SuperMicro H8DME-2 Dual 6 Core Opteron?

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I've had a rock solid unRAID setup mostly unchanged for going on 3 years now. No issues really other than the occasional addition of a drive here and there but nothing else major to speak of. I'm currently out of slots to add more hard drives and have a choice to make. Right now I have a CM Stacker 810 case with an Athlon 64 5200+ on a Gigabyte board with 1 GB RAM. Im rolling with one 4 in 3 cage and 3 Icy dock drive bays and using one internal bay for a total of 8 drives. I have been slowly getting HD failures over the last couple of years and I normally just swap a new in and go. I'm finally getting around to RMA'ing those drives and as such, I now need space for 4 more 1TB drives when they arrive from Seagate. I also would like some space for future array expansion. I need to retire the old Icy Dock drive bays as the fans have seen better days. I would also need to purchase another controller card of some sort as I only have two ports left. My choice would most likely be an AOC-SASL-MV8 PCIe card. My initial thought was add in 2 of the 5 in 3 cages buy a new controller and call it a day. Then I thought heck if I'm going to upgrade it might as well be an UPGRADE. I started looking into the Norco 4224. While doing my research on the Norco though, I found a thread over on AVS with a link to this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Custom-Dual-Core-AMD-Opteron-2-0GHz-8GB-DDR2-160GB-IDE-Server-/170762230144?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27c238d980

Its a used 24 bay rack mount server with an Opteron 2212 processor, 8 GB RAM, 2 PCIe slots, 4 PCI-X slots, some really loud looking fans and 3 power supplies. My guess is its been sitting in someones data center for a few years and finally lost its home to an equipment refresh project. The kicker to me is it has 3 AOC-SAT2-MV8 cards installed as well. Normally I am all about roll your own hardware as to me, hell that's half fun. In this case though, I'm kind of considering the ready to go option. Slap my hard drives in this baby plug in my flash drive and I'm off to the races. I searched for a couple of hours on the forum to see if anyone else has used one of these and came up empty. So that leads us to here, where I ask all of you your thoughts on this. Anyone see any shortcoming with this behemoth? I have a nice spot picked out for it in the basement away from the main living area where it will get to hang out and be friends with the rest of the loud and unruly equipment. I've recently put my equipment rooms green initiative on hold for now, so I'm not to worried about the power requirements. I strictly use my unRAID box for movie and picture storage so my demands are pretty small. Max use would be 3 connections streaming BR's or MKV's to the HTPC or extenders. Typical usage is just one connection streaming a BR. I've rambled on long enough. I've pretty much talked myself into it, but would hate to get it and it not be compatible with unRAID. So thoughts, suggestions, opinions? Just upgrade what I've got or pick this thing up?

**Edited thread title to reflect the discussion change**

Wow, all of that for $200?  Normally I would talk you out of it due to it being a bit if a power hog, but for that price...I think I'm going to have to agree with you here.  That is a killer deal.  My only question is about the built-in NIC.  There's a good chance that it will work with unRAID, but you won't really know until you try it.  Also, if it doesn't work, you could install a PCIe x1 NIC and solve the problem pretty easily.  The other fringe concern is if the board will boot from a USB Flash Drive or not, but chances are good that it will.  There are other ways around that as well (kicker disk, boot from HDD, etc.).

As long as you don't mind the extra power consumption, I say go for it!  I see he's got 3 total for sale...now I kind of want one too. 

I did finally get a reply from the seller on the motherboard and its a Supermicro H8DME-2 which has the MCP55 Pro chipset on it. Details here:

http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron2000/MCP55/H8DME-2.cfm

I did a quick search on the forum and found one post where someone did succesfully use an MCP55 chipset with unRAID already so I went ahead and bit the bullet. There were actually 5 when I originally posted, but I ordered one and so did my coworker. I'll keep everyone updated on how it works out.

The shipping was pretty steep but I expected it at 77lbs. I just hope they packed it up well.

I actually ordered one this morning myself, was cheaper then the case addons I was looking to get to replace my external port multiplier boxes.

Within an hour of ordering it they had sent me the tracking number for it.  It should be here next wednesday.

I'm looking to run esxi on the box. From what I've read there have been several people that have had luck with that motherboard.

