Supermicro 4u 24 bay chassis with SAS2 expander

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Mark

Member
Nov 6, 2014
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Hi,

This was posted in the supermicro 3u thread but I wanted to make my own now that I have received the chassis and I can confirm that everything was as advertised.

I reached out to the seller of this item:
Supermicro SC846E16 R1200B X8DTE F BAREBONES 24 Bay 4U Server | eBay

I asked for the following configuration below. So no motherboard or raid controller and different power supplies. They were will to doing $300 + shipping. Everything was shipped fast very fast. Everything was in very good condition with the exception of the rack rails being incorrect and a bad power supply. They shipped me a new power supply right away and that's all good. Trying to figure out what the issue with the rails is they look correct but appear to be slightly over sized for the inner rails attached to the server.

Configuration:
Chassis: SC846E16-R1200B
Drive Trays: 24 3.5in
Power Supply: 2 x PWS-1K21P-1R
Power Distributor: PDB-PT846-8824
Backplane: BPN-SAS2-846EL1
Mounting Rails: MCP-290-00057-0N

Hopefully, some of you find this helpful. I feel like its great deal.

Here is the picture of the unit in my rack (just sitting on a shelf until the rails are resolved):
 
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james23

Active Member
Nov 18, 2014
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thats a GREAT deal...the BPN-SAS2-846EL1 alone goes for around 250$ OR MORE on ebay!

EDIT: btw, if you want to switch to the PWS-920P-1R power supplies, they are platinum efficiency and WAY quiet and efficient. this is what i did on my 846..they are 900w however, but i can't imagine needing 1200w anyway.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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The PWS-1K21P-1R are also Platinum rated and just as quiet as the PWS-920P-1R. I've tested the PWS-1K21P-1R, PWS-920P-1R, PWS-721P-1R and PWS-501P-1R in this and similar chassis - these four are all quiet and the 1200W might be the quietest of all four (with the 721P the loudest for unknown reasons - though it might have just been a worn fan on the unit I tested with).

At nominal loads (100w) there will be about a 15w difference at the plug between the 1200W and 501W PSU. Noise difference will not be readily discernible between these four models. The 1200W and 920W "SQ" models are slightly quieter - but not enough so to be worth a premium price for the PSU.
 
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Mark

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Nov 6, 2014
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The PWS-1K21P-1R are also Platinum rated and just as quiet as the PWS-920P-1R. I've tested the PWS-1K21P-1R, PWS-920P-1R, PWS-721P-1R and PWS-501P-1R in this and similar chassis - these four are all quiet and the 1200W might be the quietest of all four (with the 721P the loudest for unknown reasons - though it might have just been a worn fan on the unit I tested with).

At nominal loads (100w) there will be about a 15w difference at the plug between the 1200W and 501W PSU. Noise difference will not be readily discernible between these four models. The 1200W and 920W "SQ" models are slightly quieter - but not enough so to be worth a premium price for the PSU.
Supermicro lists the 1200's as Gold... Super Micro Computer, Inc. | Support ... Did they just get them certified as gold but when you look at the actual power consumption they are platinum equivalents?

Below is the view from the IPMI... Currently running ESXi 5.5 with a FreeNas VM and 18 drives hd's. Power draw doesn't look bad to me at all.

upload_2015-1-6_15-4-13.png
 

james23

Active Member
Nov 18, 2014
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Wow, how are you getting that low of power draw with 18x drives? what kind of drives are you using?

Here is my power draw, at just about idle (maybe 5-10% cpu usage) and 22x drives and same motherboard with 2x xeon L5640 (intels lower power 6 core CPUs): ( iam also running 3 x HW raid cards on the MB)

