SUPERMICRO SYS-5037C-T Pedestal Server Barebone LGA 1155 Intel C204 DDR3 1333/1066

Pros: Nice motherboard, works exactly as expected. Well constructed case. Very quiet. I'm really quite happy with it.

Cons: It shipped with the v1.x BIOS that doesn't support Ivy Bridge CPU's. After experiencing the "SuperMicro 4 beeps at power up" issue, I had to buy a Celeron G440 Sandy Bridge CPU to flash the BIOS in order to use the Xeon I ordered with it. All that added a week to the build and a $40 "tax" for the Celeron.

The motherboard didn't want to register all of the memory the first couple times it powered up, but after re-seating the DIMM's, everything works like a champ.

Other Thoughts: If you're going to advertise that something works with Ivy Bridge CPU's, it should work out of the box with them.

Pros: Inexpensive, easy to work in, booted first time.

Cons: Intel storage in RAID 5 with Windows Server is stunningly, unusably slow. With 4 disks, the speed was a small fraction of 1 disk without RAID 5! The performance is just unacceptable.

Pros: Supermicro, Intel Xeon and Sandy Bridge, on paper this is the perfect workstation. The construction of the case is solid. The swing-out drive tray is nice, and the cables are neatly run and tied off for you.

Cons: The mainboard supports 4x SATA 3G/s (with or without RAID), plus 2x SATA 6G/s. However, you get 4 drive slots plus 4 SATA cables. Plenty of USB, but none of them are USB3.

Other Thoughts: The mainboard in mine was frustrating. I replaced the CPU, the PSU, and the Video before concluding that the mainboard was at fault. RMA shipment of a mainboard+case was more of a hassle for me than just buying a new mainboard and sending the original one in to SM for RMA repair.

Pros: 24 hour technical support

Cons: Integrated LSI RAID controller cannot support RAID 5 with total physical HD capacity greater than 2TB. This limitation is not made known to prospective purchasers.

Pros: Roomy there is a lot of room in this case. WHS 2011 installede perfectly on this barebones setup. Instead of using an i3 I went with a G850. Perfect combination. Whisper quiet. Steel is heavy duty and does not flex and bend like cheaper cases. Motherboard is industrial and solid built. WHS 2011 loves it.

Cons: DO NOT BUY OPEN BOX.

This was my first ever open box purchase, Don't do it. The knuckle head who returned was very disrespectful. CD sleeve no install cd; not really an issue. No instruction manual, still not an issue. The server looked brand new except for the missing parts. Wonder if he purchased to get HDD caddie replacements.

What is bad is ALL 4 HDD drive caddys were missing. Without them you are out of luck. Do not think you can get replacement drive caddies, I contacted Supermicro and they have NONE, NADA. They will call me, I don't think I will hold my breath.

So what to do, I had 18 year old screw on drive rails that I mounted and then zip lashed the drives into the swing out bay. It works.

I got this case and motherboard for a great price. I was going to return but the motherboard is so nice for server duty.

Other Thoughts: Only supports sata drives, no legacy drive support here.

Have to say this again, whisper quiet. Also runs cool - low watts.

Pros: - Extremely Quiet (you can't tell it's on or off with low noise operation)
- Solid System build
- Very reliable tower SERVER
- Awesome Tool-less chassis design
- New Sandy Bridge platform (gain 15 - 20% CPU and Video performance)
- Very Flexible. Useful enhancement kits (2.5" HDD cage and additional fan to cooling down GPU)

Cons: - A little bit pricey, but this is SERVER, not PC (no complain)

Other Thoughts: From engineers' point of view, this is a well done product. I am very satisfy at this point. It really perform 21 dB noise level. When you add a additional GPU, the noise level could be a little bit higher (i estimate around 25 -27 dB), and it really depends on what card you are using.
However, i recommend this to everyone !