I'll post back once i get my grubby hands on it. 

p.s. Thanks for the heads up on it Tragik.

Can't wait to see how they turn out...best of luck!

Server came today. It was well packaged came just as described. I shutdown my old server and pulled all the drives. Added them to the new server and booted it up. I did have to initially attach a keyboard and monitor to it so I could set the USB flash as the boot drive. Booted right into unRAID with no issues at all. I will say that this thing is LOUD. The 2 60mm fans in the back are on full blast non stop. I have already ordered some quieter ones that hopefully don't jeopardize the cooling too much. unRAID only picks up one of the two NIC's so you must have the cable in the NIC on the right side if your facing the back of the server. There were no screws at all for the hard drive cages to attach the drives. I got lucky and the screws from my 4 in 3 setup on my old server did work but you basically need completely flat headed screws. For the price I have zero complaints. It was an easy upgrade and its humming along nicely right now. Im in the process of preclearing the first of three new drives to add into my array. Two thumbs up from this guy.

I looked at this when it was first posted. My thoughts were "that's a lot of server for that price.". I then looked closer and thought "that's going to be a loud server with no way to silence it. A great deal for a datacenter! Not so good for a residence home office."...

Someone mentioned esxi on this box. I would bet it will not have vt-d support (or the amd flavor).

Perhaps I looked at it wrong. But on my phone, it looked like the 2 rear 60mm fans cool everything. The mobo area and the drive bays. You would need to use jet engine type fans for that.

The price is killer though. Good luck to those that get them. it should be a good unraid box if you have it in a datacenter, basement or garage.

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Perhaps I looked at it wrong. But on my phone, it looked like the 2 rear 60mm fans cool everything. The mobo area and the drive bays. You would need to use jet engine type fans for that.

There's the equivalent of slot fans on the left and right side of the chassis.

I think I would put quieter 60mm fans then add as many slot fans as I could.

The 40mm fans on the PSU aren't going to be very quiet either.

I have a pile (*litterally*) of Supermicro 1U servers, but I don't use them because of the 40mm fans.

I think the supermicro 1u use 20mm fans. Like you, I have a pile I decommissioned due to noise.

modding that case to use some 120's or 80's might be possible. Put them on the sides exhausting. I'd have to look on a pc

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I took the plunge on this sucker this morning. The server that I have now is slowly running out of space and I'm in desperate need for an upgrade.  I do know this is going to be a LOUD system, but there are ways of quieting her down.  Thankfully this will sit in my basement so I won't have to worry too much about the noise .

Now all I need is an upgrade to the UNRAID key, an additional thumb drive, and I'm off to the races for another 5 years!

Does anyone know the size limitation on these for hard drives? I will ASSUME it's 2TB limit as they are SATA/2.

The answer is MAYBE:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=11183.msg109527#msg109527

Now the debate begins on buying 2TB hard drives or 3TB..sigh.

Card's Performance:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1388900

fairly decent. For $300 shipped, this is a grand deal.

hello all, bit of a newb here.  just bought the second to last one... i expect to post for help soon!!!!

good luck to the person who gets the LAST one!!!

Well i got mine, ups did a number on the right hand side even though it was packaged really well.  Right front was bent so bad that 5 of the 6 hot swaps on that side wouldn't work.  Seller was quick to respond, got ups set to pick up damaged server and is shipping me another one out.

Some bits of info i have found out about this kit which runs unraid effortlessly.

The case is actually a AIC RSC-4ED2 but with the older hot swap trays.

http://www.aicipc.com/ProductDetail.aspx?ref=RSC-4ED2

The blowers and power supplies are not that loud, it's the 8k rpm 60 mm fans behind the motherboard that are loud.

As Tragik said earlier the motherboard is a supermicro HDME-2. The one i got had the AOC-SIMLC ipmi card, no kvm but still monitoring and remote power.

If you are needing screws for the hot swaps, I found these and they work great.

Super micro part number MCP-410-00005-0N.  I got them from superbiiz.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=CA-MCP45ON

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

Well i got mine, ups did a number on the right hand side even though it was packaged really well.  Right front was bent so bad that 5 of the 6 hot swaps on that side wouldn't work.  Seller was quick to respond, got ups set to pick up damaged server and is shipping me another one out.

