Xeon D-15xx to Replace a Dell R715?

[Fodmidoid]

D-1521 boards have been less than. $500 but this week a little over...
Amazon.com: Supermicro Mini-ITX SoC Xeon D-1521 4-Core, FCBGA 1667 Motherboard - X10SDV-4C-TLN2F-O: Computers & Accessories

So can for sure build a system under $1000 and maybe a lot less depending on what case etc you use.

Thanks. I'm wondering if I should go for the D-1528 which has 6 cores for just another $100...or is it a bad idea since each core is 1.9 GHz compared to the 1521 which is 2.4 GHz?

X10SDV-6C+-TLN4F-O Supermicro Intel Xeon D-1528/ DDR4/ SATA3&USB3.0/ V&4GbE/ Mini-ITX Motherboard & CPU Combo - Motherboards - CPU on Board - SuperBiiz.com

 

[Evan]

Thanks. I'm wondering if I should go for the D-1528 which has 6 cores for just another $100...or is it a bad idea since each core is 1.9 GHz compared to the 1521 which is 2.4 GHz?

X10SDV-6C+-TLN4F-O Supermicro Intel Xeon D-1528/ DDR4/ SATA3&USB3.0/ V&4GbE/ Mini-ITX Motherboard & CPU Combo - Motherboards - CPU on Board - SuperBiiz.com

Even better is some ways is the 6-core is 35watt tdp so according to @Patrick test the max draw in his testing config is 60w vs 75w.
The 1521 though has a nice turbo speed also. Really depends what can be had at a good price.
It's always a trade off between performance and power consumption.

I have a version 1.01 Xeon-D 1540 with 8-core and while using a little more power i managed to grab it from amazon at about $600 earlier last year. I am considering getting a 6-core as an always on machine instead of my intel NUC so I can run my firewall on that as well as my other always on VM's and keep the 8-core as pure lab unit.

Since I don't need add in cards and I use SATA drives the Xeon-D I absolutely perfect for what I do.

 

[Fodmidoid]

Even better is some ways is the 6-core is 35watt tdp so according to @Patrick test the max draw in his testing config is 60w vs 75w.
The 1521 though has a nice turbo speed also. Really depends what can be had at a good price.
It's always a trade off between performance and power consumption.

I have a version 1.01 Xeon-D 1540 with 8-core and while using a little more power i managed to grab it from amazon at about $600 earlier last year. I am considering getting a 6-core as an always on machine instead of my intel NUC so I can run my firewall on that as well as my other always on VM's and keep the 8-core as pure lab unit.

Since I don't need add in cards and I use SATA drives the Xeon-D I absolutely perfect for what I do.

Nice! Do you think the 1.9 GHz would be a sacrifice on performance compared to the 1521?

Im also wondering if you could make some recommendations as far as a case, memory, and drives.

Thanks so much.

 

[Evan]

Nice! Do you think the 1.9 GHz would be a sacrifice on performance compared to the 1521?

Im also wondering if you could make some recommendations as far as a case, memory, and drives.

Thanks so much.

The d-1528 still turbo's to 2.5Ghz so I think it would be fine but I don't yet have that exact chip and I also don't have your workload but in general I find the Xeon-D a good home server platform.

Case I have this
Amazon.com: Supermicro Superchassis CSE-721TQ-250B Mini-Tower with 250W Power Supply: Computers & Accessories

$160 and it has 4 x hot swap bays + it's supermicro.

For drives I have a collection of Samsung PM863 SATA drives, they work fine for me and you can get second hand (or used to be able to) for good prices and good capacity.

The boards can support m.2 nvme SSD but I don't have any but they sure are fast (not cheap)

I also have some western digital spinning disks for data but no fancy raid just a mirror pair and that's it.

Memory is 2nd hand HP server pull, its Samsung but not on the approved list.

 

[Fodmidoid]

The d-1528 still turbo's to 2.5Ghz so I think it would be fine but I don't yet have that exact chip and I also don't have your workload but in general I find the Xeon-D a good home server platform.

Case I have this
Amazon.com: Supermicro Superchassis CSE-721TQ-250B Mini-Tower with 250W Power Supply: Computers & Accessories

$160 and it has 4 x hot swap bays + it's supermicro.

For drives I have a collection of Samsung PM863 SATA drives, they work fine for me and you can get second hand (or used to be able to) for good prices and good capacity.

