Quanta QuantaGrid D52B-1U - Skylake, 25GbE NIC, Rails - $324.99 + SH

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Emulsifide

Active Member
Dec 1, 2014
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This is a steal for a VMware 7.0U2 certified HCL node and/or an overkill 25GbE pfsense router!

Also, it looks like if you contact them on Reddit, they have it even cheaper:
 
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Samir

Post Liker and Deal Hunter Extraordinaire!
Jul 21, 2017
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I'd reach out to them on reddit--they are pretty active--quick $100 savings. :D
 

Almighty

Active Member
Oct 27, 2019
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Anyone know the noise level on a unit like this for light loads? I know 1u is harder to make quiet, but with the right psu and pwm fans it's possible.
 

aij

Active Member
May 7, 2017
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How easy is it to get parts for Quanta servers? (assuming you're not a huge business, just using it at home)
 

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
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So the last time I bought Quanta D51B-2Us they came with an older BIOS that didn't support V4 CPUs.

I tried updating with the packages on the official Quanta website and the update wouldn't go through. Looked everywhere for other packages and nothing worked. 4 months later I still have 3 unusable bricks sitting around.

My suggestion, stay away from less popular brands if you're not a business that can afford to pay someone else to figure out stuff for you. There's no community forums like Dell. Pay a bit more for stuff like Dell/SM to save yourself headaches.
 
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Indecided

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Sep 5, 2015
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Guessing it's not going to like that collection of ES/QS processors i've been trying to find a home for... anybody have any experience with these boards?
 

Switchback028

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May 18, 2018
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Has anyone bought one of these chassis yet? The cost differential isn't very much between this and a E5 V4 system and I'm debating picking one up.
 

eduncan911

The New James Dean
Jul 27, 2015
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Has anyone bought one of these chassis yet? The cost differential isn't very much between this and a E5 V4 system and I'm debating picking one up.
E5 V1/V2 systems are pretty cheap these days, especially the CPUs, are 22nm and use more wattage idle (my dual E5-2970 V2 systems idle around 82-ish watts with SSDs and singe Supermicro PSUs - paid $80 for a pair of E5-2670 V2s, in each system).

E5 V3/V4 base systems are a mixed bag. The base systems are just a tad more than the V1/V2 systems, if not the same. The V3 CPUs at 22nm that are still pretty cheap; however, it's the V4 14nm CPUs that are pulling in a premium still (e.g. E5-2650 V4s still at $150-ish).

E5 V4 are DDR4, which is an additional premium over V1-V3s.

These newer Skylake CPUs go for even a higher premium over the E5 V4 CPUs, at 14nm and not much difference in performance. However, the Skylakes come with M.2 NVMe slots on the motherboards, which is a big plus over the E5 V4s.
 
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Switchback028

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May 18, 2018
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So I ended up picking up one of these chassis. I had a heck of a time getting into the IPMI (Turns out resetting the BIOS or pulling the CMOS does NOT reset the BMC credentials, go figure)

When I got the system from TAMS, the primary account was set to "Root" with an unknown password. I had to install a Linux OS (In my case, I used Debian 10) and used ipmitool to reset the credentials. The BIOS update was a bit tedious but not very difficult with Quanta's "CPU Compatibility Update" scripts, however I /did/ have to comment out the BMC update section to get the BIOS update to take.

Also, the second PCIE Riser is wired to the second CPU slot, so if you want to run a single processor system (My original intent) You'll sacrifice 1 of two PCIE slots. (Not including the OCP, or Quanta RAID MEZZ slot, which are wired to CPU0)

I also tested the system with an ES CPU. Unfortunately (On the original BIOS, haven't tested with the newer BIOS) the ES CPU doesn't properly boot. May try it when I'm home next, but that won't be for a while. (work travel)
 
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Fritz

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Apr 6, 2015
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Given the number of fans, I suspect these things sound like a tornado.
 

Switchback028

Member
May 18, 2018
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Surprisingly after patching the BMC/BIOS the noise has been really not to bad. Not sure if it was a BIOS setting that got reset or if the BMC that shipped with these systems was just broken in some way.
 
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cookiesowns

Active Member
Feb 12, 2016
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does anyone know of a source to get updated BMC & bios on these? I may be running some cascadelakes on these.. and would prefer to have updated BMC/BIOS
 

Nate Carlson

New Member
Aug 27, 2019
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does anyone know of a source to get updated BMC & bios on these? I may be running some cascadelakes on these.. and would prefer to have updated BMC/BIOS
Looks like QCT has some of it on their site:

That link appears to be a BIOS/BMC update, it's old-ish though.
 

Nate Carlson

New Member
Aug 27, 2019
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Also, the second PCIE Riser is wired to the second CPU slot, so if you want to run a single processor system (My original intent) You'll sacrifice 1 of two PCIE slots. (Not including the OCP, or Quanta RAID MEZZ slot, which are wired to CPU0)
Is there a RAID mezzanine installed? Or just the Intel SATA controller?

Also, ae there 2 2-port 25gb NICs (total of 4 ports), or just one card with 2 ports? The listing says two cards, but the pictures don't show that..
 

Switchback028

Member
May 18, 2018
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Is there a RAID mezzanine installed? Or just the Intel SATA controller?

Also, ae there 2 2-port 25gb NICs (total of 4 ports), or just one card with 2 ports? The listing says two cards, but the pictures don't show that..
Only one card, two ports. And unfortunately there is no mezzanine raid card installed and I haven't found any anywhere for sale.
 

Nate Carlson

New Member
Aug 27, 2019
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Only one card, two ports. And unfortunately there is no mezzanine raid card installed and I haven't found any anywhere for sale.
Well that's a bummer. Still a good price, but those would make it a killer deal.

Are the risers included for the standard PCIe slots at least?
 

cookiesowns

Active Member
Feb 12, 2016
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Well that's a bummer. Still a good price, but those would make it a killer deal.

Are the risers included for the standard PCIe slots at least?
yup they are.. the lack of bios/bmc updates make these a bit of a not great for production hosts