Review on Supermicro X10SBA-O Mini ITX DDR3 1333 Motherboards for Enhanced SEO by Brad Lovro

So far it's been a very stable and surprisingly fast machine. I have several Supermicro Atom D525 based servers and they have always been very reliable but noticeably slow. I configured this unit with 4GB of RAM and a Kingston 30GB mSATA SSD to save on cables (it's in a 1U chassis). With Ubuntu Server 14.04, this thing is surprisingly fast. D525-based boards are fine for good routers/firewalls, but trying to use them as quiet, low-power desktops isn't a good experience. I wouldn't hesitate to use this board in a silent/fanless desktop unless you plan on gaming. Some notes: - You need low voltage RAM (1.35V). They don't boot with 1.5V RAM. - On Linux, the mSATA drive works great with no hassle to install and sequential read speeds of around 250MB/s. - In a poorly ventilated 1U server with a 40mm Noctua -Fans on lowest settings, lm sensors report the cores are idle at a temperature of around 44C. With good convection cooling, no fans are needed. The fan in the 1U case doesn't seem needed either, but it's quiet enough so I left it. It has few ports on the back, but a couple of built-in sockets if you need things like SPIDIF or more USB ports. - You can use an mSATA drive and a wireless mini PCIe card at the same time. In the picture they look like they overlap, but the wifi slot is higher than mSATA and they don't interfere with each other. The PCIe slot has no backplate and the motherboard components behind it are unobtrusive. I believe you can easily slip a modest graphics card into the slot, but I haven't tried. Supermicro boards are extremely expensive, but also very high quality. If you're looking for a motherboard that you can customize and then forget about for years to come, I don't think there's anything DIY that even comes close to Supermicro.