Official: Whiteboxer Super Micro is a $2bn server company Commodity server vendor Super Micro has reached a $2bn run rate with its latest quarter's results. In Q2 fiscal 2015, the three months that ended 31 Decemer 2014, revenues jumped 41 per cent year-on-year to $503m, as profits grew to $31.24m, 134 per cent up the same period in fiscal '13. …
Supermicro is pretty amazing. The three new server/Twin units I have in the lab for review are a cut above what went before, and the previous generation was pretty good to start with.
Keep on keeping on, Supermicro. You make damned fine servers, SANs and workstation boards...and your switches are no slouches either!
Well, I guess you can get somewhere by having having constant rev fans in a bad airflow design, no regard for MTBF beyond warranty combined with a noise and thermal envelope which would have made the Concord Olympus engines stall with envy.
At least this has been my personal experience with their boxes over the years. I have bought them once or twice and I have regretted every single time I bought them (while quaffing ibuprophen to quench the headache after installing on them).
I admit - it is a good manufacturer for "rack-n-stackers" which have thousands of guys who do nothing else but pull dead ones out a rack and stick blank ones all day long (provided they have good ear protection). Anything else - not so much.
Your experience is inaccurate. I have several different models of Supermicro spanning (at least!) the past 6 generations of equipment, from simple motherboards to pizza box 1U servers to Fat Twins and everything in between. (Though, sadly, I do not have a Storage Bridge Bay to call my own.)
There are no "constant rev fans" in any of these units. The Supermicro servers and the switches throttle down to sounding about half as loud as my Dells and a quarter as loud as those "I CAN'T HEAR YOU, I HAVE THE HP ON! WHAT? I SAID I HAVE THE HP ON! NO, I...LISTEN, LET ME CALL YOU BACK, I HAVE TO MOVE TO ANOTHER ROOM!"
I have dozens of Supermicro servers in service that are 6 years old. I have over a dozen Supermicro servers still in service that are 10 years old. Supermicro offers a standard 3 years parts and labour warantee on everything (on year cross shipment) with the ability to get into more complex deals if you want things like 4 hours enterprise support. In addition, Supermicro is one of the only manufacturers I know of which sells at least some models with 5 year warranties.
Supermicro servers are generally designed to be able to run hot - hotter than those provided by other manufacturers - so they throttle down thier fans unless they go over their designed thermals. They are, however, also designed to operate in higher temperature environments than other manufacturers. So when you aren't running at room temperature, but instead are at 35C or higher, then they'll sound like jet engines as they ramp up their cooling. But in all, I think you'll find Supermicro servers (and switches) able to withstand much higher ambient temperatures than the competition It's one of their selling features.
Supermicro has had exactly two consistent issues over the years:
1) They use cheap components for "the little things", including internal cable guides and the little tabs used to remove sleds. They are (slowly) addressing this.
2) Their rail kits have been truly awful. The latest rail kits I've gotten with the new Intel v3 servers are much better. They're no Dell rail kits - not even close - but they're light years ahead of the bendable Chenbro-style fenfen that they had before.
Supermicro is all grown up. And they don't even need to charge you a license to be able to use the IPKVM in their baseband management controller.
Holy crap.
A tin supplier that isn't crap. That sound you hear is horsement heralding an apocalypse.
"quarter as loud as those "I CAN'T HEAR YOU, I HAVE THE HP ON! WHAT? I SAID I HAVE THE HP ON! NO, I...LISTEN, LET ME CALL YOU BACK, I HAVE TO MOVE TO ANOTHER ROOM!"
That's just rubbish.
"Supermicro offers a standard 3 years parts and labour warantee on everything (on year cross shipment)"
Supermicro website:
"Supermicro is one of the only manufacturers I know of which sells at least some models with 5 year warranties."
So it's no different from IBM, Dell or HP then?
"Supermicro servers are generally designed to be able to run hot - hotter than those provided by other manufacturers"
Where did you get this nugget of information?
They are, however, also designed to operate in higher temperature environments than other manufacturers
SOME SM servers are designed like that. And in specific configurations (couldn't find the specifics on SM website though)
Most Supermicro rack servers seem to be operating at max 35°C like the competition.
Dell, HP and IBM (Lenovo?) all have some server configurations for 45 C operation and SM has a couple models with designation for 47 C inlet temp.
"That's just rubbish."
I CAN'T HEAR YOU, THE HP'S ON. WHAT?
""Motherboard, Chassis, Power supplies and Super Barebone products: Supermicro provides a three-year warranty for labor and one-year warranty for parts."
Seems to depend on the product. I was looking at servers, Twins and blade systems. Seems their "parts only" stuff, like mobos only get the one year warranty. Gotta admit, I haven't bought "just parts" in some time.
"Where did you get this nugget of information? SOME SM servers are designed like that. And in specific configurations (couldn't find the specifics on SM website though). Most Supermicro rack servers seem to be operating at max 35°C like the competition."
From their product managers. Though they aren't warranted for operation beyond standard temps, most of their lineup is actually designed to handle far higher temps than advertised. And yes, I believe them when they say it. Why? They've been nothing but honest and up front with me for years, about the benefits and the drawbacks of everything I've asked about.
What's more, I've been able to have their standard servers run at 45Cish temps for prolonged periods in testing.
