The Intel Xeon D embedded SoC product line is an amazing platform and has been extremely popular amongst VMware customers for VMware Homelabs and running workloads both in the Datacenter and at the Edge using kits like the Supermicro E200-8D and E300-9D to just name a few. While the E200-8D/E300-9D still remain popular, they are slowly coming up on their end of life support, Q1 2023 and Q1 2025 respectively.
Intel Ice Lake D is the first major architectural refresh of the Intel Xeon D product line, which is quite exciting for those looking to upgrade and take advantage of all the latest hardware capabilities this new platform as to offer! Two Ice Lake D kits that I am really excited for is the Supermicro E300-12D and E302-12D, both of which leverage the new Ice Lake D SoC. As a E200-8D owner, my only real nit pick is with the noise of the fans which can sound like a jet engine when using the stock fans. Although I have replaced the stock fans with the much quieter Noctua fans, under higher load the system is still audible and some in the community have also reported that it may still not be enough to cool system. If I had to start all over again, I certainly would be looking at one of the new fanless kit from Supermicro! I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the upcoming Supermicro E302-12D system, a fanless Ice Lake D kit which has a similiar design to the existing E300-9D.
So here is your first sneak peak at this new Ice Lake D platform! 😀
Compute
The E302-12D has a single embedded Intel D-1718T SoC with 4 Cores / 8 Threads @ 2.6Ghz and can support up to 256GB memory (ECC & Non-ECC) using 4 x RDIMM slots. This doubles the memory capacity from the current E200-8D and is on par with the existing E300-9Din terms of memory. To run all your homelab needs, I definitely recommend a minimum of 128GB of memory but if you can go up higher, definitely a worthy upgrade
UPDATE (04/20/23) – It was recently brought to my attention from a reader that Supermicro officially recommends using Innodesk memory for E302-12D as it has proper contacts to help dispense the heat from the system. If you use other types of memory, it is very possible the system can overheat as it does not have a way to dispense the heat properly and will cause the system to shutdown. If using the recommended memory is not possible, you may want to consider the non-fanless version of this system which is the E300-12D which uses traditional fans.
Network
The networking on the E302-12D is also quite plentiful and with Ice Lake D, the networking has also gotten a major upgrade with a pair of 25GbE SFP28 interfaces. A dedicated 1GbE interface is also available for out-of-band management (IPMI) and below are the full networking details.
- 1 x 1GbE for IPMI
- 2 x Intel I210 1GbE (8086:1533)
- 2 x Intel I350 1GbE (8086:1521)
- 2 x Intel E823-L SFP28 25GbE (8086:124d)
Storage
The storage on the E302-12D has had a slight upgrade and can support both a single M.2 2280 (NVMe) and a single M.2 2242 (SATA) out of the box. Although this may not sound too impressive, the E302-12D is actually quite flexible and can support a number of storage configurations based on your needs whether that is multiple VMFS datastores to also using vSAN.
- SATA port (orange)
- While you can install and run ESXi on a USB device, it is certainly recommended to use a more reliable storage medium like an SSD. A SATADOM (SuperDOM) can easily be added to the E302-12D to provide an additional storage device, which is also perfect for running ESXi. This is also the same configuration that I am using with my E200-8D
- PCIe slot (4.0 x16)
- An inexpensive PCIe-to-M.2 NVMe adapter can be used to provide additional storage supporting a single M.2 (2280) NVMe device. This is also the same configuration that I am using with my E200-8D
- The Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M2 (Add-On-Card) can be used to provide additional storage supporting two additional M.2 (2280) NVMe devices
- For larger storage capacity needs, instead of using the Supermicro M.2 AOC, a single 2.5″ SATA drive can also be installed using a full-height, half-length (FHHL) adapter
With the additional storage expandability, users can have up to 5 storage devices: M.2 2280 (NVMe) from motherboard, M.2 2242 (SATA) from motherboard, SATADOM from motherboard, 2 x M.2 2280 (NVMe) from PCIe slot.
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