Combining high-performance architecture with high-performance Xeon processors
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2
business needs and growth. In addition, the x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 use industry-standard
DDR II
memory with
Chipkill
™
ECC
(Error Checking and Correcting) protection—for high
performance and reliability and lower energy consumption than fully buffered memory. For even
higher levels of availability, the eX4 servers also offer
Memory ProteXion
™
,
memory
scrubbing
, and selectable
memory mirroring
.
A
dual-port
integrated high-speed
Gigabit
Ethernet
controller with
TOE
(TCP Offload Engine) is standard, as are
seven
high-performance
PCIe x8
adapter slots (two of them
hot-plug
).
The x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 offer industry-leading scalability, including
quad-processor
support (upgradeable to
16 processors/96 cores
), up to
256GB
of memory
per chassis
(upgradeable to
1TB
overall),
256MB
of
L4
cache
per chassis
(upgradeable to
1GB
), and up to
four 2.5-inch
internal high-performance
Serial-Attach
SCSI
(SAS)
hot-swap
hard disk drives
with an internal storage capacity of
587.2GB
per chassis
(up to
16
drives and
2.3TB
overall)
.
Hardware-based
RAID-0/1
support is standard. An optional IBM
ServeRAID-MR10k
SAS RAID
controller adds
256MB
of battery-backed cache to the onboard controller to provide
five
additional
RAID levels, including
RAID-10/5/50/6/60
. The
4U
size of the chassis helps you
maximize your rack investments. Up to
10
of these chassis can be installed in a single 42U rack,
for a total of up to
40
processors,
70
PCIe slots (
20
of them hot-plug), and
40
HDDs, offering an
ideal balance of performance, storage and I/O slots per rack. Optional Advanced Connectivity
Technology (
ACT)
interconnect cabling helps reduce cable clutter and cost and minimizes
installation time when interconnecting many rack-mounted servers.
Standard in both the x3850 M2 and the x3950 M2 is the
Remote Supervisor Adapter II
that
communicates with the
Baseboard Management Controller (BMC)
to enable the user to
manage and control the server easily—both locally and remotely. This high level of
manageability is designed to help keep management costs down and the system up. The drop-
down
light path diagnostics
panel enables quick servicing of the system if a problem develops.
These advanced features help maximize network availability by increasing uptime, as do
hot-
swap/redundant
HDDs
,
power
and
fans
;
Active Memory
™
;
temperature-controlled fans
with
Calibrated Vectored Cooling
™
;
IPMI 2.0
support, including
highly secure remote power
control
and
Serial over LAN
; as well as
text- and graphics-console redirect over LAN
.
With the inclusion of unique IBM service and support features such as
IBM Systems Director
,
IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager™ for x86
(formerly known as
PowerExecutive), and
IBM ServerGuide
™
, the x3850/x950 M2 is designed for maximum
uptime.
If you need a balance of high-performance four-socket processing, scalability beyond eight
sockets, and large I/O capacity in a rack-dense environment, these are the ideal systems.
Key Highlights
eX4 Design Features
eX4 design offers numerous features per chassis to boost performance and reduce product and
operating costs:
•
Support for up to four Intel Xeon processors with four
1066MHz
front side buses and
4MB-
to-16MB
of integrated
Level 2
cache (model dependant),
8MB
,
12MB
, or
16MB
of external
L3
cache (model dependant), Intel VT technology, and Intel EM64T technology
•
Supports
Xeon six-core
,
quad-core
or
dual-core
processors (scalable to
16
processors
and
32
-to-
96
cores, using the
ScaleXpander Option Kit
)
•
A built-in
‘snoop’ filter
to lower the amount of inter-processor communication needed in an
SMP system
•
Fast
PC2-5300 DDR II
ECC memory with
Chipkill
error correction,
Memory ProteXion
™
(redundant bit steering),
memory scrubbing
, selectable
memory mirroring
, and
hot-
add/hot-swap
memory protection provides speed and high availability
•
Seven 64-bit
high-speed (
4Gbps
)
PCIe x8
adapter slots offer investment protection by
supporting high-performance adapters, such as 10Gb Ethernet, Fibre Channel and
InfiniBand cards; the
two
Active
™
PCIe hot-plug
slots help increase system availability
•
Up to
587.2GB
of internal SAS storage using
four
2.5-inch
HDDs per chassis (scalable to
2.3TB
using the ScaleXpander Option Kit)
•
Baseboard Management Controller
(BMC) and
Remote Supervisor Adapter II
standard
•
Support for an optional
ServeRAID-MR10k
RAID controller that supports
RAID-
0/1/10/5/50/6,
and
60
IBM System x3850 M2-specific
•
A
4U
rack-optimized model (expandable to 16U using a
ScaleXpander Option Kit
and
three additional chassis)
•
Installing the
ScaleXpander Option Kit
turns the x3850 M2 into an x3950 M2 (including a
new bezel, cable management arm, and scalability “key”)
•
4GB
USB 2.0 Flash Key
with
VMware ESXi preinstalled
(in selected models)
