound card drivers from device manager, then shutdown the server and removed the sound card. I then powered up the server, and now all the fans are running full blast and no longer throttling. If anyone hasn't been around a proliant, imagine 6 hair dryers running.
Right now, I cant hear anything else that's going on around me and if anyone has any experience with proliants I'm very open to suggestions on getting these fans back down to a tolerable level.
The only errors I'm getting in event viewer are the usual DCOM errors. Event ID 10005
We have a HP Proliant DL 360 Server, it was running with 2gb RAM, this consisted of 4 x 512mb sticks. We upgraded by adding another 4gb, this was 2 x 2gb sticks, so we removed 2 of the 512mb sticks and replaced with 2 x 2gb stickes, effectively giving us 5gb of RAM. When I rebooted the machine at the server centre it immediately displayed 5 gb of RAM as it run thru boot up, it then displayed a screen saying it had found the RAM (it looked like a BIOS type, although I'm no expert) I think if my memory serves me right it then confirmed the memory was OK and continued booting into Windows 2003. However when we viewed the maching remotely it is only showing 4gb of RAM. Does anyone have any idea why this might be? where would are missing RAM be? I guess its the 2 x 512 not displaying. Its awkward to access the server easily, it means making an appointment etc, I wondered if there is anything we can do remotely to configure the RAM.
Right im about to invest in some new equipment for the business and am looking at one of the 2 above servers. Does anyone have any experience with both or either?
The spec of the machine to start is as follows:
HP Proliant DL380 G5 Intel Quad-Core Xeon 2.5Ghz 4GB Ram 3x 146GB SAS Hotswap RAID5 (OS) 5x 146GB SAS Hotswap RAID5 (Storage)
Dell Poweredge 2950 III Intel Quad-Core Xeon 2.5Ghz 4GB Ram 3x 146GB SAS RAID5 (OS) 5x 146GB SAS RAID5 (Storage)
Both are near identical specs and the price of the HP is slightly more, is it worth it?
I know this topic has been brought up before and I wanted to revisit this again. We are a growing hosting company looking to expand our Dedicated server offerings. So far, we have been renting servers and reselling but now we have begun colocating our equipment and are looking for hardware vendors.
Would you recommend us to...
...build our own servers using the Supermicro platform? ...purchase pre-built servers from Dell? ...purchase pre-build servers from HP?
Pricing is of major concern along with speed to provision new orders. Although we don't have a dedicated resource for putting together servers, this is something we can look into should the volume of orders increase. Scalability and Flexibility is a MUST
I've been having a look at a lot of boards and Tyan seem to be beating Supermicro in terms of range at scan.co.uk
I've seen some unique features with Supermicro such as Remote KVM and such built into the motherboard, but it only seems to be with the very pricey series unless I'm looking in the wrong direction
Anybody have any thoughts to share about which is the better manufacturer?
I am interested to find out if anyone out there has hooked up an EMC SAN to a supermicro box running Redhat Linux. Fiber Channel implementation would be great but would love to hear opinions about iSCSI as well. I was told that EMC doesn't support Supermicro boxes and while that may be true I would like to know if anyone there has tried it.
configuration on Supermicro hardware and dell hardware, the pricing is pretty much the same 100+/- so thats not an issue.
But I am having a hard time to decide if I should go with supermicro or dell.
But here are the points which I have in mind.
- As far as dell goes, there is a central place for support, for example, if I have any issues, I know who to call exactly and get the issue solved, no resellers involved. If I go with supermicro and buy the hardware from a 3rd party, I dont know who to go to for support say a Motherboard fails or if I have any other questions, should I ask Supermicro themselves or the reseller?
- Has a DRAC card which I've heard is much more powerful than IPMI and I've heard Supermicro has no hardware for remote management as powerful as DRAC, I dont know how true that is.
- If I need any parts I know where I have to go to order them and what exactly to order since they have specific parts for specific server models, I dont know about supermicro.
I know, most of my points are benefiting Dell. But I've heard from the research that Supermicro hardware use less power and have less hard drive failures than Dell Servers, I dont know how true that is.
I currently have a few servers which I bought previously from eBay. They are not very good specification wise, so I am planning to swap them all for a single server. I have managed to find all my wanted components apart from the Case.
Does anyone know any reliable SuperMicro case provider in the UK?
Or perhaps recommend an alternative reliable case manufacturer.
I've got some new servers and there is two of them that works fine ONLY with the standard kernel that comes with CentOS 5.3, while if I tried to install any new kernel (via yum normally) it doesn't boot up because of a kernel panic saying "Kernel panic: not syncing: Attmepted to kill init!"
I tried reloading the system and same issue.
A screenshot is attached from the console while trying to boot up with any of the new kernels and panics.
I received a chassis from SuperMicro today. It came with a translucent thin piece of plastic (about as thin as a piece of paper). The plastic has holes cut out that are roughly the same as the holes in the mother board. What is this thing? Is it just a guide so you know where to put the mounting screws?
We are testing this motherboard out for future use and are having trouble getting RAM that doesn't cause it to throw a RAM error. It does a no RAM beep, has no video, etc.
