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SeaMicro launches SM10000-XE micro-server

by Steven Williamson on 2 February 2012, 11:40

Tags: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), SeaMicro

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Server maker SeaMicro has joined forces with Intel and Samsung to produce the first quad-core fabric-based Xeon micro-server.

The SeaMicro SM100000-XE, which is aimed squarely at the datacentre market, is an upgrade from the SM10000-64HD, which launched last year with 384 dual-core Atom low-cost netbook chips. This high-end server integrates 64 Intel Sandy Bridge-based Xeon processors, Samsung’s DRAM, storage, top-of-rack switching, server management, and application load balancing into a single 10 rack unit system.

SeaMicro says that the micro-server is energy efficient and will help to reduce operating costs, taking up a third of the space of previous servers while using half the amount of power.



"Today we have announced the lowest-power, highest-density, highest-bandwidth Intel Xeon-based server ever built," says Andrew Feldman, CEO of SeaMicro.

"SeaMicro now brings the benefits of micro servers -- efficiency and massive density -- to small and larger-core workloads and to all parts of the scale out data center. Combining the SM10000 architecture with the Samsung Green DDR3 memory and Intel Xeon processors, SeaMicro now sets a new bar for energy efficient compute in the datacenter."

The server supports up to 32 GB of DRAM per socket, for a system total of 2.04 terabytes, delivers 12 times the bandwidth per unit compute of a traditional server and can support up to 64 sold-state drives or hard disks for storage.

The SeaMicro SM100000-XE is available worldwide with prices starting from $138,000.

For detailed information, head over to the SeaMicro website.


HEXUS Forums :: 16 Comments

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Ill have 10.
That's great, except one of those things will use all the power you can get to a 42U rack in some datacentres… so you have a nice big cabinet with a lot of free space in it.
Steve
That's great, except one of those things will use all the power you can get to a 42U rack in some datacentres… so you have a nice big cabinet with a lot of free space in it.

I think you missed the point… yes that is around 15 Amps @ 220V, which is most of a cabinet allowance in the average DC, but if you did that power draw using normal commodity servers you'd have less total overall numbers of cores and memory and it probably cost you more because of the inefficiencies associated. You'd need up to 16 4-socket servers to match this, at best 8 servers if you got 8 cores per socket rather than 4 (so that's somewhere between 16-32U of servers vs 10U)

Just as an example a Dell R810 comes standard with 1100W PSUs, so you'd only maybe get 3-5 within the same power budget as the SeaMicro if the R810s were fully loaded with 4x Octocore CPUs, memory and disks.

If you have a good DC that can supply 32 Amps per rack then you can get 2 of these things in and you're definitely into win territory.
Yes, I know, but I said that to be provocative ;)

I'd like to see how close you could get to that system with carefully selected commodity hardware though, then compare cost, performance and energy, and so see if the numbers SeaMicro states are similar to the ones that you could get building the thing yourself.

edit: Also, they cite “average” power consumption, so what happens if you run that thing full tilt? If it uses 50% more power then you have a problem…
Micro-server? The name is misleading!! :)