Combining high-performance architecture with high-performance Xeon processors
2.5-inch SAS
•10,000 RPMs — 73.4 or 146.8GB (587.2GB maximum per chassis; 2.349TB in a 4-chassis configuration)
•15,000 RPMs — 73.4GB (293.6GB per chassis; 1.174TB per 4 chassis)
2-5-inch drives not only require less space than 3.5-inch drives, they weigh less, consume half the power, produce less noise, seek faster, and offer increased reliability.
The hot-swap SAS drives use the Converged Tray for interchangeability with other IBM System x™ systems. If you need more storage space, terabyte capacities are possible with external direct-attach NAS and SAN solutions.
Integrated Virtualization
Selected models of the x3850 M2 ship with an IBM 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Key installed preloaded with VMware ESXi 3.5. This is an embedded version of VMware ESX 3.5, fully contained on the flash drive and requiring no disk space—not an “ESX Lite.” Rather than management through a Service Console based on a Linux operating system, ESXi 3.5 relies on aggregate management tools, including VirtualCenter, the Remote Command Line interface and the introduction of CIM for standards-based and agentless hardware monitoring.
VMware ESXi 3.5 includes all the performance, scalability and compatibility features of ESX 3.5, including full VMFS support across FC SAN, iSCSI SAN, and NAS, and 4-way VSMP. Because it runs from flash memory, it’s extremely fast and ideal for diskless configurations. It also offers enhanced security, because it runs without an operating system-based console and is updated/patched much like firmware. Licensing works the same as for “standard” ESX 3.5.
If you prefer Microsoft Hyper-V™to VMware, the intent is for the x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 to fully support Microsoft’s hypervisor software installed on the system HDD at a future date.
Disk/Tape Controllers
All models include an integrated eight-port LSI 1078 Serial-Attach SCSI (SAS) controller. This controller supports up to four internal SAS LVD (low-voltage differential) drives.
The integrated SAS controller offers hardware RAID-0/1support for those SAS drives. The ServeRAID-MR10koption adds additional RAID levels, including RAID-10, 5, 50, 6 and 60, along with 256MB of battery-backed cache memory for higher performance and data integrity, without consuming a valuable PCIe adapter slot.
The SAS controller provides data transfer speeds of up to 300MB per second1 in each direction (full-duplex) across the SAS bus, for an aggregate speed of 600MBps, nearly double that of Ultra320 SCSI’s 320MBps (half-duplex) bandwidth. The serial design of the SAS bus allows maximum performance to be maintained as additional drives are added.
Additional external SAS/SATA disk storage, as well as tape backup, is available using the external SAS port on the system unit, or via one of several supported iSCSI or FC SAN controllers.
Drive Bays
The eX4 servers contain five drive bays (per chassis) in all—including four 2.5-inchHDD bays that support hot-swap SAS drives totaling up to 587.6GB.
A24X/10X/24X/8X2 speed (ultraslim, 0.5”) CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive with an IDE interface ships standard in all x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 servers. No floppy drive is supplied with any model; an external USB floppy drive may be used, if needed.
For still more storage, a direct-attach, iSCSI, or FC SAN external expansion option can be added, using an optional controller.
High-Performance Adapter Slots
There are seven physical x8 (“by 8”) PCIe (PCI Express) adapter slots standard (per chassis).
Each is capable of supporting x4 or x8 adapters. All slots are half-length/full-height.
Electrically they are x8 slots as well (meaning that they operate at full x8 4GBps speeds). Slots
6and 7 are Active PCIe hot-add/hot-swapslots, offering the capability to add or replace adapters without having to shut down the system.
PCI Express is a high-performance, low-latency, next-generation serial I/O bus that is rapidly replacing the older parallel PCI and PCI-X buses. A x8 PCIe adapter offers approximately four
1Data transfer rates depend on many factors and are often less than the maximum possible.
