Directly Imported Servers

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Zeon

3876 posts

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#78814 8-Mar-2011 23:46

Hey guys,
So I've been toying with the idea of directly importing server hardware for a while. Quite frankly NZ prices for both big names (Dell, HP etc.) and Whitebox (Tyan, Supermicro etc.) are far higher than those paid in the USA.

I ordered the following 2 servers:

Intel Xeon x3440 (4 physical cores with hyperhtreading)

4GB ECC DDR1333 RAM

64GB SSDSupermicro X8SIL-F Motherboard

Supermicro 512-200B chassis

Total: $~1350NZD including freight, GST and customs

2x Intel Xeon E5506 (4 physical cores each)

2x 4GB ECC DDR1333 RAM

64GB SSD

Supermicro X8DTL-F Motherboard

Supermicro 512F-520B chassis

Total $~2130NZD including freight, GST and customs

Both of the chassis are really small and don't require rack mounting rails. I had a problem with the 512F-520B in that it was an old revision and the motherboard standoffs were in the wrong places. In fact, a number were under the heatsink retention bracket and couldn't be removed so the board is somewhat warped with a bulge where these push out.

I ordered these on 2010-02-25 and it was a few days for the bank draf to go (they don't take credit card or paypal), a couple of days for them to put the order together. 3 days to ship to NZ and then 5 days to clear through customs. Got them today and have done the assembly. Both POST fine and will install the OS tomorrow before taking them to the datacenter on Friday.

For those interested they are being used by a new gaming community called Ultimate Gamers (www.ultimategamers.co.nz) for a bunch of public and some private game servers. They are planning to run a bunch of games including CS:S, TF2, Bad Company 2, Call of Duty and maybe Crysis 2 when it comes out. So keep a look out!

Speedtest 2019-10-14

sampler

441 posts

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#446847 9-Mar-2011 08:38

Hi Zeon,

Nice little servers. Interesting concept about directly accessing equipment from offshore. I guess you happy to effectively have no warranty etc as it would not be worth returning them if there was any problems.

few questions ....
I assume you mean 2011 not 2010 ?
Did you get approx pricing for the same thing in NZ what was the difference in price?
I might have missed it but where did you order these from (link/url if you can)?
Did it include all the items like the coolers and heat sinks etc ?

Cheers

Lee

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Zeon

3876 posts

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#446864 9-Mar-2011 09:38

sampler: Hi Zeon,

Nice little servers. Interesting concept about directly accessing equipment from offshore. I guess you happy to effectively have no warranty etc as it would not be worth returning them if there was any problems.

few questions ....
I assume you mean 2011 not 2010 ?
Did you get approx pricing for the same thing in NZ what was the difference in price?
I might have missed it but where did you order these from (link/url if you can)?
Did it include all the items like the coolers and heat sinks etc ?

Cheers

Lee

Hey Lee,
Yea I made that call with the warranty. To be honest I'm wanting to build up a number of the same spec servers and then I can just have the major parts sitting spare as my warranty, it will still be much cheaper than getting them from NZ.

And yes did mean 2011 lol. With these servers the chassis come with the fans and the PSU while the heatsink needs to be purchases separately.

In NZ I would suspect the same config for the x3440 would be about $2200 from Compucon who are the only source I know of for customized Supermicro servers. I actually bought a similar config from them with an x3430 processor and 500GB SATA HDD for about $2000 including assembely + warranty.

