Tips on Buying Intel Servers

Intel the server vendor? In some ways, yes; in other ways, no. The company offers four server building blocks on its web site. However, these are sold in bulk only to other OEMs and resellers that sometimes rebrand these boxes as their own.

First, let’s take a look at the five servers: the Intel Server System SR1690WB, Intel Server System SR1680MV, Intel Server Systems SR1630GP and SR1630HGP, and the Intel Server System SR2612UR.

• The Intel SR1690WB is a high performance 1U rack system that uses the Intel Xeon 5500 Series Nehalem processor. It comes with four hot swap SAS/SATA drive bays supporting either 3.5″ or 2.5″ hard drives, and up to 8 DDR3 DIMM sockets.
• The Intel Server System SR1680MV is another rack server that can house up to 18 DIMM nodes in a 1U half-width chassis, while supporting up to four Intel Xeon 5500 series processors, two PCI Express 2.0 riser cards, two Intel I/O Expansion Modules and up to four 2.5″ hot-swap SATA hard drives.
• Intel SR1630GP and SR1630HGP is a family of server modules, with the latter having room for an extra hard drive. These 1U rack-optimized servers support up to two fixed 3.5″ SATA drives or three hot-swap 3.5″ SATA drives, respectively. They have room for six DDR3 DIMM sockets. Both use Xeon 3400 series processors.
• The last model is the Intel Server System SR2612UR. It uses one or two Xeon 5500 series processors. The SR2612UR comes with up to 12 DDR3 DIMM sockets, 12 SAS/SATA hot-swap drive bays, hot swap redundant power supplies and I/O module support within a 2U rack. While having a broad range of uses, Intel targets it at server applications with large storage needs.

Read the rest at ServerWatch.