Monday 29 November 2010

Intel’s New Server System SR1695GPRX 1U 1P 4 Hot Swap Drive

We just received a new Intel Server System SR1695GPRX 1U uni-processor system that has four hot swap SAS/SATA drive bays capable of handling both 3.5” and 2.5” drive sizes out of the box.

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This new Intel Server platform is an excellent fit for the SMB space in that it offers the same enterprise class 1U server features as a dual processor unit but at a single processor price level.

This configuration has been on our wish list for _a long time_ now.

  • 1U profile provides for lots of room in that 24U enclosure.
  • Single processor leads to a lower cost point based.
    • A single processor server board with extended RAM capabilities.
  • 4 hot swap drive bays give us access to RAID 10 configurations.
  • A full height PCI-E slot for a high performance RAID controller.
  • Intel Remote Management Module 3 (LITE) capable.
    • Takes over NIC5 to provide out-of-band console access via Web.

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As we can see the server system also has dual redundant power supplies which is absolutely critical to providing our clients with needed hardware redundancy. On the right hand side at the bottom of the above shot are two ports where we can plug in a couple of additional I/O modules such as dual Intel Gigabit server NICs to bring the total NICs available on this box to eight (without the RMM3LITE NIC).

  • The SR1695GPRX is dual power supply capable (watch that part number!)
  • Can add another set of dual port Intel Gigabit server NICs.
  • Can add an entry level performance SAS RAID I/O module without using the PCI-E slot.
    • Some RAID I/O modules have the ability to add a cache battery.

Given that we can have up to eight NICs in this system we now have an excellent platform for a single server Hyper-V host when deploying SBS 2008 plus the second server or as an inexpensive node in a Hyper-V cluster attached to iSCSI storage for Clustered Shared Volumes.

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The shot above is just prior to dropping the airflow baffle back on between the fans and the CPU and the memory.

The RAID controller is an Intel RS2BL080 with battery backup situated near the top of the shot (shiny object). We have an RS2BL040 on order but it will not be here until the end of the week. Since Intel RAID controllers can be inter-changed we have this Hyper-V server built up already and will swap in the production controller when it shows up.

From now on this particular hardware configuration will be our principle offering for any situations where we need a 1U server system whether the client is looking for standalone server systems, a couple of virtualized server operating systems, or even a small two node cluster based on two of these units and one or two NAS devices that act as iSCSI targets.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

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