Motherboard memory compatibility

[BobBob76]

I have some memory potentially available to me:

PCL3-10600R ECC 8GB modules - Dell/Hynix - HMT31GR7CFR4A-H9 T8 AD

Whilst I can find a motherboard and see what memory will work with it, how can I see which motherboard will work with my memory. Given memory prices it would be a shame to not be able to use it but I don't understand enough about memory to know how precisely you need to match memory with a motherboard.

Googling I can see the memory is supported by SuperMicro but they don't state for which board.

http://www.supermicro.com/support/r...3&mtyp=37&id=3978B580CE47E1B2AEFE3F0B193206B2

Any suggestions as to how I can narrow down which motherboards I can use - I can then pick one based on price/features/storage capacity etc.

Very much appreciated!

 

[Chris Moore]

PCL3-10600R ECC 8GB modules - Dell/Hynix - HMT31GR7CFR4A-H9 T8 AD

Looking that part number up it appears to be a LRDIMM (L = load reduced, R = registered).
That should be compatible with any of the Xeon E5 v2 processors that would be installed in the X9 series Supermicro system boards.
No guarantees, but that is what it looks like to me.

 

[BobBob76]

Ahhh - that is exactly the expert knowledge I am lacking to know to come to that conclusion.

Right, so now I can go off and find a nice X9 motherboard to suit my requirements and take it from there. I should be able to come up with quite a nice system and have the benefit of not having to buy any expensive memory. I hope!

 

[Chris Moore]

Ahhh - that is exactly the expert knowledge I am lacking to know to come to that conclusion.

Right, so now I can go off and find a nice X9 motherboard to suit my requirements and take it from there. I should be able to come up with quite a nice system and have the benefit of not having to buy any expensive memory. I hope!

Socket 2011 CPUs

 

[Chris Moore]

Ahhh - that is exactly the expert knowledge I am lacking to know to come to that conclusion.

Right, so now I can go off and find a nice X9 motherboard to suit my requirements and take it from there. I should be able to come up with quite a nice system and have the benefit of not having to buy any expensive memory. I hope!

The 2.6 GHz 8 core model is probably the best value right now.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[BobBob76]

Looking that part number up it appears to be a LRDIMM (L = load reduced, R = registered).
That should be compatible with any of the Xeon E5 v2 processors that would be installed in the X9 series Supermicro system boards.
No guarantees, but that is what it looks like to me.

Do you think the x10 boards should work? Having looked at the X9SCM-F and the X10SL7-F they both support the same Hynix memory - not the one I have but I am thinking if you are suggesting an x9 and an x10 supports the same memory then there is a chance mine is supported too.....perhaps!

DDR3 is DDR3 and if it's all the same type and speed etc then there isn't to me at least any logical reason it won't work?

 

[Chris Moore]

Do you think the x10 boards should work? Having looked at the X9SCM-F and the X10SL7-F they both support the same Hynix memory - not the one I have but I am thinking if you are suggesting an x9 and an x10 supports the same memory then there is a chance mine is supported too.....perhaps!

DDR3 is DDR3 and if it's all the same type and speed etc then there isn't to me at least any logical reason it won't work?

No. Absolutely not. DDR3 REGISTERED memory is completely different from DDR3 unbuffered memory. You need an X9 series board with a socket 2011 Xeon E5. The boards you are looking at are Xeon E3 and do not accept Registered memory at all. Details matter. Would you like a suggestion?

 

[BobBob76]

No. Absolutely not. DDR3 REGISTERED memory is completely different from DDR3 unbuffered memory. You need an X9 series board with a socket 2011 Xeon E5. The boards you are looking at are Xeon E3 and do not accept Registered memory at all. Details matter. Would you like a suggestion?

Ahh - ok, yes, the details, thank you!

The issue is availability of x9 secondhand motherboards here in the UK - it seems cheaper to buy a secondhand 1U server than it is to buy the motherboard and parts to go with my memory.

For example: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Supermic...729614?hash=item5457b4f40e:g:aFQAAOSwgYVZ2jea

Limited by the number of drives though and with four 5TB that gives around 13TB usable which is only double what I have currently.

I did find an X9SCM-F for about £160 which seems reasonable - I'm surprised they hold their value so well - so this with a tower case and 6 drives will give me arounf 16TB of usable space - with 4TB drives being around the sweet spot on price/capacity at the moment.

 

[Chris Moore]

I have some memory potentially available to me:

PCL3-10600R ECC 8GB modules - Dell/Hynix - HMT31GR7CFR4A-H9 T8 AD

I thought you wanted to be able to use the memory you already have? If you want to use that memory, you are looking at the wrong kind of parts.

Limited by the number of drives though and with four 5TB that gives around 13TB usable which is only double what I have currently.

How much storage capacity are you seeking?

I did find an X9SCM-F for about £160 which seems reasonable - I'm surprised they hold their value so well

It is a really good board. Same one I use at the moment. It is down to how you use it though.

so this with a tower case and 6 drives will give me arounf 16TB of usable space - with 4TB drives

That capacity calculation is not correct for ZFS partly because of the overhead that ZFS has with regard to storing checksum data for all the data written to disk. With 6 drives at 4TB each in a RAIDz2 pool, the usable capacity would be 14TB and the suggested limit would be 11.1TB to stay under the 80% full threshold.
Is 16TB the amount of storage you want, or just a convenient number?
Why were you stopping with 6 disks? You can add a SAS controller to the system and bring the disk count to 8 or 10 drives easily.
What is the objective here?

