A highly available and expandable, rack-dense, 2U dual-socket SMP server, for application
serving in Web environments
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11
Key Options
IBM options for System x servers help you take your servers to a
higher level
You can rely on System x options to supply a complete solution for your business needs.
Options help you create an optimized server system to meet your data protection, storage and
availability needs. Every IBM option is designed and tested for peak performance and flexibility,
helping to maximize your return on investment. The combination of System x servers and
options lets you keep your fingers on the pulse of your e-business.
Processors
— The Intel Xeon processor provides high clock rates, dual- or quad-cores, 64-bit
extensions, a large cache and advanced features for availability and manageability. Large cache
size, combined with a fast
1066MHz
or
1333MHz
front-side bus, reduces memory latency and
facilitates the movement of data through the processor and I/O devices. (
Note:
System
performance depends not only on the number of processors in the server but also on the power
and functionality of each processor.) Adding a second processor may be a cost-effective way to
achieve significant performance improvements.
Memory
— Memory is a significant factor in systems application performance. Adding more
memory to a System x server is one of the most effective ways to increase application
performance.
For best performance in a server with a dual-core processor, there should be
twice as much memory available as for a single-core processor. The x3650 takes memory
upgrades in pairs and provides either two-way or four-way interleaving (depending on the
number of DIMMs installed).
Hard Disk Drives
— IBM hard disk drives help you improve the transaction and cost
performance of your System x servers. The choice of hard disk drives can be a critical aspect of
maximizing the I/O throughput of the system.
SAS
hard disk drives are available for the x3650
with capacities up to
300GB
(3.5-inch) apiece
at
15,000
RPMs, up to
146.8GB
(2.5-inch) apiece
at
10,000
RPMs, or up to
73.4GB
apiece
(2.5-inch) at
15,000 RPM
. 3.5-inch Serial ATA hard
disk drives are available with capacities up to
1TB
apiece
at
7,200
RPMs.
Backup Drives
— IBM backup drives help you protect your data. Several choices of capacities
(from
36/72GB
to
400/800GB
), technologies (
removable
disk cartridge
,
DDS5
,
VS160
,
LTO3
),
and interfaces (
SCSI
,
SATA
,
USB
) are available.
Power Supply
— The optional second power supply for the x3650 enables redundancy for hot-
swap power (and adds five additional fans for increased cooling capacity and redundancy).
Remote Supervisor Adapter II SlimLine
— The x3650 includes a plethora of systems
management features built-in; however, sometimes additional management capability is
needed. In those situations, the Remote Supervisor Adapter II SlimLine not only offers powerful
new features, it does so without taking up a valuable PCI-X or PCI-E adapter slot, instead using
a dedicated slot on the motherboard.
ServeRAID Controllers
— System x servers using embedded ServeRAID-8k technology allow
companies to build a reliable foundation for business-critical computing. IBM ServeRAID
technology allows an array consisting of multiple physical hard disk drives to be treated as one
logical drive. ServeRAID technology also allows data to be stored redundantly, across multiple
hard disk drives— enhancing both the integrity and the availability of the data. SAS and SATA
ServeRAID controllers offer enhanced performance due to onboard processors and cache.
Because IBM ServeRAID controllers can help significantly improve data transfer rates, this
technology is extremely effective when implementing demanding, transaction-oriented
applications. By employing the advanced fault tolerance of IBM ServeRAID technology,
companies can effectively implement networked business systems that require large amounts of
storage space for data and applications that must be available for their businesses to continue
operating.
The optional integrated
ServeRAID-8k
SAS/SATA
controller offers enhanced performance over
the integrated ServeRAID-8k-l controller,
256MB
of battery-backed cache memory, and
supports
six
RAID levels:
0
(striping),
1
(mirroring),
10
(mirroring and striping),
1E
(enhanced
mirroring, supporting odd numbers of drives),
5
(striping with parity), and
6
(striping with double
parity).
The family of
ServeRAID-6M
(Ultra320) SCSI controllers offers high performance via an
onboard processor and cache, and the ability to add
external
storage capacity for the x3650: up
to
8.4TB (28 x 300GB drives)
using a ServeRAID-6M adapter and two IBM
TotalStorage
EXP400
Storage Expansion Units, with industry-leading
ServeRAID Manager
(RAID
management) software.
The optional
MegaRAID
8480 SAS controller offers high performance and
256MB
of cache
memory (with optional battery backup) for
external
SAS storage capacity. The adapter supports
five
RAID levels:
0
(striping),
1
(mirroring),
10
(mirroring and striping),
5
(striping with parity),
and
50
(striping/mirroring with parity).
External SAN, NAS and direct-attach storage is available using one of several IBM System
