Overview
The IBM x3550 M4 (7914 is the model I am working with) With redundant and hot-swap fans, disks and power supplies, the x3550 M4 provides a resilient architecture ideal for business-critical applications. Predictive failure analysis and light path diagnostics provide advanced warning on power supplies, fans, VRMs, disks, processors and memory. Redundant, hot-swap components make it easy to replace failures without taking your system down.
Hardware summary
- 1U rack server provides expandability and high performance in a dense form factor
- Up to two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600 product family
- Up to 768 GB memory and up to 2 DIMMs per channel at 1600 MHz memory speed
- Integrated quad-port Gigabit Ethernet and optional embedded dual-port 10 GbE
- Up to two PCIe 3.0 expansion slots; An optional PCI-X slot is available
- Up to 8 TB of 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS/SATA/SSDs or 12 TB of 3.5-inch hot-swap or simple-swap SAS/SATA HDDs
- Integrated 6 Gbps hardware RAID-0, -1, -10. and optional RAID-5, -50 or -6, -60
- Hot-swap disk/fan/power supply, two fan zones with N+1 fans design, light path diagnostics and Predictive Failure Analysis, better thermal design, balanced efficiency, uptime and serviceability
The Configuration I am using for my VMware hosts is as follows
- IBM x3550M4 2x 8Core CPU
- 2x PSU
- boot from internal USB
- 128GB RAM
- PCI Emulex 10Gbs VFA III Network Adapter - compatibility need to checked with VMware HCL for correct model, I am using part IBM 95Y3762, which is a PCI adpater not a daughter card that goes on the mother board as that is not supported by VMware.