(btw, i have read other posts about issues running ESX with FreeNas as a VM, issues around data corruption when the drives are passed directly to FreeNas and even when using RaidZ or ZFS filesystems, you may want to look into this, i can look up the links that i read in the past if you cant find any)

psu.JPG

btw, did you do anything special to get the PWS revision and PWS model to show up properly? i even have a entirely separate 846 chassis and motherboard (x8dtu-f) and was seeing this same garbled text on that one with different 920 PSUs) ++ NEVERMIND, I JUST UPDATED MY IPMI VIEW TO LATEST VERSION and that fixed the issue- weird as i updated about 20 days ago and it still didnt correct it, but all is good now with version 2.9.32 (140624)
-- How cool is it to get all that power data just by updating your psu!! love it! you can find the 920 psus for as low as 50$ each on ebay, (i bought them at this price from a seller out of chicago with about 40 of them to sell)

tks
 
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PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Sorry - you are correct - the 501P and 920P are Platinum, the 721P and 1k21P are Gold.

My notes are at home and going from memory, but when I stood up all four models on a system drawing about 100W the noise levels were comparable and the draw at the wall varied about 15w from best to worst (and they lined up just like you'd expect with the 501P giving best efficiency, 721P next, 920P next and 1k21P next). When all said and done I left the 1k21P in service because (a) it was "efficient enough", (b) the 721P seemed a bit noisy and (c) I only had a single unit each of the 920P and 501P. What I really wanted was the 500W PSUs across the board but it wasn't worth the money to swap them out.

From your shot above you seem to be seeing 194w input for 138W of load, which isn't horrible given the light load. 56W wasted.

James is seeing 388W input for 362W of load - 26W wasted, which is obviously much more efficient but he's also climbed up a bit higher on the load line too.

James: i get similar results (140W nominal) with 15 drives spinning. They are WD Reds.
 

Mark

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Nov 6, 2014
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Wow, how are you getting that low of power draw with 18x drives? what kind of drives are you using?

Here is my power draw, at just about idle (maybe 5-10% cpu usage) and 22x drives and same motherboard with 2x xeon L5640 (intels lower power 6 core CPUs): ( iam also running 3 x HW raid cards on the MB)

(btw, i have read other posts about issues running ESX with FreeNas as a VM, issues around data corruption when the drives are passed directly to FreeNas and even when using RaidZ or ZFS filesystems, you may want to look into this, i can look up the links that i read in the past if you cant find any)

View attachment 160

btw, did you do anything special to get the PWS revision and PWS model to show up properly? i even have a entirely separate 846 chassis and motherboard (x8dtu-f) and was seeing this same garbled text on that one with different 920 PSUs) ++ NEVERMIND, I JUST UPDATED MY IPMI VIEW TO LATEST VERSION and that fixed the issue- weird as i updated about 20 days ago and it still didnt correct it, but all is good now with version 2.9.32 (140624)
-- How cool is it to get all that power data just by updating your psu!! love it! you can find the 920 psus for as low as 50$ each on ebay, (i bought them at this price from a seller out of chicago with about 40 of them to sell)

tks
I've got a dual socket board but I'm currently only running a single E5-2620 v2 and 12 2TB WD reds, 6 SSD's. I've had freenas running on esxi for over a year now. I've got the raid controller passed directly to the VM, my understanding is that's how you avoid issues with data corruption. I find those freenas forums to be crazy negative especially around running freenas on vm, I can only assume there are a lot of people that use incorrect hw/configuration and then start complaining when something goes wrong.

Didn't do anything special to get the PWS Rev and PWS Model to show up. At least that i'm aware of.
 

Mark

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Nov 6, 2014
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wow just noticed your updated post. The price on those 920's is pretty awesome. I'm going to have to look for a pair. Anything I need to change out with the power distribution block?
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Anything I need to change out with the power distribution block?
Nope. Up to the 1200w model they all use the same PDB (or, more specifically, the 1200W PDB you have will accept the lower-rated PSUs just fine).

The 1600W PSUs have a thicker connector and, although the pinout is the same, that PDB does not mate with the lower rated PSUs.

You might want to ask CertifiedServers if they have the 920Ps in stock and if they'd just swap them for you if you pay shipping both ways. They probably have some and might be accommodating.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Well done. It is a very good deal indeed. He shouldn't have too much trouble selling it out in no time at all.

In fact, it is such a good deal that I'm surprised he's accepting offers too. My rack is full and I certainly don't need any more 3.5" capacity - but I wonder how low he would really go?
 

