SuperMicro adding double-sided storage server chassis

SuperMicro, one of the largest suppliers for “white-box” computer makers, presented their solution for high-density storage servers last month. Most traditional storage servers offer twelve 3.5 inch SAS or SATA drives per 2U of rackspace; the only exception to this are vendors offering top-loading drives such as Sun, and those offering disk trays holding more than one drive mounted back-to-back.

SuperMicro has a more traditional approach, but with a twist. Their highest density server chassis now offer extra drive slots that are accessible via the rear of the server:

As you might expect the company is very excited about this idea:

“These double-sided, high-capacity storage chassis provide customers with direct hot-swap access to all of the storage drives while saving valuable rack space,” said Charles Liang, CEO and president, Supermicro. “In addition, these chassis feature Supermicro’s advanced redundant cooling subsystem design to deliver optimal system efficiency, which saves customers hundreds of dollars per system on their yearly energy bills and helps preserve the environment.”

The machines offer space for a dual-socket motherboard and up to 36 hot-swappable drives. There is also a model that can be used in a JBOD configuration that sacrifices some internal space for extra drives. This makes room for a total of 45 drives, bringing the SuperMicro chassis close to the 48 drive configurations offered by Sun and others.