SOLVED SuperMicro Denverton vs HPE Microserver Gen10

lightwave

Explorer
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
68
Hi Everybody!

Thank you all for a great forum with loads of great advice!

I would like to hear your opinions on two (relatively) low cost FreeNAS builds for a home NAS. I have a pretty low-end use case: long-term safe storage of personal files and backups for access by 1-3 simultaneous clients with a decent level of throughput over a 1Gbps network (no processing/transcoding on the server). Securing that I do not lose the data (family photos, etc) is the main purpose. In addition, I would like the server to be as silent and energy efficient as possible. An option to upgrade to a total of 4 disks should suffice, while 6 disks would be nice. All things equal, i prefer a smaller box to a bigger one.

Option 1: SuperMicro Denverton (total cost $1300):
  • SuperMicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F (Atom C3558 4-core 16W 8xSATA 4xDDR4 4xGbE)
  • 1x 8 GB DDR4 ECC
  • Fractal Design Node 304
  • Seasonic FOCUS+ 550W Gold
  • 2x WD Red 6TB (storage, ZFS, mirrored)
  • Intel Solid-State Drive 545S 128GB (boot disk)
Option 2: HPE MicroServer Gen10 (total cost $1000):
  • HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Entry (Opteron X3216, 8Gb DDR4 ECC)
  • 2x WD Red 6TB (storage, ZFS, mirrored)
  • Intel Solid-State Drive 545S 128GB (boot disk)
Are any of you running FreeNAS on either HPE MicroServer Gen10 or SuperMicro Denverton (C3000)? What is your experience with this hardware respect to stability and performance? Is the SuperMicro setup worth the 33% higher price tag? Are there any other low cost build options you would recommend that I have a look at? Any and all feedback is highly appreciated!

Thank you in advance!
 

blanchet

Guru
Joined
Apr 17, 2018
Messages
515
Unlike the HPE Microserver Gen10, the SuperMicro has an IPMI management port. So you can manage the server without monitor and keyboard.
 

lightwave

Explorer
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
68
Unlike the HPE Microserver Gen10, the SuperMicro has an IPMI management port. So you can manage the server without monitor and keyboard.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Good point about IPMI. I would love to have the remote management feature. However, for my usage scenario i would probably not pay the additional $300 to get it if there are no other significant differentiators between the options. I will almost exclusively be using the NAS when at home so the distance to the physical terminal will not be an large issue.
 

blanchet

Guru
Joined
Apr 17, 2018
Messages
515
If you do not need IPMI, then the HPE Microserver Gen 10 is a good option because it is small and quiet.

You can also invest the additional $300 to improve your HPE Microserver Gen10 model:
For example:
  • the X3421 instead of the X3216 to have a faster CPU
  • 10 TB disks instead of 6 TB disks because there is only 4 hard disks slots
  • 16 GB of RAM
Because you will probably want to install some plugins or virtual machine later.
 

KrisBee

Wizard
Joined
Mar 20, 2017
Messages
1,288
I'd check on this forum, and elsewhere, about FreeNAS/FreeBSD boot problems and BIOS bugs before considering the HP microserver gen10. It's inferior in many way to the previous HP microserver gen8. I'd choose a gen8 over a gen 10 microsever. The gen10 doesn't look like a good buy to me.

The A2SDi-4C-HLN4F m/board offers greater potential, supports more memory, has 4 nic ports, m.2 slot, up to 8 sata drives & IPMI. But it may be more than you need. The supermicro X11SCL-IF with a cpu of your choice might be an alternative, or an m/board from Asrock rack.
 

lightwave

Explorer
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
68
If you do not need IPMI, then the HPE Microserver Gen 10 is a good option because it is small and quiet.

You can also invest the additional $300 to improve your HPE Microserver Gen10 model:
For example:
  • the X3421 instead of the X3216 to have a faster CPU
  • 10 TB disks instead of 6 TB disks because there is only 4 hard disks slots
  • 16 GB of RAM
Because you will probably want to install some plugins or virtual machine later.

Thank you for your reply.

The 6 TB -> 10 TB upgrade might very well be an interesting option (or possibly adding another 6TB disk for additional redundancy). I already have a separate VMware server for virtual machines, though. So I suspect an upgrade to the CPU or RAM might not make too much of a difference for my use case.
 

lightwave

Explorer
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
68
I'd check on this forum, and elsewhere, about FreeNAS/FreeBSD boot problems and BIOS bugs before considering the HP microserver gen10. It's inferior in many way to the previous HP microserver gen8. I'd choose a gen8 over a gen 10 microsever. The gen10 doesn't look like a good buy to me.

The A2SDi-4C-HLN4F m/board offers greater potential, supports more memory, has 4 nic ports, m.2 slot, up to 8 sata drives & IPMI. But it may be more than you need. The supermicro X11SCL-IF with a cpu of your choice might be an alternative, or an m/board from Asrock rack.

I completely agree with your point about the gen8 vs gen10. The gen8 was a great deal, especially towards the end when they were sold out to make space for the gen10. Unfortunately, I did not take the chance when they were selling gen8 machines at $200 a pop :-(

The X11SCL-IF looks interesting, but I'm not sure it makes a better option than the A2SDi-4C-HLN4F. Equipped with a low-end CPU, performance and price is roughly the same as for the Atom board. However, while the money and performance is the same, the X11SCL-IF only provides 4 SATA ports compared to 8 SATA ports on the Atom board. Four disks might be enough (at least for now), but then it might make more sense to go for the cheaper gen10.
 

lightwave

Explorer
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
68
Do you know if the Atom board (A2SDi-4C-HLN4F) can be fitted with a decent PCIe HBA controller? Most controllers seem to use 8 PCIe lanes (one lane per SAS/SATA port) and the Atom board only has an open ended x4 connector. To make matters worse, it seems that it can only do x2 on PCIe if six of the on-board SATA ports are used (which is likely to be the case before I upgrade with an HBA).

I realise the performance will take a hit I run the HBA on x2; but will it work?

An option could be to go for the X10SDV-2C-TLN2F (Pentium D-1508, 6 SATA, 2x10GbE, 1x PCIe 3.0 x16, IPMI) board instead. Performance seems to comparable to the Atom board, but it supports PCIe 3.0 x16 in addition to the 6 SATA ports. Has anybody got any experience with the X10SDV?
 

lightwave

Explorer
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
68
I finally ended up placing an order for a A2SDi-8C-HLN4F board. I don’t think I’ll need the extra performance, but the 12 SATA ports + 4x PCIe (without tradeoffs) means that I will not be limited should I need to add more disks and/or an HBAs card in the future.

I also got a confirmation from the store that any x8 PCIe HBA that lists PCIe x1, x2 or x4 support should work on the board.
 
Top