Supermicro Server Does Not Need Data Center Air Conditioning

Server maker Supermicro launched its FatTwin server architecture for Xeon E5-2600 processors in 4-node and 8-node configurations.

Targeted at high-density computing solution for Data Center, Cloud Computing, Enterprise IT, Big Data and HPC applications, the servers can be equipped with Intel's most power-hungry processors without requiring expensive air conditioning solution for the data center environment.

Supermicro claims that the servers can operate in high ambient temperature environments, up to 47 degrees Celsius even when they are running 135 watt Xeon E5-2600 processors. This provides for free-air cooled operation resulting in reduced cost without the air conditioning requirements. According to the company, "optimized air-flow designs, air-shrouds and streamlined cabling reduce fan speeds and power consumption resulting in improved power utilization and overall energy efficiency." The 4U FatTwin server is available in 8/4/2 DP node configurations with eight hot-swap 3.5-inch HDDs per 1U or six hot-swap 2.5-inch HDDs per 1/2U.

The architecture supports up to 512 GB ECC DDR3-1600 memory in 16 sockets, offers two SATA 3 and four SATA 2 ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5,10, eight SAS 2 interfaces for RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60 (LSI 2208) and RAID 0, 1, 10 (LSI 2308). The server can carry up to three double-width graphics cards, up to three PCI-E 3.0 x16 or two PCI-E 3.0 x16 devices, in addition to one PCI-E 3.0 x16 (low-profile), one PCI-E 3.0 x8 (low profile), and one PCI-E 2.0 x4 (low profile) device. Two GbE ports and a 56Gbps ConnectX-3 FDR InfiniBand interface can be switched with 10 GbE options, SuperMicro said.