SUPERMICRO AS-1012G-MTF 1U Rackmount Server Barebone Socket G34 AMD SR5650 DDR3 1600/1333/1066

Pros: Server runs quite well and is a very small package. Performance is good

Cons: The Integrated RAID card is marked as being the AMD SP5100, but it runs Adaptec code and there are no drivers available. Creating an array succeeds but during OS installation (Windows Server 2008, 2008 R2, or 2012; ESX server 5.0, 5.1) it will present all four disk independently rather than the array volume.

I tried contacting SuperMicro, AMD and Adaptec for drivers, but nothing fixes this issue. I am buying an LSI 9260-4i to replace the internal RAID on this system.

Other Thoughts: If you need RAID, buy a separate card. I can't say enough bad things about the integrated RAID

Pros: This Server is awesome I have 32gb of Kingston ECC Ram with AMD Opteron 6128 Magny-Cours 2.0GHz 8 core CPU, one 1tb HD. I run ESX 4 Server running 15 VM's along with a phenom II x6 running a couple. I run some BSD proxy servers, web servers, Windows 2008 x64 Domain and Exchange server, and some custom app servers running on windows 2008 x64 that use SQL.

Cons: I never got the software RAID running well. I tried a Windows 2008 x64 install with RAID 5 setup when i first got the server and it was SLOW, but it did work. For ESX I built a SAN and use ISCSI for my storage.

Other Thoughts: I wish I could get another one for personal use.

Pros: Very please with the price/performance. We are running Small Business Server 2008 x64 with Exchange 2007 on it. It handles it nicely with 30 users. The GUI RAID software that comes with it is great! Running it under RAID 10. Had a bad drive, swapped it out and did not have to reboot to configure. Did it all from the console under windows. The Doctor III health software is nice too, give nice temp, power & fan details. Not seeing any issues with temp. See Other Thoughts for my hardware list.

Cons: Handles only 1 CPU, No eSata port. Could of used that for backups. But you get what you pay for.

Other Thoughts: 1 - AMD Opteron 6128 Magny-Cours 2.0GHz Socket G34 115W 8-Core Server Processor

1 - Patriot Signature 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) ECC Registered Server Memory Model PS312G13ER3K-E

4 - Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS 300GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive, Running Raid 10

SBS 2008 x64/ Exchange 2007

Pros: Nicely designed 1U chassis. You could do as little as add CPU, RAM, and drives, and be on your way. 6 internal SATA ports; 4 of them can be host-raided via SB850 although I don't especially recommend it. Chassis has four internal fans mounted on a rack for five (one movable spacer) so you may slightly reconfigure airflow for a hot PCI-E card (like a RAID controller) or a hot CPU. I'm using the 2.0 GHz 8-core Magny-Cours Opteron and CPU heat is not an issue at all in my chassis. It's well under 40 degrees C all the time. The hot-swap bays are as good as on any Dell server. The dedicated IPMI is quite an awesome system. It has its own physical network interface and embedded webserver that is incredibly useful - remote KVM and power-on/off control, AD integration, hardware monitoring, to name just a bit.

My configuration with 8-core, 16GB, 4 SATA drives, and Adaptec 2405 RAID controller running ESXi 4.1 hypervisor hosting Windows 2008 Server (mainly) draws 110W at the outlet.

Cons: *Integrated RAID controller (SB850) is puny. I'm sure it would suffice for RAID 0/1 duties but...
*ESXi 4.1 will boot off an array created by the integrated RAID controller, but sees just 4 individual drives. Bypasses hostraid functions altogether (not terribly surprising).
*Adding in one's own RAID controller will likely require rewiring the chassis quite a bit, because the integrated RAID controller doesn't use a SAS/SATA breakout. Mobo has 6 SATA ports; the first 4 are cabled to the 4 hot-swap bays with individual SATA cables. I added an Adaptec 2405 and therefore did a lot of rewiring for the single to 4-port cable.

***There is very little room behind the hot-swap bays and it helps tremendously to use SATA cable(s) with one end (drive-end) having 90-degree angled connectors. I actually had to reposition the fan assembly and trim the air ducting to get regular straight-in SATA connectors affixed, as that's all I could find on a breakout cable.

Other Thoughts: Still a 5-egg product because most of my issues are specific to using ESXi 4.1 hypervisor. Because of ESXi I added a RAID controller that was supported and ran into some cabling quirks. Nothing too daunting as everything has been running rock-solid as a production server for over a month. It's much quieter, cooler, and far more power-efficient than the Dell PowerEdge 2600 it replaced. 110W at the outlet as configured. Comes with everything pictured in Newegg pics (rails, heatsink, etc) and it's packed impeccably and double-boxed. Internal DVD drive can be easily configured as USB or SATA.

Pros: KVM and remote management through dedicated IPMI network port. Pre-installed H8SGL-F motherboard and power supply made the system build a cinch: just add CPU, RAM and drives and you are off to the races.

Cons: I ordered five of them and one had a malfunctioning IPMI port. Newegg RMA took care of that. Also, the plasticy air duct thing that directs air over the CPU heatsink is hard to get back on when all 8 memory slots are populated. It takes a bit of jiggling.

Other Thoughts: I bought a stack of these for a Hadoop proof-of-concept. 8-core Opteron, 16GB RAM, 4 640GB SATA drives (in software RAID-10) for less than $1700. Perfect for a commodity server in a headless Hadoop cluster.