Quick Atom Server Board Difference

[mmmmmdonuts]

A few questions:

1) What is the different other than the GPU on these two supermicro atom server boards?

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/ATOM/ICH9/X7SPE-HF-D525.cfm

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/ATOM/ICH9/X7SPE-H-D525.cfm

2) Will it the difference matter for a small home file server?

3) Will this run on Ubuntu 10.10 without a problem? (or one of the older D510 platforms)

4) Anyone have this considering its brand new and want to comment on it?

 

[adi]

As far as the differences, HF version has IPMI, which is remote management via web/application. If you are going to have a monitor hooked up to it, or be able to easily hook up a monitor to troubleshoot, IPMI is not needed.

All other components are standard Intel, so I don't see why there would be any issues running Ubuntu on it.

I have the previous generation 510 Supermicro Atom board, and am very happy with it.

 

[mmmmmdonuts]

As far as the differences, HF version has IPMI, which is remote management via web/application. If you are going to have a monitor hooked up to it, or be able to easily hook up a monitor to troubleshoot, IPMI is not needed.

Thank you. I am glad I know this now because it actually makes a difference. I guess I must of missed it when trying to compare the systems.

 

[pjkenned]

Just as a quick note, the Atom boards do not have a third (Realtek 10/100) NIC for monitoring like the LGA 1366 and LGA 1156 "F" boards have.

Big difference is that you cannot physically put the Atom board's IPMI/ WebGUI on a physically separate management network and have two NICs serving the main network.

So if someone was able to address the IPMI NIC, and hacked the WebGUI password (IPMI 2.0 passwords are encrypted, but someone could guess), then they could gain KVM-over-IP access and be able to remotely power cycle the server. That is why best practice is to segregate the IPMI NIC. In reality... I am guessing that this happens on home systems very... very... infrequently.

 

[Jesse B]

Supermicro touts excellent compatibility with all of their products. They supply Windows, Linux, BSD, and often even more drives. There shouldn't be any compatibility issues.

 

[pjkenned]

Supermicro touts excellent compatibility with all of their products. They supply Windows, Linux, BSD, and often even more drives. There shouldn't be any compatibility issues.

This is definitely the case. On the Supermicro X8SI6-F review I posted this morning, and since my cutoff for writing that, I think I've installed eight OSes plus ESXi. They do pick very compatible components.

One other thought for the OP is that the X7SPA-HF-D525 will likely be mITX like the D510 variant. The X7SPE-HF-D525 is about 3/4" longer which I think pushes the PCIe slot out a bit. Practically speaking that means tight mITX cases won't work. In larger enclosures this is not an issue.

 

[PigLover]

Just as a quick note, the Atom boards do not have a third (Realtek 10/100) NIC for monitoring like the LGA 1366 and LGA 1156 "F" boards have.

Big difference is that you cannot physically put the Atom board's IPMI/ WebGUI on a physically separate management network and have two NICs serving the main network.

So if someone was able to address the IPMI NIC, and hacked the WebGUI password (IPMI 2.0 passwords are encrypted, but someone could guess), then they could gain KVM-over-IP access and be able to remotely power cycle the server. That is why best practice is to segregate the IPMI NIC. In reality... I am guessing that this happens on home systems very... very... infrequently.

But the NIC that supports IPMI does support VLAN, so if you have a managed switch and understand how to do VLAN, it is possible to isolate it.

 

[pjkenned]

But the NIC that supports IPMI does support VLAN, so if you have a managed switch and understand how to do VLAN, it is possible to isolate it.

Very true! This is more of an OCD thing for me though... because what if...

Then again, it is an illogical disposition to keep them on completely different physical networks.

 

[Krobar]

Very true! This is more of an OCD thing for me though... because what if...

Then again, it is an illogical disposition to keep them on completely different physical networks.

I usually find putting the IPMI NIC on the LAN side is good enough and that includes older IPMI1.5 with no real encryption.

I hink SM let you restrict IP access like Tyan anyway although if the intruder is already in your LAN I think you have problems anyway.