IBM HS21 Gigabit Ethernet Controllers, Large HDD Storage Capacity, External Tape Storage

Workhorse 2-socket dual and quad-core

Intel Xeon blade server

at 667MHz) for faster access, and provides Active Memory features, including advanced Chipkill memory protection (using 1GB or larger DIMMs), for up to 16X better error correction than standard ECC memory. The HS21 supports up to 16GB of memory in four DIMM slots. Adding a 30mm Memory and I/O Expansion Unit doubles the memory support to 32GB in eight DIMM slots.

The fully buffered memory in the HS21 provides up to triple the memory bandwidth (up to 21.3GBps in four channels of PC2-5300 fully-buffered DIMMs vs. a maximum of 6.4GBps in two channels of unbuffered PC2-3200 memory. By performing reads and writes simultaneously, it eliminates the previous memory read-to-write blocking latency. In addition, it also offers innovative data reliability and security features to help improve data integrity, including enhanced CRC protection, data retry on error detect and buffer registers for improved fault isolation.

For increased availability, the HS21 offers two additional (but mutually exclusive) levels of IBM

Active Memory protection: online memory mirroring, and online hot-spare memory.

Memory mirroring works much like disk mirroring. The total memory is divided into two channels. Data is written concurrently to both channels. If a DIMM fails in one of the DIMMs in the primary channel, it is instantly disabled and the mirrored (backup) memory in the other channel becomes active (primary) until the failing DIMM is replaced. One-half of total memory is available for use with mirroring enabled. (Note: Due to the double writes to memory, performance is affected.)

When online hot-spare memory is enabled, using single and/or dual-rank DIMMs one rank is set aside per branch as online spares in case one of the other ranks fails. The spare rank must have capacity at least that of the largest active rank. In an HS21 with 16GB installed, up to 8GB (using 4 single-rank 4GB DIMMs) or 12GB (using 4 dual-rank 4GB DIMMs) of memory is available when the hot-spare feature is active. (The lowest-numbered rank of those with the highest capacity in each branch is used for the hot-spares.) If a Memory and I/O Expansion Unit is installed to upgrade an HS21 to 32GB of RAM, up to 24GB (using 8 single-rank 4GB DIMMs) or 28GB (using 8 dual-rank 4GB DIMMs) of memory is available when the hot-spare feature is active.

Either of these features requires operating system support.

PC2-5300 fully buffered memory is available in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB memory kits (two 512MB, 1GB, 2GB or 4GB DIMMs per kit, respectively). DIMMs are installed in pairs for increased performance, provided by dual-interleaving.

Gigabit Ethernet Controllers

The HS21 includes two integrated Broadcom BCM5708S Gigabit Ethernet controllers for up to 10X higher maximum throughput than a 10/100 Ethernet controller. The controllers offer TOE (TCP Offload Engine) support, as well as failover and load balancing for better throughput and system availability. It also supports highly secure remote power management using IPMI 2.0, plus Wake on LAN® and PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) Flash interface.

For additional Gigabit Ethernet controllers, an optional Memory and I/O Expansion Unit may be added. This provides two Broadcom BCM5714S controllers (no TOE support). An optional 2-port Ethernet expansion card adds two additional Gigabit Ethernet ports per HS21 server.

Large HDD Storage Capacity

The HS21 offers a choice of disk storage, supporting up to two 2.5-inchinternal fixed SAS drives, as well as an expansion unit that offers additional direct-attached storage.

•10K RPM 2.5-inch — 36.4 or 73.4GB capacities (146.8GB maximum)

If this is not enough internal storage, an optional “sidecar” storage blade is available. The

Storage and I/O Expansion Unit is a 30mm blade that supports up to three 2.5-inch hot-swap

SAS HDDs. It is installed in the slot adjacent to an HS21 blade server.

Fully populating both the HS21 blade and the expansion unit provides up to 367GB of local storage to the HS21 blade server. This storage can be configured as a single RAID-1or RAID-5array, or as two separate RAID arrays—one in the expansion unit and the other in the base blade—for even more flexibility. If you need more storage space, terabyte capacities are possible with optional external iSCSI and SAN storage solutions.

External Tape Storage

The HS21 supports various external rack-mounted SAN-attached tape drives. Supported tape technologies include:

•IBM 2U Universal Tape Autoloader

•IBM 4U Universal Tape Library

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