 

[BobBob76]

I thought you wanted to be able to use the memory you already have? If you want to use that memory, you are looking at the wrong kind of parts.?

Oh I was referring to using it in the X9SCM-F - not the prebuilt server.

Ok, so yes I could add more drives with a SAS controller but I'm kind of at my budget with the four drives. Knowing I can expand later though is good to know - I'm aware I can't do that dynamically however.

 

[Chris Moore]

Oh I was referring to using it in the X9SCM-F - not the prebuilt server.

The X9SCM-F is a LGA 1155 system board that uses a Xeon E3 processor and can only use DDR3 UDIMM memory. This is different memory than the memory you said you have available. Not interchangeable. Not compatible.
I am not sure how much memory you have, but it might be better for you to buy a system board that is compatible with the memory you have instead of buying a board that isn't and will require you to buy more memory. At this time, in the US, memory prices are insane for unbuffered (UDIMM) memory.
I recently purchased this model system board (SuperMicro X9SRL-F) and a processor to go with it, just so I could use the less expensive registered (RDIMM) memory that is less expensive because of less demand. The SuperMicro X9SRL-F is an LGA 2011 system board that uses a Xeon E5 processor. The system board and processor are more expensive, but the RAM is so much less expensive that it saved me over $200 of the total cost and I got a more capable system board at the same time.

 

[BobBob76]

The X9SCM-F is a LGA 1155 system board that uses a Xeon E3 processor and can only use DDR3 UDIMM memory. This is different memory than the memory you said you have available. Not interchangeable. Not compatible.

Ahh ok - when you said the memory should work with an X9 motherboard I took that to mean any x9 motherboard. I'm learning!

Ok, seems I need to dig around and try to find a motherboard in the X9 range that will work and can be obtained at reasonable cost i.e. under £200. I'm puzzled why such old motherboards are still selling for such high prices.

Failing that I will give up and just buy an X9 motherboard with new memory and be done with it. It seems I don't really know what I'm doing enough to make the right choices!

 

[Inxsible]

It is a really good board. Same one I use at the moment. It is down to how you use it though.

+1 on that.
I have a cousin of X9SCM-F --- X9SCL-F

 

[Inxsible]

Ok, so yes I could add more drives with a SAS controller but I'm kind of at my budget with the four drives. Knowing I can expand later though is good to know - I'm aware I can't do that dynamically however

Another way to expand would be to add a JBOD unit using an external SAS connector from your existing server to the JBOD unit.

 

[Chris Moore]

Ok, seems I need to dig around and try to find a motherboard in the X9 range that will work and can be obtained at reasonable cost i.e. under £200. I'm puzzled why such old motherboards are still selling for such high prices.

They are still selling for these prices because they are still in demand on the secondary market for people that want to setup a server for less. These system boards would have cost double (or more) when they were new and they still have years of value remaining.

Failing that I will give up and just buy an X9 motherboard with new memory and be done with it. It seems I don't really know what I'm doing enough to make the right choices!

Let me know what you are looking at and I will do my best to guide you. Supermicro doesn't make it simple, it takes a lot of reading to get familiar with the details.
It also makes it more difficult when you have a hard budget limit. If you just want a simple starter system, you might want to look at one like this:
www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5046494&CatId=30

 

[Chris Moore]

I was looking on the UK eBay site and it makes me sad how little used gear is available there. It might be worth the shipping to have it shipped over from the US. I know that some of our Australian members have done that.

This system board for example:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Unopened-Super-Micro-Motherboard-LGA-2011-MBD-X9SRL-F-O/253300204890

With this type CPU
Intel Xeon E5-2650 v2

and some DDR3 RDIMM or LRDIMM memory... It could be good.

 

[Inxsible]

Supermicro doesn't make it simple, it takes a lot of reading to get familiar with the details.

Ain't that the truth. With the convoluted naming scheme plus the different model numbers for chassis based on backplane and also on PSU, it takes a while to truly understand what you might want.

 

[Inxsible]

Supermicro doesn't make it simple, it takes a lot of reading to get familiar with the details.

Ain't that the truth. With the convoluted naming scheme plus the different model numbers for chassis based on backplane and also on PSU, it takes a while to truly understand what you might want.

 

[BobBob76]

I was looking on the UK eBay site and it makes me sad how little used gear is available there. It might be worth the shipping to have it shipped over from the US. I know that some of our Australian members have done that.

This system board for example:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Unopened-Super-Micro-Motherboard-LGA-2011-MBD-X9SRL-F-O/253300204890

With this type CPU
Intel Xeon E5-2650 v2

and some DDR3 RDIMM or LRDIMM memory... It could be good.

Good find - I think that's my option, try to find an overseas seller willing to ship - it shouldn't be that much of an issue really. I'd rather buy a motherboard like the one you suggested for £200 than a lesser model for the same price for sale here in the UK - it's a good find and plenty of futureproofing capacity.

Edit:

As a further find: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Carte-me...353824&hash=item1a2b3a19ba:g:YEMAAOSwtGlZCeHu

What is the difference betwen SRi and SRL - I can see that i is Sata only and L is low cost but what does that mean?

 

[freenachos]

What is the difference betwen SRi and SRL - I can see that i is Sata only and L is low cost but what does that mean?

Different PCI-E expansion slots ;)

https://www.supermicro.com.tw/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9SRL-F.cfm

https://www.supermicro.com.tw/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9SRi-F.cfm