 

Some bits of info i have found out about this kit which runs unraid effortlessly.

 

The case is actually a AIC RSC-4ED2 but with the older hot swap trays.

http://www.aicipc.com/ProductDetail.aspx?ref=RSC-4ED2

The blowers and power supplies are not that loud, it's the 8k rpm 60 mm fans behind the motherboard that are loud.

 

As Tragik said earlier the motherboard is a supermicro HDME-2. The one i got had the AOC-SIMLC ipmi card, no kvm but still monitoring and remote power.

 

If you are needing screws for the hot swaps, I found these and they work great.

Super micro part number MCP-410-00005-0N.  I got them from superbiiz.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=CA-MCP45ON

 

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

i also have one enroute... for the power supplies, did they also come with power cords?

Yes, mine did come with power cords.

I ordered the same screws that burr did from Amazon. His link is better as they were a little cheaper than what I paid. I also ordered these fans http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999615 and put them in and they work well. Its still pretty loud with the power supply fans but swapping out the 60mm fans cut the db levels in half if not more.

thanks to both burr and tragik... just ordered both the screws, and the fans!

i hope i can also share some tips about this unit when i receive it, maybe in a week or so!

good luck to the person who gets the LAST one!!!

...couldn't help myself ... U.C.D. ?? 

I've been watching for a good deal on something for a test/backup server

This should do fine...

Has anyone got a tracking number from these guys yet? I ordered mine on Friday and haven't seen squat for shipping yet.  

Has anyone got a tracking number from these guys yet? I ordered mine on Friday and haven't seen squat for shipping yet.

I ordered mine on 02/22 they sent a tracking number on 02/23 and shipped it out that same day as well.

 

 

I ordered mine on 02/22 had a tracking number and it was shipped out on 02/23.

ordrered mine on friday, 2 emails into TAM and nothing.

 

 

I ordered mine on 02/22 had a tracking number and it was shipped out on 02/23.

 

ordrered mine on friday, 2 emails into TAM and nothing.

Just from counting, I hope you end up with one. They had 5, I ordered 1, burr ordered 1 and is getting another 1 for shipping damage. Thats 3, plus Grither ordered 1 and mikejp ordered 1. Counting your order that is 6 total. Either they had more than 5 or someone is going to be disappointed. 

They have XEON servers that offer the same configuration instead of the AMDs, if worse comes to worse I'll make them give me one instead. I know I got in before another user so my chances are fairly good.

UPDATE: Shipped! Got the go ahead from work to host it here as a colo'd system. Thank god! That saves me $$$/mo

UPDATE2: Does anyone know what, if any Rackmount kits will work with this server?

UPDATE3:  When looking for KVM over LAN as I heard this is not capable with the onboard chip I found the motherboard supports the AOC-SIMU1(+).  This provides a dedicated network port for the KVM/IPMI module just like a dell IDRAC.  Since it's $65 anywhere you go, I find this is a worthy upgrade to get full blown KVM access to the server.  I have a feeling this simple system will balloon upto a $500 system when I end up replacing the CPUs with beefier Quad Core Opterons.

UPDATE4: Is anyone even interested in upgrading the CPU? This has a HE dual core with 8GB RAM. This, I believe, is more than enough to run UnRAID. Am I mistaken here?  The reason I'm now hesitant as finding a pair of Quad Core HE Opteron's has become fairly expensive. $300 for a pair, but they are nearly 140W lower on TAD.  I think this will be my backup instead, it'll recieve an RSYNC and that's about it.

They have XEON servers that offer the same configuration instead of the AMDs, if worse comes to worse I'll make them give me one instead. I know I got in before another user so my chances are fairly good.

 

 

 

UPDATE: Shipped! Got the go ahead from work to host it here as a colo'd system. Thank god! That saves me $$$/mo

 

 

UPDATE2: Does anyone know what, if any Rackmount kits will work with this server?

 

 

UPDATE3:  When looking for KVM over LAN as I heard this is not capable with the onboard chip I found the motherboard supports the AOC-SIMU1(+).  This provides a dedicated network port for the KVM/IPMI module just like a dell IDRAC.  Since it's $65 anywhere you go, I find this is a worthy upgrade to get full blown KVM access to the server.  I have a feeling this simple system will balloon upto a $500 system when I end up replacing the CPUs with beefier Quad Core Opterons.

