Introduction
Supermicro is a global leader in server systems and support, with 11,000 employees spanning more than 50 countries. Supermicro provides customers worldwide with a comprehensive portfolio of offerings that include motherboards, servers, storage systems, power devices and management software. Supermicro offers its customers the expertise needed to leverage their IT investments and information technology infrastructures at every level of data center deployment.
It is committed to maximizing customer satisfaction and delivering the highest levels of quality, serviceability, security and efficiency.
Supermicro’s Server Building Block Solutions consist of a superior breed of server building blocks, including microprocessors, storage and networking hardware. In conjunction with industry-leading software platforms, these server building blocks are designed to help customers lower total cost of ownership without compromising computing power or performance. The cornerstone of Supermicro’s Server Building Block Solutions is the X8DTG motherboard.
Supermicro also makes motherboards as part of their product line. These motherboards are actually very similar to my server motherboard (the X8DT3-F).
Supermicro makes a few different models, but they all look very similar in that they have 8-16 SATA ports and several standard ports. Supermicro also makes RAID cards (the SAS-6E) and the software to go with it.
They also make rackmount servers, where their mainboard is on the bottom of the server facing the back of the rack, which is pretty unconventional (but many Dell servers are set up like this too).
Supermicro has a unique hybrid solution where they have RAID cards that are compatible with the Intel chipset but also work in Linux. This is a very nice dual-boot solution, and Supermicro gets good reviews for their support.
Supermicro’s motherboards use the Intel 5520 chipset, which is highly capable and reliable. It supports RAID 5, 6 and 10 with SAS drives (using controller cards like the SAS-6E).
You can technically use SATA drives with this chipset, but it has more advanced features that make it better to use SAS drives (it requires more memory to do all its fancy work).
Supermicro motherboards use Intel chips, but run on 64-bit software (which is better anyway). Supermicro motherboards are very similar to my server motherboard in that they have 16 SATA ports.
The Supermicro motherboards can work with SAS drives (SSA-8308R) and IDE drives. The newer ones support SATA and SAS “RAID” drives. All the boards are ATX size, which is the biggest size available for a motherboard. The latest ones use DDR3 memory, so you can easily install 4GB or 6GB of RAM (up to 18).
I don’t know what the other difference is, but I doubt it is a significant difference.
The Supermicro motherboards are very versatile, because you can place them into a variety of environments. They are quality boards for a good price, and very popular in the business world.
The Supermicro motherboard comes with dual Ethernet ports, which is fairly standard (the X8DT3-F only has one Ethernet port).
The Supermicro motherboard has industrial connectors for external temperature and voltage monitoring (using different cards). There are also external connectors for flow meters (using a different card) and DIO.
The Supermicro motherboards have 4-pin fan headers for the case fans, and standard internal headers for CPU fans and case fans. The newer models may not have the 4-pin headers, but will have an onboard controller to power the case fans.
The Supermicro motherboards have lots of built-in ports: two Serial, two USB 2.0, two Firewire and two parallel (they don’t like to call them “parallel” ports).
The motherboard has 4 internal USB ports, but the X8DT3-F only has 2. One of the Supermicro ports is a power connector that plugs into a Molex power connector.
The Supermicro motherboards have 4 SATA connectors (and these are not just for the drives; they are on the same circuit board as the PWM and case fans).
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