"Dell, HP and IBM (Lenovo?) all have some server configurations for 45 C operation and SM has a couple models with designation for 47 C inlet temp."
Yep, with all manufacturers, only some systems are warranted for high temp environments. The difference I've found is that you can consistently push Supermicro's gear far past the advertised temperatures for rather long periods of time.
That said, Supermicro doesn't have any of the really exotic stuff. look here for a discussion of why I think that HP's liquid cooled blades might well be the bee's knees.
Liking Supermicro doesn't mean I don't like other manufacturers. (Though Dells are louder AND TURNING ON THE HP MEANS I CAN'T HEAR YOU!) As a general rule of thumb I find the following applies:
1) Supermicro is the default vendor. The price is right!
2) Supermicro is the vendor you choose if you need to install servers in warm or really cramped places (or in the same room as people.)
3) Dell if the vendor you choose if you're a rack monkey and/or see yourself frequently moving things around on racks. Dell rail kits = godlike.
4) HP is the vendor you choose if you need something exotic or bizzare. Beware you'll have to license every freaking feature and you'll get nickled and dimed to death.
5) Lenovo/IBM is what you buy when you just need to shut up people who are stuck 20 years in the past and/or your distie doesn't sell Supermicro.
6) Supermicro has nice starter switches, Dell has much better switches, and HP can make your whole universe into a dynamic routing table made out of sex and awesome.
7) They all use the exact same company to provide global support to rural areas, so ask them pointed questions about part availability and distribution.
8) When trying to talk to sales, Supermicro will be honest and tell you everything you want to know. Dell will be honest and tell you what they can (on the record) but have to switch to "off the record" to tell you the rest. HP will just try to sell you more things every time you ask a question, so never call them unless it's an emergency and you have the ability to blackmail the salesguy. Lenovo is yet an unknown.
9) HP's phone-in tech support are amazing, but I wish turnover wasn't so high. Dell tech support are not at HP levels, but you can form longstanding relationships with them, as they don't go anywhere. Supermicro's tech support isn't really anywhere near so good, it's still largely reliant on the channel. (Mind you, they don't support a lot of software other than their BMC directly, so...) Lenovo is an unknown.
No one vendor comes out ahead of all others. They each have their niches...and clearly I'm not the only one to recognize that Supermicro are worth the time, or they wouldn't be kicking ass like they are.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU, THE HP'S ON. WHAT?"
@Trevor_Pott - ummm normally only happens on HP servers if the Insight Management Agents aren't installed. If you've installed the Management Agents, then the fans go down to a tolerable level after management agent services come up. Otherwise, you are spot on - its so bad, you find yourself wishing to be behind a 747 taking off for some peace and quiet... The newer G8's and higher I believe are finally agentless and as a consequence the fans don't continue to scream if you haven't installed the agents.
For the record, and for the money - I'm leaning into the Supermicro camp as well nowadays for the general purpose workhorses. I started experimenting with them for the home lab with some opportunistic eBay grabs, really liked the fit/finish compared to some of my other "roll your own rackmounts". I really didn't pay attention to this before, but after getting familiar with the cases, I then realized how MUCH of the equipment in the racks in my Datacenter was actually OEM'd Supermicro. That has also made me more comfortable with it, since I was already running a good amount of business critical functions on their OEM'd servers and had no clue it was Supermicro. For the money - its hard to beat.
I CAN'T HEAR YOU, THE HP'S ON. WHAT?
Surely you meant "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am"
re: Warranty
Seems to depend on the product. I was looking at servers, Twins and blade systems. Seems their "parts only" stuff, like mobos only get the one year warranty. Gotta admit, I haven't bought "just parts" in some time.
Supermicro warranty page:
SuperServer and SuperBlade products**: Supermicro provides a three-year warranty for labor and one-year warranty for parts. This limited warranty includes advance part replacement service covering a period of 1 year from Supermicro invoice date.
"Where did you get this nugget of information?"
From their product managers.
Oh dear.
Ask yourself why Supermicro doesn't publicly claim their thermal design superiority if that was true.
The difference I've found is that you can consistently push Supermicro's gear far past the advertised temperatures for rather long periods of time.
I think you're using weasel words, mate.
Have you run other brands on the same condition and seen them shut down or fail otherwise?
"Have you run other brands on the same condition and seen them shut down or fail otherwise?"
Yes, as a matter of fact I have. That's my job, eh? To do that sort of testing. And -a s a rule - Supermicro holds up better. There are exceptions (some models from Dell seem particularly overdesigned) but overall Supermicro seems to handle the thermals better.
Look, testing systems (in many cases to destruction) is my job. In fact, it has largely become the only part of systems administration I still consistently do. The rest of it has become automated or I have simply walked away from as I have lost interest.
But companies, be they customers looking to find the right server to put in extreme situations or vendors looking to have their gear tested pay me to test hardware, software and services. It means I get to play with a pretty wide variety of stuff.
At the end of the day, Supermicro make damn good gear. It's better today than it was a year ago, and I see no reason to believe it won't continue on that trend. They've set themselves apart from others by focusing less on how to "monetise" their existing customer base with needless add-ons or licensing sub-components of their firmware and keep on with the "build good kit and sell it cheap".
Here's hoping that seeing them move to $2B/year and beyond causes the other vendors to sit up, take notice and start getting competitive again.
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