Supermicro BigTwin SuperServer 620BT-DNTR

Description

Designed for hyperconverged infrastructures, scale out object storage, plus back-up and recovery, the Supermicro BigTwin SuperServer 620BT-DNTR has 12x 3.5-inch storage bays in front that can accommodate NVMe and SATA drives. Each of the 2x server nodes can also support up to 6TB of DDR4 memory plus data centric persistent memory modules.

*This system is only available as a fully assembled unit with a minimum of 2x CPUs, 2x DIMMs and 1x NIC per server node. 16x DIMMs are recommended for maximum performance per node.

Performance

3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors are a definite improvement over the previous generation offering a 1.46% average improvement, plus higher memory bandwidth, a higher memory capacity, and more PCIe lanes. This processor also supports PCIe 4.0 for twice the bandwidth compared to PCIe Gen 3.0. However, this particular configuration is limited to 36 cores and 72 threads as a result of thermal constraints. Dual redundant 2200W Titanium level PSUs power the server nodes with two fans per node to keep it cool.

Memory

Offering 8x memory channels on the 3rd generation Xeon Processors, there are 2x more memory channels than the previous generation. This means improved memory bandwidth, but memory speed has also been increased to 3200Mhz. Each server node has dual processors with 10x memory module slots for 20x active memory slots with both processors installed. There are many different memory configurations possible on this chassis, but at capacity using a combination of DDR4 memory and data centric persistent memory modules (DCPMM), the system will support up to 6TB of memory. Using just DDR4 memory modules in 16x slots will support up to 4TB, as the other 4x slots are allocated for DCPMM.

Storage

Each server node is allocated 6x of the 12x storge bays on the front of the Supermicro 620BT-DNTR server. Storage options include NVMe, SATA, and hybrid NVMe drive formats. An internal PCIe x8 slot on the system board can support an optional boot controller via an add-on-card (AOC) that features two NVMe or SATA3 drives. A virtual RAID on CPU (vROC) key header is also present on the motherboard providing a low-cost alternative for creating RAIDs with SSD drive formats.

Expansion

Along with a dedicated slot for support of the dual M.2 AOC, there is also a dedicated slot for an advanced I/O module (AIOM). There are three more PCIe 4.0 slots, with 2x PCIe x8 low profile slots and a single PCIe 4.0 x16 low-profile slot. These can be fitted with additional network interface cards or network HD/RAID controllers.

Management

There is a single RJ45 LAN management port on the back of the system. Several applications for managing this server are available, including the Intel Node Manager, and a few Supermicro applications like Watchdog and Supermicro’s Server Manager (Sum). For remote access to the server, you will need to install a Supermicro Out-of-Band (OOB) license for each node. The Supermicro OOB provides out-of-band access plus remote control of BIOS and the base management controller (BMC) integrated platform management interface 2.0 (IPMI) settings, among other things.

Summary

With 2x dual socket server nodes, the Supermicro BigTwin SuperServer 620BT-DNTR is an excellent choice for use in the data center or as an enterprise server. With Intel’s 3rd generation Xeon Scalable processors this system also provides significantly greater performance than the previous generation processors offering more cores, greater memory bandwidth, faster memory speeds, and PCIe 4.0.