help with supermicro SC933 server upgrade

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

bbrendon

New Member
Feb 10, 2018
6
0
1
45
I have an old Supermicro server that I use as a JBOD (NFS/Samba shares). Other than the fact that it is slow, it works great. I have upgraded the NIC and HBA on it already. I really just need CPU/Memory/Motherboard now. I'm hoping someone can tell me if I can put something more modern in this thing and if so what? I was looking at the X10 series but I'm not sure what and if its compatible with the power supply. I'm thinking I would need a max of 64gb of RAM and probably not even that much.

Chassis: SC933 (pretty sure this is it)
MB: X7DVL-E

Thanks for the tips. The supermicro website is very daunting.
 

svtkobra7

Active Member
Jan 2, 2017
362
88
28
Chassis: SC933 (pretty sure this is it)
I almost purchased one of these for my first server and find them interesting. You don't see them very often, perhaps because they are EOL, but I find them interesting.

The 933 should be readily identifiable by certain "unique" aesthetic characteristics: (a) 15 vertically oriented 3.5" drives, (b) 3U chassis, (c) 3 PSU slots. I say unique as usually you will see up to 16 3.5" drives in a horizontal orientation (4 columns x 4 rows) and 2 PSU slots.

Here is the Supermicro link to your chassis: 3U Chassis | Chassis | Products - Super Micro Computer, Inc.

The below image is an example of a 933 and actually comes from this site, with a write up here: https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-sc933t-r760b-3u-15x-35-sassata-storage-chassis-review/



To your question, you can surely put a more modern board in there up to 12" x 13" E-ATX in size. As to what precisely, additional feedback is probably needed in regards to your use case, inclusive of what you hope to achieve with your upgrade.

As a preliminary thought, I might offer that if you have been managing with an X7 motherboard, a jump to an X10 and more expensive DDR4 RAM is probably not needed in your case. Moving to an X9 and less expensive DDR3 RAM would likely be a more optimal route to go.

Supermicro's naming convention was at first daunting to me as well; however, this resource explains it Motherboards (Intel UP) | Product Naming Conventions | Super Micro Computer, Inc. and this matrix can be used to search Motherboard Matrix | Support - Super Micro Computer, Inc.
 

bbrendon

New Member
Feb 10, 2018
6
0
1
45
Thank you for the feedback and that Naming conventions link. It has been very helpful in trying to narrow down options.