I ordered these from Superbiiz who seem to be great;
http://www.superbiiz.com/

Heres' my order list:

2
Intel Xeon Quad-Core E5506 2.13GHz 4.8GT/s 1366pin 4MB CPU w/o Fan, Retail
XEON5506BX
$215.99
$431.98

1
Supermicro X8DTL-iF-O Dual LGA1366 Xeon/ Intel 5500/ DDR3/ V&2GbE/ ATX Server Motherboard
MB-X8TLIF
$287.99
$287.99

2
Supermicro SNK-P0037P 1U Passive Heatsink For LGA1366
CA-SNKP37P
$21.99
$43.98

1
Supermicro CSE-512F-520B 520W Mini 1U Rackmount Server Chassis (Black)
CA-512F52B
$204.02
$204.02

1
Supermicro CSE-512-200B 200W Mini 1U Rackmount Server Chassis (Black)
CA-5122B
$98.99
$98.99

1
Intel Xeon Quad-Core X3440 2.533GHz 2.5GT/s 1156pin 8MB CPU, Retail
XEON3440BX
$218.98
$218.98

1
Supermicro X8SIL-F LGA1156/ Intel 3420/ DDR3-1333/ V&2GbE/ MATX Server Motherboard
MB-X8SILF
$180.99
$180.99

3
Super Talent DDR3-1333 4GB/256x8 ECC Micron Server Memory
W1333EB4GM
$49.99
$149.97

1
Supermicro SNK-P0046P 1U Passive Heatsink For LGA1156
CA-SNKP46P
$18.99
$18.99

2
Supermicro MCP-220-00044-0N HDD Retention Bracket
CA-MCP224N
$5.99
$11.98

2
Super Talent 2.5 inch 64GB Value SSD SATA2 Solid State Drive (MLC)
FTM64GL25V
$98.99
$197.98

Sub Total
$1,845.85

Tax
$0.00

Shipping Method: UPS Worldwide Expedited Track Shipping 1 2

Speedtest 2019-10-14

jaymz

1132 posts

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#446895 9-Mar-2011 11:07

The only downside I can see is the lack of using any of the PCI or PCI-X slots. But I am thinking from a different perspective. Personally I think it would be nice to be able to use a dedicated server NIC instead of the onboard stuff.

I would also prefer redundant PSU's and RAID for the drives. However, again, that is just what i would want personally.

But price wise, a nice cheap server! Nice job!

Zeon

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#446992 9-Mar-2011 15:41

The motherboards have built in dual Intel Gigabit Server grade Nics (they are using Intel 3400 and 5500 chipsets remember) so I see no reason for an addon nic. And if you did want one the riser card is like $20 for the PCI-E slot.

With the harddrives the chassis can support up to 3x 2.5" hard drives or one 3.5" and one 2.5". Could easily get 3TB of disks pace in one of those.

Speedtest 2019-10-14

jaymz

1132 posts

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#446998 9-Mar-2011 15:56

Zeon: The motherboards have built in dual Intel Gigabit Server grade Nics (they are using Intel 3400 and 5500 chipsets remember) so I see no reason for an addon nic. And if you did want one the riser card is like $20 for the PCI-E slot.

With the harddrives the chassis can support up to 3x 2.5" hard drives or one 3.5" and one 2.5". Could easily get 3TB of disks pace in one of those.

Personal preference and server use i guess, but I prefer to offload the nic processing power to a seperate chip and take some load off the CPU. But again, it comes down to the use of the server and if you need processing power.

For me, overall disk space isn't a major, it is the performance of the storage that interests me. the more iOps I can get the better. But again that comes down to what the server is being used for.

It would make a great ESX or Hyper-V box, with the addition of a seperate NIC to allow load balancing for the VMs.

Regs

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Snowflake

#447031 9-Mar-2011 17:55

for cost savings, there is also the option of buying "HP Renew" server equip. this is ex-demo etc that gets 're-manufactured' and shipped at cheaper price, with full original warranties. Call Exeed if you're interested in that option. I have several HP Renew Blades in my c3000 chassis, no problems yet.

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www.snowflake.com

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rphenix

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#450768 22-Mar-2011 15:16

Zeon:
In NZ I would suspect the same config for the x3440 would be about $2200 from Compucon who are the only source I know of for customized Supermicro servers.

Incorrect there is also the likes of digicor (they are in Australia and NZ, though bigger in Australia than here) the guys give absolutely awesome service so I would rate them far above compucon for supermicro gear.