The boards can support m.2 nvme SSD but I don't have any but they sure are fast (not cheap)

I also have some western digital spinning disks for data but no fancy raid just a mirror pair and that's it.

Memory is 2nd hand HP server pull, its Samsung but not on the approved list.

Hey. How's it going?

Its been a few months, but I wanted to resurrect this thread since I outgrew my Apu2c4 pfSense firewall (I hot gigabit Internet at home) and now thinking of virtualizing it, along with a few other always on VMs, and also having a separate server for labbing purposes only and using Xeon D-15xx builds for both, much like you did, Evan.

Id love to rack mount both of these if you or anyone else has case suggestion for that as well. Something 2U for quiet.

Thanks a lot.

 

[Evan]

2u is not an issue. Big question is what depth can you accept and now many drives of what type you want to use ?
Not so many short depth 2u cases. With Xeon-d the other thing is a lot of cases come with massive psu.

Interested to see what you find, in an ideal world I would rack my stuff in a travel rack like used for 19" equipment for music production but that means short depth, and don't see too much that suits.

 

[Fodmidoid]

2u is not an issue. Big question is what depth can you accept and now many drives of what type you want to use ?
Not so many short depth 2u cases. With Xeon-d the other thing is a lot of cases come with massive psu.

Interested to see what you find, in an ideal world I would rack my stuff in a travel rack like used for 19" equipment for music production but that means short depth, and don't see too much that suits.

Thanks, Evan.

I would prefer a short case, if possible. I do have a full length server cabinet, but I'm looking to downsize. I realize that cuts my options.

I have Synology NAS so I'm not too concerned with storage, though I would like to have some. Possibly some fast SSD and 1 large SATA drive.

 

[Evan]

Oh then something like a SC523L may work, smallish 500w platinum psu as well, just limited by drive space but it using a small board could get the SSD mounted on the other side of the case where the bigger board would be...

SC523L-505B | 2U | Chassis | Products | Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Otherwise I have not looked at other case options yet but maybe other have some good ideas ?

 

[Fodmidoid]

Oh then something like a SC523L may work, smallish 500w platinum psu as well, just limited by drive space but it using a small board could get the SSD mounted on the other side of the case where the bigger board would be...

SC523L-505B | 2U | Chassis | Products | Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Otherwise I have not looked at other case options yet but maybe other have some good ideas ?

Thats an interesting looking case.

Since I'm so limited with short depth cases, if I were open to keeping my full server cabinet, what case(s) would you recommend, then?

Thanks.

 

[Evan]

Not really sure, most SM and other brands come with big and/or redundant PSU, it's a small market share for a 2u case and 200-300w PSU and without a lot of hot swap bays.

Lots of options with 700w or more PSU and lots of hotswap disks, could put 2 boards on a single case ... twin setup.

 

[K D]

Not really sure, most SM and other brands come with big and/or redundant PSU, it's a small market share for a 2u case and 200-300w PSU and without a lot of hot swap bays.

Lots of options with 700w or more PSU and lots of hotswap disks, could put 2 boards on a single case ... twin setup.

Quiet and cool Twin Setup in a short case.

Dual Xeon D 1528 in a 2U case.

 

[Evan]

Quiet and cool Twin Setup in a short case.

Dual Xeon D 1528 in a 2U case.

Yep a nice neat build like that

 

[Fodmidoid]

Yep a nice neat build like that

Thanks.

 

[Fodmidoid]

Does anyone have any thoughts/opinions on the following Supermicro Xeon D-1518/1521 rack servers as both a pfSense and few other always-on VMs?

...and for the higher end ones (1528/1541) as a complete lab server?

Thanks very much.

Amazon.com: Supermicro SuperServer 5018D-FN8T Xeon D Mini 1U Rackmount,10GbE LAN, SFP+, IPMI: Computers & Accessories

Amazon.com: Supermicro Xeon D-1521 Mini 1U Rackmount, Front I/O,10GbE, IPMI, RS-SMX104C2N-FIO: Electronics

Amazon.com: Supermicro Xeon D-1528 6-Core Mini 1U Rackmount w/ Dual 10GbE, RS-SMX106C4N-FIO: Electronics

Amazon.com: Supermicro 5018D-FN4T Xeon D-1541 8-Core Front IO Mini 1U Rackmount w/ Dual 10GbE: Computers & Accessories