Mark

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Nov 6, 2014
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canta

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Nov 26, 2014
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Hi Guys...

I just doing "happy fingering" and put the lowest bestoffer for $250.
the seller counters offer for $290.

$10 off is better than nothing to whoever needs this great deal.
 
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TubaMT

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Jul 26, 2014
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Hi Guys...

I just doing "happy fingering" and put the lowest bestoffer for $250.
the seller counters offer for $290.

$10 off is better than nothing to whoever needs this great deal.
Just did the same thing and he accepted at $290. Thank you @canta
 

Rain

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May 13, 2013
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Can someone explain the differences, if any, between the PWS-920P-SQ and the PWS-920P-1R? I know they're both compatible, but the -SQ isn't more "super quiet," right?
 

nethel

New Member
Jan 9, 2013
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Just a heads up for those interested, these are still available even though they show no stock.

These guys were great with answering questions. I would definitely order from them again. Looking forward to upgrading from my DL180 G6 and hopefully taming some of the noise from that beast.
 

Rain

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May 13, 2013
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Just a heads up for those interested, these are still available even though they show no stock.

These guys were great with answering questions. I would definitely order from them again. Looking forward to upgrading from my DL180 G6 and hopefully taming some of the noise from that beast.
It's definitely a great chassis. The PWM chassis fans are plenty quiet if you run them at 50% or less. The 1200W Gold PSUs are a completely different story though. Even under light load, they scream pretty loud (5000-7000 RPM). I ordered some PWS-920P-1Rs that should be delivered today. I'll report back when I get them installed tonight!

(Also, sidenote: the PWS-1K21P-1Rs are extremely inefficient when under very light loads. As reported by IPMIView, my system is drawing a mere 60W from PSU1, but PSU1 is drawing 120W from the wall (likewise with PSU2)! That's a 60W incandescent wasted per PSU! I know I'm way under 20% utilization, but I hope the PWS-920P-1Rs perform better.)
 

canta

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........
(Also, sidenote: the PWS-1K21P-1Rs are extremely inefficient when under very light loads. As reported by IPMIView, my system is drawing a mere 60W from PSU1, but PSU1 is drawing 120W from the wall (likewise with PSU2)! That's a 60W incandescent wasted per PSU! I know I'm way under 20% utilization, but I hope the PWS-920P-1Rs perform better.)
are you sure?
here is the the 1k21P-1r report http://www.supermicro.com/products/powersupply/80plus/80plus_pws-1k21p-1r.pdf
10% output load - 84.71% eff
20% output load - 89.67% eff

I would assume when loading below 10% should decrease to 80% eff
if you say 60W output load and 120 input (AC load), this is 50% eff that does not make logically..

my 3U system, 117 input( AC load) with 8X3Tb 7200RPM HD with APM disabled, 1X60Gb SSD, IBM M101015( [plus 80mm extra fan for cooling, Lenovo TS140 motherboard with i3, and 4X 1.5V RAM overall..
it jump additional 10W when running srcub or silvering.
 

Rain

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May 13, 2013
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Unless IPMIView and/or the PSUs themselves are reporting incorrect values. I haven't manually tested with a meter.



Note that not only do the power values indicate far less than 80% efficiency, calculating it with the input/output voltage/currents yields nearly the same values.

It's also a bit weird that PSU1 has less than half of the load; its not divided equally. Also, despite a lighter load and the same temp, the fan is spinning over 1k RPM faster. Can't wait to get these 80 Plus Platinum PSUs in and see what happens!
 
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canta

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Nov 26, 2014
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501p has lower fan noise than 1k21p, but not much for me.
I have one with 501p running proxmox with ssd drives..and external 2 nic cards with 4x1.35v ram, and e3 haswell. Input ac laoad is 33w running 2 VMS of Ubuntu.

Still looking 501p.... Nothing show reasonable price on eBay... 50 to 60 my range

My system only use one PSU

Check the PDF link on 1k21p . you can see the graph.... As far as I know the worst eff 80%