Servers based on Intel's Haswell-based Xeon processors are fast
becoming commonplace with all the big vendors (and most of the small
ones) having now refreshed their product lines with the new silicon. Not
least Fujitsu, which added the RX2540 M1 to its Primergy line-up at the
start of the year to better meet the needs of bus
inesses looking to
host demanding compute-hungry applications.
Design
Built
to the usual high standard expected of a Fujitsu Primergy server, the
RX2540 M1 is a 2U rack mount beast, delivered in the now familiar black
and green livery of the Primergy family. Designed for tool-free
maintenance, the top simply lifts off for ease of access and there are
dual redundant power supplies which slide into place at the rear. The
review system came with 800W supplies, although lower (400W)
alternatives are available, and higher – 1200W – for more power-hungry
configurations. The review server had redundant 800W power suppliesThe
processors account for much of that power consumption with two sockets
to take Intel E5-2600 v3 Xeons, managed by an Intel C610 chipset. Ours
came with a pair of E5-2660 V3 chips fitted, these midrange 2.6GHz
processors equipping the server with a total of 20 cores/40 threads for a
relatively modest TDP of 105W per socket.
Of
course you don't have to stick with these chips. Indeed, a further 20
processor SKUs can be specified, ranging from 6 to 18 cores per
processor at varying clock speeds to suit a variety of workloads. But
watch out for heavy price penalties at the high end as these can add
significantly to the overall cost. Twin Xeon E5-2600 v3 processors and lots and lots of RAMMemory
can be costly too, as in addition to the new Xeons, the latest
ultra-quick DDR4 RAM is employed on this server with, as might be
expected, ECC protection as standard. Up to 768GB can be accommodated in
total, in 24 DIMM slots, the review system shipping with a decent 128GB
on just eight 2133MHz RDIMM modules.
Storage options
Yet
more care is needed when it comes to storage, with different chassis
configurations required depending on the number and physical size of
drives you want to support. Go for 3.5-inch disks, for example, and you
can have four, eight or twelve bays, with four located at the rear of
the chassis on the 12-bay model. The RX2540 is built to a high standardOpt
for 2.5-inch and you have exactly the same choice of setups – the
2.5-inch disks screw into the same caddies as the larger disks – plus a
24-bay chassis with disks mounted vertically for database and other
storage-heavy applications.
Just make sure you order the right configuration at the outset as upgrades are not possible for every combination. Our review machine had four but the 2U chassis can be configured for up to 24 disksIn
terms of the disks themselves there's the usual suspect list made up of
SATA and SAS magnetic disks plus SSDs in varying capacities. Ours had
four 300GB SAS drives, in 2.5-inch format with a 15K spin speed.
The
disks can all be cabled to the integrated controller but, on this type
of server, a plug-in RAID adapter is more usual. To this end the review
system came with one of Fujitsu's own, a PRAID EP400i card based on an
LSI 12Gbps RAID-on-Chip processor offering RAID levels 0,1,5 and 6 with
optional flash-based backup.
Keeping cool
Of course all
this hardware can generate a lot of heat so cooling is looked after by a
bank of five hot-swap fans in the centre of the chassis plus a couple
of smaller fans in the power supplies. These make the usual jet engine
"woosh" as the server powers up, but otherwise, proved no noisier than
those employed in other rack-mount systems we've tested. Five hot-swap fans help keep the air flowing through the Primergy serverThe
RX2540 M1 also features Fujitsu's latest Cool-safe Advanced Thermal
Design (ADT) technology, supposedly enabling it to operate in relatively
high ambient temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius.