Supermicro has no compatible sticks listed for 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz DIMM ECC Registered, and we are currently using Crucial CT51272BB1339
Anyone using this board with 2GB DDR3-1333 ECC and 4GB DDR3-1333 ECC?
I have 4 SuperMicro servers, all of them have a problem with network dropping out 3-5 times a day, moreso during high use periods, and moreso on the servers with higher usage.
The graphs of network speed I have show the speed dropping to 0. All of the servers have this problem. 1 of the servers is a 6015 with 2x Xeon CPU, 16GB ram, RAID10 4x500GB. (don't have the exact model handy). The other 3 are 6015B-T+ with 1x Xeon CPU, 4GB ram, 2x sata drives.
These servers host game servers. The bandwidth usage on these boxes ranges from 1-5 Mb/s. CPU usage is anywhere from 10-30% during the dropouts.
Currently I am building a new server based on this chassis:
[url]
In this chassis, I am going to be using an ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard [url], and I'll be installing a 3ware 8006-2LP RAID card.
I just want to make sure that that RAID card will work with that motherboard, and also I want to verify that the Supermicro CSE-RR1U-X riser card is the correct model for this motherboard and RAID card.
I've got a couple of basic servers built in the supermicro mini 1U (CSE-512L-260B) chassis, but I've never had to deal with riser cards before, so I wanted to make sure everything is compatible and is going to fit correctly before I purchase them.
Supermicro power supplies today and found something odd.
There are several 2U chassis that are listed as having 700W redundant power supplies. I thought this meant that there are 2 power supply modules, each rated to 700W.
However, if you look at the power supply matrix here:
[url]
Under 2U, the options for redundant power supplies are 500+500W or 400+400W or 350+350W. Does this mean that each individual power supply is only rated to half of the total power. For example, 700W redundant power supply = 2x350W individual power supplies?
I'm considering putting together a new set of servers...
My primary goal is to have IPMI and 16GB of 32GB of RAM in a system. I'm wanting lower-cost systems. I don't need a ton of CPU or anything special on disk (2 SATA is all I really need).
My previous generation of systems was PDSMI+ with 8GB RAM and they have been working great... but time to see if I can put together some budget 16GB of 32GB servers.
Anyone have some combos of motherboard + RAM to recommend?
(I'm open to Tyan or other server motherboards, even AMD or Intel)
It has 4 hot swap bays (sas) dual xeon thingee sas hdd raid controller ecc memory support 2 lans 520watt power..redundant...though I think it is a littel over 2 amps when pushed.
Although I am looking at just geting the same MOBO and building it, there is not much of a price difference that I can see..
I am having alot of difficulty trying to setup supermicro IPMI.
I am using motherboard PDSMI+.
Ok, so this is what I did:
1. I flash the IPMI card with the cd-rom that is included. I set the correct IP and MAC address.
2. I then install OpenIPMI-tools
I was able to successfully issue the command locally: ipmitool sensor
but, when I try to connect remotely I always get a connection failed. I tried everything I know, which is nothing and got no progress.
I set the ipaddres and gateway by using this commands: ipmitool -I open lan set 1 ipaddr [IPADDR] ipmitool -I open lan set 1 defgw ipaddr [GW IPADDR] ipmitool -I open lan set 1 netmask [NETMASK] ipmitool -I open lan set 1 access on
some cables for the SuperMicro SC512L-260 case. I believe these are the correct part numbers:
CBL-0084L - Converter cable for front panel connector for non-SuperMicro motherboards
CBL-0044L - Serial ATA Cable that is compatible for use with limited space to plug into hard drives
We'd also be open to a different Serial ATA cable that would work with the case.
We're having trouble finding these in Atlanta. We'd prefer to either pick them up tomorrow, or buy them today and have them overnighted to us in Atlanta.
Has anyone been able to find any compatible RAM in 2G DIMMs for the SuperMicro X8SIL motherboard running either Corei7 or X34** LGA1156 processors? And what about reasonably priced 4G modules? I just want to make sure to purchase the right RAM before moving to a setup with this board / processor. Unless the RAM for this is crazy priced, I really don't want to go the Core2 Quad route when for about the same I can go with the newer LGA1156 stuff. But I have seen where people are having issues with RAM compatability and availability.
I was looking at Adaptec 3405, ( adaptec.com/en-US/support/raid/sas_raid/SAS-3405/ ) but are not sure if this is the right card for this server. Is this overkill or to small a card for a 4 disk 1u server?
About cabling: On Adaptec's site they state
"Cable: one Mini SAS x4 to (4x) SATA fanout cable w/ sideband (2247000-R), 0.5 meter"
But are this cable the correct one for a server like this with backplane and everything, or should i look for a special cable? if so, anyone know what i need to order?
We have a large number of the 2U SC832 and SC833 cases from Supermicro that have been real workhorses over the years and some have had various motherboards in them as time went by. All of them are 5-7 years old and we would like to keep using them, but are concerned about the fans in the power supplies getting worn out and failing. Anyone have the source for good high quality fans that would work in these 400 and 550 watt single power supplies?
Anyone have an idea of what the normal life of one of these power fans is? All of them have been in good datacenters from there first use.
Since I know there are a lot of Supermicro users on this forum I figured this would be the best place to ask.