 

UPDATE4: Is anyone even interested in upgrading the CPU? This has a HE dual core with 8GB RAM. This, I believe, is more than enough to run UnRAID. Am I mistaken here?  The reason I'm now hesitant as finding a pair of Quad Core HE Opteron's has become fairly expensive. $300 for a pair, but they are nearly 140W lower on TAD.  I think this will be my backup instead, it'll recieve an RSYNC and that's about it.

I think I found the rail kit - It is part # SR-26R for 2u to 5U chassis. Might be hard to find in stock though.

I wasnt too worried about remote KVM access since mine is in my basement and I can hook up it anytime but would be nice to have ILO/DRAC like connectivity if its in your company's data center.

Im already running unRAID on this CPU with no issues whatsoever, I have quite a few addons but none of them that CPU intensive so I might not be a good reference. If you get 2 CPU's you will also need to either buy more RAM or split it up with 4GB on each CPU.

Im curious as to what you are actually using this server for if your going to colo it in your company's data center. I would think transfer rates to and from unRAID will be abyssmal across the cloud. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant?

 

I think I found the rail kit - It is part # SR-26R for 2u to 5U chassis. Might be hard to find in stock though.

I'll have to hunt this part down.  Thanks for the investigation. It was easier this or a shelf.

I wasnt too worried about remote KVM access since mine is in my basement and I can hook up it anytime but would be nice to have ILO/DRAC like connectivity if its in your company's data center.

For $65 I get all the fun features that I'd need such as remote power on/off, ISO support, KVM, remote firmware updates. All similar to the dell series servers we have in the shop. I like this.

Im already running unRAID on this CPU with no issues whatsoever, I have quite a few addons but none of them that CPU intensive so I might not be a good reference. If you get 2 CPU's you will also need to either buy more RAM or split it up with 4GB on each CPU.

I figure as much, unraid is very UNCPU intensive. Unfortunately I might not be putting UNRaid on this and going with FreeNAS for this install for a myriad of reasons.

Im curious as to what you are actually using this server for if your going to colo it in your company's data center. I would think transfer rates to and from unRAID will be abyssmal across the cloud. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant?

My plan of attack is this:

1. Build this server into a fairly beefy file server with 8TBs of space. Install FreeNAS due to licensing of UNRaid (I only have 1)

2. Transfer my existing UNRaid files to this server. Gigabit switch will make this a Non-Event. 6TB is still going to take Time.

3. Rebuild my UNRAid server using bigger 3TB disks. 6 of them will be plenty.

4. Copy all data BACK onto my new UNRaid server with the latest beta installed. Make sure everything is working just fine.

5. Install the 4U server in my companies CoLo and use Rsync to mirror changes on certain folders from UNRaid (home) to FreeNAS(Work).

Since I will have a virtual copy of all my data the amount of initial rsync is small and network bandwidth is tiny. I plan on doing all my updating at 2AM which is off hours and takes up limited bandwidth.  Even if I download TBs of files all I'm building is my own personal Backblaze type setup that I can access anywhere in the world since I travel frequently.  I don't think I'll be streaming any video or anything like that.  I can always try

I notice these servers are listed as Custom Xeon Dual Core 1.86GHz 8GB DDR2 160 IDE Server, but with SATA controller cards. Just being paranoid here, but the 24 bays are SATA, correct?

Speaking of, the SuperMicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 cards are $95 new. Each...

Also, found the exhaust fan on newegg, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835221023. 56 dB is the rating. That seems off after reading the replies here.

One more edit: Can these be placed on their short side, on a shelf for example? I don't have room for it to sit on the long side.

I notice these servers are listed as Custom Xeon Dual Core 1.86GHz 8GB DDR2 160 IDE Server, but with SATA controller cards. Just being paranoid here, but the 24 bays are SATA, correct?

 

Yes there are 3 models: AMD, Xeon 1.8, XEON 2.x that he is selling.

One more edit: Can these be placed on their short side, on a shelf for example? I don't have room for it to sit on the long side.

I would avoid that as the amount of weigh distributed will bust a table in two like that. These are 100+ lb machines fully loaded, the more evenly you spread out this bulk the better.