Where are the Supermicro C3000 Atom boards?

[ullbeking]

I've been looking forward to getting myself a Supermicro C3000 system ever since they were announced but I can't find them anywhere. I'm almost getting to the point that I feel this SoC feels like vaporware. Something like this would be ideal: A2SDi-H-TP4F | Motherboards | Products - Super Micro Computer, Inc. but I can't find anybody who's managed to be successful in procuring one.

I'd actually prefer to stick with the C2000 series, but these are getting scarce. I know I know, there's a history of problems with C2000 but the upsides are that they actually exist and their quirks and defects are well known.

Does anybody know what the story is?

 

[EffrafaxOfWug]

They're available in the EU at least (I'm UK-based), I bought an A2SDI-8C+-HLN4F- from Lambdatek a couple of months back. As far as I'm aware they're one of the very few supermicro resellers in the UK, at least with access to more than a few token models. Your profile says london so I assume that's the british london and not one of the other ones

They have your stated model for sale here for a shade under £900.

 

[Kev]

I am desperate to find A2SDi-TP8F here in the us for a reasonable price!

 

[ullbeking]

I bought an A2SDI-8C+-HLN4F- from Lambdatek a couple of months back.

[...]

They have your stated model for sale here for a shade under £900.

From looking at prices it seems as though the A2SDI-8C+-HLN4F is much better value for money. I'm even considering ordering a new SuperServer to save myself all the hassle of finding the right chassis, PSU, etc.

 

[ullbeking]

I am desperate to find A2SDi-TP8F here in the us for a reasonable price!

The C3000 series are very expensive indeed. Not to mention still very new. I'm not an early adopter and I ain't got time for all that messing around and debugging manufacturers' problems for them.

I'm still a fan of the C2000.

 

[EffrafaxOfWug]

A2SDI-8C+-HLN4F was ideal for me since it gave a reasonably decent CPU package plus eight SATA ports from the SoC*, making it ideal for small footprint NAS servers. It doesn't have the 10GbE that the A2SDi-H-TP4F does, but neither that nor the additional 8 cores were a requirement for me and as you've observed the price delta is pretty large.

* Small caveat in that it doesn't seem to support hot-swap properly, at least for me under debian (although I've not updated the BIOS from what shipped yet). I have to resort to a SCSI bus rescan (`echo "- – -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/hostX/scan`) in order to get newly inserted discs to appear, something you don't want to run if you've got a lot of writes in flight.

 

[ullbeking]

Small caveat in that it doesn't seem to support hot-swap properly, at least for me under debian (although I've not updated the BIOS from what shipped yet). I have to resort to a SCSI bus rescan (`echo "- – -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/hostX/scan`) in order to get newly inserted discs to appear, something you don't want to run if you've got a lot of writes in flight.

This is exactly the sort of thing that prompted the "early adopter" comment in my previous message.

 

[EffrafaxOfWug]

This is exactly the sort of thing that prompted the "early adopter" comment in my previous message.

Well I'm not entirely sure if it's down to the hardware itself, the BIOS (no choice of hot-swap or AHCI stuff under the SATA settings) or something in Stretch not being happy with it, but it's certainly not as plug'n'play as the LSI HBAs I've been using up until now.

 

[ullbeking]

In any case, it sure would be nice if SM offered C3000 boards in a simple and lightweight, short-depth 1U SuperServer type of configuration. That would save a lot of hassle. I wondering what chassis people who are using C3000 boards are using?

 

[ullbeking]

Well I'm not entirely sure if it's down to the hardware itself, the BIOS (no choice of hot-swap or AHCI stuff under the SATA settings) or something in Stretch not being happy with it, but it's certainly not as plug'n'play as the LSI HBAs I've been using up until now.

Regardless of what it is, given that this is supposed to be a premium offering with a price tag to match, and is already too difficult for the average punter to get (in terms of availability and price), I haven't been super impressed so far.

 

[mstone]

the c2000s had the same sort of availability problems when they were new. Intel just doesn't seem that interested in this product line. (Sadly, because it's ideal for a lot of deployments. I guess it would cut into their profit margins on the high end stuff too much.)

 

[ullbeking]

the c2000s had the same sort of availability problems when they were new. Intel just doesn't seem that interested in this product line. (Sadly, because it's ideal for a lot of deployments. I guess it would cut into their profit margins on the high end stuff too much.)

This is very interesting. I'm particularly surprised at how hard it is to find the C2000 series on the second-hand market, even today.

 

[EffrafaxOfWug]

C2000's have continued supply problems considering last year's hardware bug that basically necessitates a SoC replacement (basically a new board) which has probably served to hoover up any remaining inventory.

I haven't been super impressed so far.

It's not been a super impressive 18 months for Intel...