Potential Deal: 2 x Dual 2011 nodes @$199, Quanta Openrack

[Heath Albritton]

Just got my one. Ordered one of the Quanta with risers from the seller in Texas. Hadn't read the auction description carefully and was surprised to see they came with a Mellanox CX3 mezzanine card and a CX2 PCIe card.

Kinda want to save the PCIe slots for m2.nvme, though, and still have 2x10GE, so I ordered an x520-da2 mezzanine.

Anyone have a good source of 16GB DIMMs for this? 8GB seem to be pretty easy to come by.

 

[voxadam]

@Heath Albritton, Natex seems to be fairly popular with everyone here at STH. In my experience their memory prices always undercut what you'd find on eBay by a few dollars.

Natex Memory, "Hot Deals!!!"

 

[rampage666]

It would be around $500~$650 for the freight cost, to have 4 servers shipped to Australia.
Am trying to check other shipping method

 

[Heath Albritton]

@Heath Albritton, Natex seems to be fairly popular with everyone here at STH. In my experience their memory prices always undercut what you'd find on eBay by a few dollars.

Natex Memory, "Hot Deals!!!"

Thanks, I ended up using kingmemoryusa2 mentioned earlier in this thread.

16GB DIMMS are twice the price per GB as 8GB... I don't really need the density that badly.

 

[Taverner]

Is there any interest in some custom PCBs to power these from a readily available supply, in a more useful form factor? I'm probably going to get a couple done, as postage on full assemblies is not practical for Australia.

 

[rampage666]

Is there any interest in some custom PCBs to power these from a readily available supply, in a more useful form factor? I'm probably going to get a couple done, as postage on full assemblies is not practical for Australia.

Yes that would be nice. Also where do you live?
I checked a sea freight company can ship those to Australia.
If we buy multiple ones and share the shipping cost, it still could be done.

 

[Taverner]

Yes that would be nice. Also where do you live?
I checked a sea freight company can ship those to Australia.
If we buy multiple ones and share the shipping cost, it still could be done.

It's certainly doable to get them shipped if there's enough in the box and it's a slow service, but I think it's more cost effective to just make a breakout board - I've been able to find some panel mount connectors to suit the motherboards - I've still got to go through the measurements and make sure it actually will fit, but they're made by TE Connectivity under license, so I'm pretty sure it'll work.

Based on what others have done, I think the only pins we really care about are the +12v/GND, the +5V PSU_Ready on B4, and the fan tacho and RPM Sense pins on C1,2,3,4. Is anyone here running one of the motherboards out of the chassis and can confirm?

 

[voxadam]

Great find on those connectors @Taverner! I've been planning to build myself a standalone midplane board, these should make my life much simpler.

 

[Gene]

So i put a lsi 9300-8e sas card in and my wywinn node wouldnt boot past bios. gave a 99 as far as status of bios and stayed there. normally it gives a 92 and continues boot up. had to put back in my 9200-16e
Anyone know what probem with the pci-e card that indicates?

 

[Taverner]

Great find on those connectors @Taverner! I've been planning to build myself a standalone midplane board, these should make my life much simpler.

Let me go one better for you - These guys have stock of the Amphenol FCI connector that should be an exact match, and I've been quoted $4/ea WITH STOCK AVAILABLE. Unfortunately it looked like some of the TE Connectivity parts had some minor spacing differences.

I'll have a PCB design done in a few days when I get some time after work, and a chassis design done a little while after that. I'm planning to have watercooling support for the chassis, as I don't really want a stack of 40mm fans going crazy near me and the Australian summer isn't kind to servers that aren't air conditioned.

 

[voxadam]

@Taverner is there any chance that the schematics and/or layouts for your board will be available under an open license?

 

[Taverner]

@Taverner is there any chance that the schematics and/or layouts for your board will be available under an open license?

Sure will.

I've got ten of the board to midplane connectors on the way, and I'm designing it around a pair of HP DPS-800GB power supplies, as they offer pretty much everything I want and are easy to adapt. The goal is for the midplane to make the entire thing plug and play - I want to have any jumpers needed etc already in place.

If anyone here has one of the boards nearby, there's a few things I'd love to clarify, as mine aren't here yet.

Firstly, is there any chance someone can grab a high res shot of the area that's supposed to have MiniSAS connectors? I know the Quanta boards aren't fitted with them, but I'm curious if it's just the headers that are missing.

Second, can someone grab me a photo of one of the system fans, and of its connector? Hoping someone can help!

 

[vejmarie]

Sure will.

I've got ten of the board to midplane connectors on the way, and I'm designing it around a pair of HP DPS-800GB power supplies, as they offer pretty much everything I want and are easy to adapt. The goal is for the midplane to make the entire thing plug and play - I want to have any jumpers needed etc already in place.

If anyone here has one of the boards nearby, there's a few things I'd love to clarify, as mine aren't here yet.

Firstly, is there any chance someone can grab a high res shot of the area that's supposed to have MiniSAS connectors? I know the Quanta boards aren't fitted with them, but I'm curious if it's just the headers that are missing.

Second, can someone grab me a photo of one of the system fans, and of its connector? Hoping someone can help!

I got some pictures for you but no way to upload on the forum, either they are too big, or as my latest post has been deleted my account is in a mess. if you can ping me through private mail I can send them to you, or explain me how to upload a 2.4 MB picture inside the forum no issue. There are the place for the header, and we will be testing to add them. The key issue is BIOS support after.

 

[e97]

Is anyone running these in a datacenter on 220V?

 

[Gene]

Im running mine on 208v at home. is there a specific reason at a datacenter matters?

 

[StammesOpfer]

Is anyone running these in a datacenter on 220V?

Yup @dba did. From page 8 post 153. He provided a lot of great research and info early on when everyone was trying to figure out if these were useable or not.

Here is a photo of four racks of these OCP servers that we just installed. Idle power per rack is around 28A 208V (4.6A on each leg of two 30A 208V 3-phase feeds) which really isn't bad for 104 Xeon E5 V1 CPUs, two switches, and a router.

BTW: The servers in the distant background belong to Sony and have something to do with the PlayStation. There must be two dozen racks at least- brand unknown.

View attachment 1994

 

[rampage666]

hi, could anyone can provide some photos of the power connectors on the motherboard, the psu and the cable? would like to get a solution for standard atx psu

 

[StammesOpfer]

hi, could anyone can provide some photos of the power connectors on the motherboard, the psu and the cable? would like to get a solution for standard atx psu

People have linked the connector required and also shown how to direct wire an ATX psu. I know it is 22 pages but there is a lot of great info in those pages.

 

[e97]

Im running mine on 208v at home. is there a specific reason at a datacenter matters?

Yes, if there are any safety concerns raised by the provider or quirks regarding power/connectivity/maintenance/administration.

Yup @dba did. From page 8 post 153. He provided a lot of great research and info early on when everyone was trying to figure out if these were useable or not.

Thanks, I'll go back and look into those posts.

 

[voxadam]

I got some pictures for you but no way to upload on the forum, either they are too big, or as my latest post has been deleted my account is in a mess. if you can ping me through private mail I can send them to you, or explain me how to upload a 2.4 MB picture inside the forum no issue. There are the place for the header, and we will be testing to add them. The key issue is BIOS support after.

What about Imgur, Google Drive, Dropbox or whatnot?