Thursday 19 May 2011

Warning: Intel Server System R1304BTLSHBN (1U Hot Swap) Has A Drive Height Restriction

Due to the fact that the new Intel E3-1200 series pedestal and 1U server configurations are a little restrictive, we have been reserving their use for standalone SBS 2011 OS installs (OS on physical box).

Almost all of our server deploys are configured with either 2.5” 15K SAS, 3.5” 15K SAS, or Intel X25-M or 320 Series SSDs.

There is an Intel Technical Advisory dated May 6th, 2011 that states that the new Intel Server System R1304BTLSHBN 1U with four hot swap drive bays has a drive height restriction of 25.9mm.

Well, we just checked Seagate’s Web site for the height of the 300GB 15K SAS drive and found that its specification is 26.10mm.

Here is a look at the hard drive compatibility list for this unit:

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There seems to be a distinct lack of 3.5” 15K SAS drives on the above list. We have a few 300GB 15K Seagate SAS drives kicking about for lab purposes so we would have been testing this chassis with them and discovered this issue right away.

It is good to know ahead of time that there may be compatibility problems with our standard configurations on new platforms.

The above page can be found via the following link:

Note that the above link jumps into the base THOL page for all of the new E3-1200 series products:

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It looks as though Intel is moving away from a PDF, and thus offline, version of the Tested Hardware and Operating Systems List (THOL which is our definitive compatibility guide) towards an online version only:

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Hopefully this new version of the Server Configurator has its stability issues dealt with. So far, the site seems to be functioning a lot better than it did just a few short weeks ago.

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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