Conclusion
The Supermicro SSG-6049P-E1CR45 is a solid server with good aesthetics and easy use and access to the most frequently accessed component: the hard drives. One can quickly check the front LCD for the exact slot of the failed drive for error-free replacement. The lid is on a very stiff hinge, so will stay open at whatever angle you set it at without fear of it falling into you or something else. I do wish the CPU and RAM area was easier to access, or at least accessible without having to unrack the whole server to undo the screws and remove the cover properly, but you will likely not need to access that area once the server has been built initially anyway, so it’s a trade-off I can accept. I was disappointed in the lack of USB ports (only two on the back) and lack of any front IO at all; this server seems to be truly designed as a lights-out, remotely-managed device. Of course, you’ll be hard pressed to find any chassis that can pack in the hard drives like this Supermicro server range, but storage is what it was designed to do and it shines in that regard.
For all the positives, the only real negative I can see is that they don’t have an AMD EPYC variant yet. It’s not really something they can be faulted for (yet) as EPYC is a fairly new platform and these are specialty servers that are not really performance-oriented, but it would be compelling to have a single-socket with high core count capability and the reduced costs that EPYC brings to the table. But the Xeons on offer do well enough for the jobs these servers will be tasked with most commonly and, depending on your reseller, are a fairly affordable way to get a mountain of storage.
