Supermicro SuperServer E302-9D Review: A Fanless 10G pfSense Powerhouse
by Ganesh T S on July 28, 2020 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Networking
- Intel
- Supermicro
- 10GBase-T
- Xeon-D
- SFP+
- 10GbE
- ASpeed
- Skylake-D
Miscellaneous Aspects and Concluding Remarks
The Supermicro SuperServer E302-9D proved to be an interesting system in terms of developing targeted benchmarks. While processing relevant workloads on the machine, we opted to go with an out-of-the-box experience. Despite spending well over three months with the unit, we blelieve there are a lot more aspects that can be looked into - including, but not limited to, additional tuning of the driver settings, adoption of DPDK-capable software, and evaluation of capabilities such as traffic shaping, VLANs, VPN options, etc. offered by pfSense. The Intel Xeon D-2123IT also supports AVX512, and the native 64-byte registers are bound to offer some benefits for networking applications. In terms of performance - there are bound to be systems that deliver similar number of 10G ports while providing greater firewall packet-processing capabilities. However, they are definitely not going to be fanless or be available in a compact form-factor like the E302-9D. Therein lies the unique appeal of the system.
Evaluation Testbed for the Supermicro SuperServer E302-9D
(From L to R - the Compulab fitlet-XA10-LAN, the Supermicro SuperServer 5019D-4C-FN8TP, the Ubiquiti mFi mPower Pro, the Supermicro SuperServer SYS-5028D-TN4T, and the SuperServer E302-9D)
Dual-LAN motherboards are commonly used for putting firewall distributions like pfSense into production. With the advent of 5G and adoption of fixed wireless broadband, high-speed dual-WAN deployments are going to become more common in the future. Networking engineers, software developers, and home-lab enthusiasts can get a head-start on this using systems like the E302-9D.
Migrating server platforms to embedded desktop systems is attractive for many use-cases. We would like to see some innovation from board component vendors as well as Supermicro to lower the power consumption numbers - particularly when only the IPMI is active. Server OSs are rightly optimized for performance and not power consumption. Despite this context, it is surprising to see FreeBSD and associated drivers lag well behind Windows Server in optimizing the aspect based on the workload being processed.
The Supermicro SuperServer E302-9D is an interesting and unique product from the company's stable. Fanless systems for industrial and embedded applications (particularly those with server credentials such as remote management capability) traditionally cost an arm and a leg. In that context, the pricing of the system is relatively sane at $1100 for a barebones configuration.
The size of the system and its passively-cooled nature greatly widens the breadth of deployment scenarios that it can cover. Avoiding an external power brick would have been nice, but it is quite common for systems in this form-factor. Embedded applications require systems that bundle a number of functions to allow for reduction in BOM cost and installation volume when space is at a premium. Systems such as the E302-9D ensure that no separate switches are needed while being deployed for related functionality. The system's design enables it to operate well in harsh conditions commonly found in industrial automation and communication systems. In the latter domain, load and conformance testing applications can also utilize systems such as the E302-9D.
Customers in need of a traditional 1U rackmount offering with the same capabilities can go for the SuperServer 5019D-4C-FN8TP. It is priced much lower at $870, but the target market is quite different given its noise profile and form-factor. The fanless and rugged nature of the SuperServer E302-9D ensures that the $250-odd premium is quite reasonable for most home-lab and industrial automation use-cases.
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eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, July 28, 2020 - link
Thanks, interesting review! Might be (partially) my ignorance of the design process, but wouldn't it be better from a thermal perspective to use the case, especially the top part of the housing directly as heat sink? The current setup transfers the heat to the inside space of the unit and then relies on passive convection or radiation to dispose of the heat. Not surprised that it gets really toasty in there.
DanNeely - Tuesday, July 28, 2020 - link
From a thermal standpoint yes - if everything is assembled perfectly. With that design though, you'd need to screw attach the heat sink to the CPU via screws from below, and remove/reattach it from the CPU every time you open the case up. This setup allows the heatsink to be semi-permanently attached to the CPU like in a conventional install.You're also mistaken about it relying on passive heat transfer, the top of the case has some large thermal pads that will make contact with the tops of the heat sinks. (They're the white stuff on the inside of the lid in the first gallery photo; made slightly confusing by the lid being rotated 180 from the mobo.) Because of the larger contact area and lower peak heat concentration levels thermal pads are much less finicy about being pulled apart and slapped together than the TIM between a chip and the heatsink base.
Lindegren - Tuesday, July 28, 2020 - link
Could be Solved by having the CPU on the opposite side og the boardclose - Wednesday, July 29, 2020 - link
Lower power designs do that quite often. The MoBo is flipped so it faces down, the CPU is on the back side of the MoBo (top side of the system) covered by a thick, finned panel to serve as passive radiator. They probably wanted to save on designing a MoBo with the CPU on the other side.eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, July 28, 2020 - link
Appreciate the comment on the rotated case; those thermal pads looked oddly out of place. But, as Lindegren's comment pointed out, having the CPU on the opposite site of this, after all, custom MB, one could have the main heat source (SoC/CPU) facing "up", and all others facing "down".For maybe irrational reasons, I just don't like VRMs, SSDs and similar getting so toasty in an always-on piece of networking equipment.
YB1064 - Wednesday, July 29, 2020 - link
Crazy expensive price!Valantar - Wednesday, July 29, 2020 - link
I think you got tricked by the use of a shot of the motherboard with a standard server heatsink. Look at the teardown shots; this version of the motherboard is paired with a passive heat transfer block with heat pipes which connects directly to the top chassis. No convection involved inside of the chassis. Should be reasonably efficient, though of course the top of the chassis doesn't have that many or that large fins. A layer of heat pipes running across it on the inside would probably have helped.herozeros - Tuesday, July 28, 2020 - link
Neat review! I was hoping you could offer an opinion on why they elected to not include a SKU without quickassist? So many great router scenarios with some juicy 10G ports, but bottlenecks if you’re trafficing in resource intensive IPSec connections, no? Thanks!herozeros - Tuesday, July 28, 2020 - link
Me English are bad, should read “a SKU without Quickassist”GreenReaper - Tuesday, July 28, 2020 - link
The MSRP of the D-2123IT is $213. All D-2100 CPUs with QAT are >$500:https://www.servethehome.com/intel-xeon-d-2100-ser...
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/produc...
And the cheapest of those has a lower all-core turbo, which might bite for consistency.
It's also the only one with just four cores. Thanks to this it's the only one that hits a 60W TDP.
Bear in mind internals are already pushing 90C, in what is presumably a reasonably cool location.
The closest (at 235% the cost) is the 8-core D-2145NT (65W, 1.9Ghz base, 2.5Ghz all-core turbo).
Sure, it *could* do more processing, but for most use-cases it won't be better and may be worse. To be sure it wasn't slower, you'd want to step up to D-2146NT; but now it's 80W (and 301% the cost). And the memory is *still* slower in that case (2133 vs 2400). Basically you're looking at rack-mount, or at the very least some kind of active cooling solution - or something that's not running on Intel.
Power is a big deal here. I use a quad-core D-1521 as a CPU for a relatively large DB-driven site, and it hits ~40W of its 45W TDP. For that you get 2.7Ghz all-core, although it's theoretically 2.4-2.7Ghz. The D-1541 with twice the cores only gets ~60% of the performance, because it's _actually_ limited by power. So I don't doubt TDP scaling indicates a real difference in usage.
A lower CPU price also gives SuperMicro significant latitude for profit - or for a big bulk discount.