This is a review we have wanted to do for ages. Namely, we can finally show you an Arm server from Supermicro. The Supermicro ARS-210ME-FNR is a 2U edge/ telco form factor that combines a short-depth chassis with the Ampere Altra Max M128-30 128-core Arm Neoverse-N1 processor. Let us take a look at this unique system.
Supermicro ARS-210ME-FNR External Hardware Overview
The Supermicro ARS-210ME-FNR is a system designed for the edge and telco markets. As a result, this is not a full-sized server. Instead, it is a 16.9 in or 430mm depth platform. Supermicro calls its Ampere Altra platform the Mt. Hamilton. At first I did not even notice the name, but if you live in the Silicon Valley, you can likely see Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory. It is one of those places you see almost every day, sometimes covered in snow towering over the Valley’s palm trees, but I journeyed to the top last in the mid-1990s. Alas, back to the server.
On the left side, there are six drive bays. All six are PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD bays.
In the center, we have risers above standard server I/O. We are going to get to the full-height risers in the next section, but the rear I/O consists of two USB 3 ports, a VGA port, an out-of-band management port, and two SFP28 cages. The SFP28 cages are connected via a NVIDIA (Mellanox) ConnectX-4 Lx NIC.
On the opposite side, we get two more full-height risers, a low-profile slot, and then at the bottom, an OCP NIC 3.0 slot.
In this form factor, it is common to have all I/O at the front. Some chassis have power supplies also at the front and some at the rear. This is a system with power supplies at the rear.
The fans are hot-swappable large Delta units on heavy-duty levers to extract and install them.
The power supplies are standard Supermicro redundant power supplies. This is a 1.6kW 80Plus Titanium unit.
Next, let us get inside the system.
Very cool server. It’s nice to see something smaller for a change. Only one question… How long until we see an Altra or Altra Max based high-end workstation? I think THAT would be really neat, what with all the ground Ampere has gained so far.
Hi Stephen
We want to introduce you to reference the following 2U4GPU ArmServer which is another Server of the Mt. Hamilton program, four double-width GPUs with IO assessable in a 2U form factor system.
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/megadc/2u/ars-210m-nr
Regards,
Roger
It’s great to see an Ampere server reviewed like a x86 server at STH. This makes it seem like they’re real not the $hitb0xes of Cavium
Stephen Beets, haven’t you see Avantek’s ARM desktop offering yet? If not, then https://store.avantek.co.uk/arm-desktops.html
@KarelG
Thanks so much for your reply. I was not aware of either Avantek or their products until you posted (I’m sure Dr. Cutress, aka TechTechPotato, covered their products at some point, I just either missed that or I simply don’t remember it). So cool to see that Ampere’s Altra and Altra Max processors are actually usable for things other than cloud and edge servers. Also, I like the case design of the Avantek workstations. Very neat. Thanks for sharing, man. Hopefully one day some years from now, I’ll find an Altra or Altra Max on eBay to buy and add to my CPU collection. :-)
@Roger Chen
Thank you for your reply and link. I wasn’t necessarily thinking of buying one (I’m not a telco nor do I have anywhere near enough money to afford one), but I did visit your link just to see what was there. Very nice and I’m wishing you and the Supermicro team all the best, saleswise. :-)
That’s a clickbait image. The CPU doesn’t really run outside of the server, it is on the inside. Stop making things up.
Can’t say there’s any surprise there. ARM will never be suitable for heavier workloads without making itself identical to x86 in terms of complexity, power consumption, and price. It works when used for its intended purpose – low-power devices that don’t need heavy CPU resources.