At Computex 2019, we had the opportunity to see new ASUS Server platforms including innovative platforms that will launch in the next few months. We wanted to highlight a few of the unique new platforms we saw for our readers.
ASUS S2036Z 2U 36-bay Storage Server
This is a unique design for a storage node. The ASUS S2036Z houses 36x 3.5″ hard drives in a 2U, front serviceable enclosure.
Each set of twelve drives is housed in a tray that pulls out. The sample we saw uses blue thumb screws to secure the drives in place. We also saw the planned tool-less design for even easier servicing and faster installation.
At the logic end of the ASUS S2036Z, we can see dual Intel Xeon Scalable processors and support for 2nd generation CPUs. Each CPU is paired with four DIMMs for a total of eight DIMMs in the system. One can see, dual 2.5″ hot swap bays in the rear as well as redundant power supplies and quad 1GbE ports.
The expansion slot situation is unique. There are two M.2 22110 (110mm) NVMe SSD slots. One slot is used for the ASUS PIKE SAS controller. There are also two PCIe Gen3 x16 slots available for high-speed networking and an additional PCIe Gen3 x1 slot.
With an ATX form factor motherboard, it makes upgrading to a new platform later very easy for the company. This is a 36-bay form factor that ASUS could just as easily use an AMD EPYC platform in.
ASUS ECS4000 DHD G4 1U 4x GPU Server
The ASUS ECS4000 DHD G4 is a 1U 4x GPU server. At STH, we have reviewed a number of 1U 4x GPU designs but ASUS is innovating on a number of fronts. This dual Intel Xeon Scalable platform is based around dual 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs which means that it supports Intel Optane DCPMM for multi-TB memory deployments.
The four double-width GPUs support a wide arrange of card options for deep learning training or AI inferencing. One can even see additional hot-swap NVMe bays at the front of the chassis that slide out to be accessible.
All of the 1U quad GPU servers on the market offer impressive fan arrays to move air through the chassis. To show how dense the server is, ASUS even has two M.2 NVMe SSD slots at the top of the picture above that extend past the motherboard PCB and toward the top fans to ensure no space is wasted.
Final Words
It was great seeing ASUS show innovative designs at Computex 2019. These were just two of the innovative platforms. We originally had an AMD EPYC platform in this article, but then we saw that the placard in our photos had a non-public spec so we are going to show off that platform later. We recently published our ASUS Server Management Web Tour with ASMB9-iKVM in preparation to start doing more ASUS server reviews.
Quad GPU or high count PCIe SSD servers would be better served by a single socket EPYC design, no? Less heat, more DIMMs, simpler board.
ASUS S2036Z is an interesting design – but I wonder if/how does it avoid vibration impact on HDDs performance and lifetime?
@emerth TYAN has one 1U AMD 4 or 6 GPU.