SuperChassis E300 Build?

[Magius]

Has anyone built a system using just this chassis with an mITX motherboard?
Supermicro | Products | Chassis | Mini-1U| SCE300

I bought an A1SRi-2758F board last night and this is one of two chassis I'm considering, but I'm not really sure how the I/O shield, DC power input and PCIe riser would work out..? All of the images I've seen of this chassis are the stock photo of the Xeon D SuperServer, instead of shots of the chassis itself, it's empty internals, or any of the components that come with it. I guess I have three specific questions I was hoping someone who has bought just the chassis (and not the SuperServer) could answer:

1.) From what I can tell at the bottom of the above link, there is an optional accessory I/O shield compatible with A1SRi boards. I assume I'd have to buy that, rather than use the standard I/O shield that comes with my motherboard?

2.) There are optional accessory power supplies (DC bricks) but I can't tell if those connect to say a 4-pin input on the chassis itself, or if the connector expects to mate to something on a Xeon-D motherboard I/O. Is there a pass-through hole in the chassis where I could use any generic 4-pin DC brick and connect it to my A1SRi board, or do I need to buy SM's accessory power supply?

3.) It does not appear like the chassis includes the PCIe riser card or riser bracket (shown in the photo), however neither of these is listed as an optional accessory either. Does anyone know if either of these pieces is included or how to obtain them otherwise? Part numbers?

I'm planning to call Supermicro later today, but I thought I might get better and faster answers from other users. Thanks!

 

[jseba]

#1 - I would assume so as well.
#2 - If you look at the motherboard manual for the board that the chassis is meant to be paired with (X10SDV-TP8F), the motherboard has a dedicated 12V power supply port.
#3 - I can't answer that one. WiredZone doesn't have much information on the chassis and the complete system (SYS-E300-8D) doesn't indicate much on that front either

That chassis looks like it's made for a specific board but it also seems like you might be able to use a PicoPSU as well.

 

[Magius]

#2 - If you look at the motherboard manual for the board that the chassis is meant to be paired with (X10SDV-TP8F), the motherboard has a dedicated 12V power supply port.

Thank you! I did look at the manual for the chassis, but didn't think to look at the manual for the board that you get with the SuperServer config. I'll go do that to see what else I can learn, but thanks for pointing out the dedicated 12V port.

That chassis looks like it's made for a specific board

Yeah I definitely get the impression that this chassis is meant to pair with that Xeon D board in the SuperServer config. That said, they sell it as a bare chassis, and they sell the A1SRi accessory shield, so it must be possible to make an A1SRi board work in the chassis... I'm just not sure I want to be the guinea pig that figures out exactly which pieces and parts I need to cobble together to make it work, and at what cost...

I'm really starting to lean towards the tried and true m350 chassis, and just give up on the idea of using the expansion PCIe slot.

 

[Netwerkz101]

Have you seen Tenet's thread (pics):
Supermicro SYS-E300-8D

I run the X10SDV-TP8F in a CSE504-203B 1u chassis.
It is 7 inches wider than the chassis in the subject.
I use a SuperMicro 1u x8 PCIe riser in it for a OCZ RD400 NVMe SSD.
Yes... I had to order, separately, the rear i/o plate from Supermicro.

I think i had a pic in that thread as well.

p.s. ... we like guinea pigs

For A1SRi mITX Looks like you just need:
riser card + rear io plate + power supply

 

[Magius]

I looked at the Xeon D products but they're just too expensive for me at this time. I would have loved to have just bought the SuperServer in this chassis with the Xeon D board, but holy cow that's a pricey router! I looked at a variety of chassis options for the Atom board, but I'm limited to approx. 10"x10" in my On-Q structured wiring panel, and no more than 3" height. For that reason the SC-E300 is really a perfect chassis. With the optional I/O plate it's allegedly compatible w/ my A1SRi board, and it supports a PCIe card for later 10GbE expansion via riser.

That thread you linked I just bookmarked last night, but hadn't finished reading yet. I've given it another look now and I see there is some great info there. Of course it's not a build with an A1SRi board, but the details on the chassis itself should be the same regardless of the board used.

As much as I might be willing to be a guinea pig on another day, this project is already expensive enough and I'm thinking the m350 is the way to go for now. 10GbE will be a long way off for me, if ever, and with all the accessories I'd have to buy to get the SCE-300 working with my Atom board, it'd probably bring the chassis cost up to ~$175 or so. That's around 3x the cost of the simpler m350.

I'm still planning to give Supermicro a ring and get their official story on this chassis and board combo, so if I hear anything good I'll be sure to let you all know.

 

[Magius]

I wanted to come back and close the loop on this after talking to Supermicro a couple days ago.

First of all, the rep was telling me that if a motherboard and a chassis were meant to be compatible it would say so on the right hand side of the web page, and neither this board nor chassis mention compatibility with the other one. I understood this general rule of course, but I pressed him about the I/O shield accessory for this chassis that specifically calls out the model family for my Atom board. In the end he agreed that the board must work in this chassis as long as I buy that shield, even if it doesn't say so on the website. Really no better answer than the assumption I'd already made, but I took it and moved on.

On the power supply question, we went round and round and he put me on hold twice to go ask someone else about it. I could tell I'd finally gotten through to him after I explained why I felt there might be a "missing piece" to convert from the 12V DC barrel jack to the 4-pin ATX plug on my motherboard. Rightly or wrongly, I explained to him that I assumed his chassis takes the 12V barrel plug and converts it to an 8-pin ATX connector for his Xeon-D motherboard. That may not be correct, and he wasn't sure either, but the point was, I'd need an adapter from 8-pin to 4-pin in that scenario to plug into my Atom board. Since that adapter surely didn't come with the I/O shield, how would I get it? This was when he put me on hold the second time, and when he came back he was confident he had the answer. What he said is that when you buy the power supply accessory kit (84W?), it comes with the adapters you need to convert from the barrel jack input to the different ATX connectors. I didn't really want to buy their power supply, but at least this seems to answer the question.

For the final question I ended up not asking Supermicro, both because I'd been on the phone with them for over 45 minutes by this point, and because I believe I found the answer in another person's SuperServer build thread. What it looks like is that the chassis and super server come with the physical bracket to mount an expansion card, but not the riser card you need to make the electrical connection.

So with all of that information, it does seem like you could buy the E300 chassis and use it with an Atom motherboard, as long as you buy the optional I/O shield and buy the optional PSU kit (or else rig up your own with adapters from Amazon). If you want to use the expansion slot, you'll either need to buy the right Supermicro riser card, or you might be able to get by with a generic flexible one from Amazon, and just use the included bracket to hold the card.

I ended up deciding that the odds of me upgrading with a 10GbE NIC down the road are pretty slim, and bought a trusty m350 chassis with a few fans, extra HD bracket and power kit. I still like the idea of the Supermicro chassis, but at this time it's just a little pricey and harder to get all the special pieces together to make it work with Atom.