SYS-E300-9D-4CN8TP

[murmelbahn]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a new hardware for our OPNsense installation. I found a nice Supermicro Server and now I try to verify if the Hardware is supported. I'm talking about the SYS-E300-9D-4CN8TP. Here you can find a datasheet:

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/Mini-ITX/SYS-E300-9D-4CN8TP.cfm

Did someone already use this an can confirm that everything works as expected? I really need the 10G connectivity which is my biggest concern about this.

Maybe there is even a better hardware out there? Can you recommend something?

[Cerberus]

I have several Atom and Xeon-D System from Supermicro and all of them work with OPNsense. All Ethernet Interfaces are based on Intel Chip/SOC so no issues here.

Do you want to use it for a home setup? these devices with their 40mm Fans are loud as hell.

[netnut]

Did someone already use this an can confirm that everything works as expected? I really need the 10G connectivity which is my biggest concern about this.

Maybe there is even a better hardware out there? Can you recommend something?

Although I'm a big SuperMicro fan, I do have to warn you:

Just like you, I really liked the 10Gb ethernet option in this small form factor. As Cerberus mentioned above, chipset & ethernet is fully supported, it's actually the ideal mix of igb (Intel I350) and ix (Intel X577) drivers with respectively 8 and 64 queues.

In short, the gory details in the link below, the 10Gb ethernet interfaces could suffer from random eeprom corruptions and loosing carrier permanently. I'm using the Atom brother (specs) of the Xeon-D system from your link, with the same network specs. After more than 100 hours of debugging, the 10Gb interfaces drove me into complete insanity.

Only by accident I finally found the website below that confirmed I'm not the only one and it covers many of the insights and work-arounds of this issue (Power Down, Completely Disconnect Power for 15sec to 15min).

Don't get distracted by the title, it's not only Xeon-D's (Atoms too) and it's not only 12-cores.

https://tinkertry.com/how-to-work-around-intermittent-intel-x577-network-outages-on-12-core-xeon-d


Now on the positive side:

If it runs, it's an awesome (OPNsense) system. So before buying, assure yourself of some trade-in | refund options, YMMV.

Although it's hard to reproduce the issue, if you like to stress test your system some extra heat will probably speed up things ;-)

Maybe you receive a system with some updated ethernet eeprom already, but an official and definitive fix is still not provided. As you can read in the article, that's mostly Intel operating in the dark (I guess they have other bigger issues ;-)) not SuperMicro.

[donatom3]

I'm running this exact model. 16gb of ram, 512gb ssd (it's what I had)
Runing IPS, Sensei, and it's been great.

Now do note where you put it. It's not the quietest, but that could also be because of the glass front of my rack. (I may remove that).

Was able to use cheap 10gtek transceivers to my Aruba 1930 switch to no problem.
Also ran one of the wintek 10gbase-t adapters to connect to my cable modem that has a 2.5gbps port and can pull 1.2gbps down on my internet.

[Patrick M. Hausen]

@netnut Does this warning apply to the SYS-E300-8D.cfm, too, or can I consider this one to be "safe"?

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/Mini-ITX/SYS-E300-8D.cfm

Thanks,
Patrick

[netnut]

@pmhausen

Unfortunately I'm not in the position to say a specific system is save or not, because the issue is there but everything around it is a bit of a grey area.

I just shared my experience and added a reference to other people experiencing the same. To add a bit more mystery, the link I posted a few days ago is dead now, I don't now if TinkerTry is asked / demanded to do this, it was an ongoing thread for almost three years (without an official fix). But this makes things even more shady if you ask me.....

My support call with SuperMicro, until now, is a dead end too. They say they're not aware of the issue (very strange, because the guys of TinkerTry do have an _official_ support line and discussing the issue for quite some time now). There were some people that did receiving updated firmware (under a signed Intel NDA), that made things better but still no final fix. For me this experience adds another point on the "shady-ladder".
I have just a single explanation for shadiness, you're hiding something you can't easily fix...

My goal was to warn you, and save you time and frustration while setting up your new system. Like I said, it took me >100 hours (no joke) of debugging, trying to switch and tweak each and every BIOS setting in all possible ways to rule out my own stupidity.

So my only advise to you (and other potential buyers), be aware, arrange some sort of trade-in opportunity while ordering your system. Because if you're lucky (strange in this context, you just want to buy a working system) it's an awesome package in a awesome form-factor.

[N0b0dy1985]

This link to the TinkerTry post works.

https://tinkertry.com/how-to-work-around-intermittent-intel-x557-network-outages-on-12-core-xeon-d

Currently-shipping SuperMicro E300/E301-9D-8CN8TP have the affected X557 10GBT interfaces, but it's unclear if the Intel® Xeon® processor D-2146NT 8-Core, 16 Thread CPU on current models is affected or not.

Also that post goes back a ways. I think there have been subsequent updates to both the BIOS and Intel drivers, unsure.  Lastly, I think that post specifies that to re-create the issue, you'd need to install 6.x builds of ESXi.