Product guide

Ultrascalability combined with extreme availability
features and industry-leading performance
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
14
Additional services include hardware warranty upgrades and factory-installed Product
Customization Services (PCS), such as asset tagging, hardware integration, software
imaging and operating systems personalization.
IBM offers extensive technical support by phone and via the Web. Support options include
links to forums/newsgroups, problem submission, online shopping support, service offerings,
device drivers for all IBM product lines, software downloads and even upcoming technical
seminar worldwide schedules and registration. Also available are remote installation,
configuration and usage support for System x hardware and software, as well as onsite
custom services to provide the level of expertise you require.
IBM Maintenance and Technical Support solutions can help you get the most out of your IT
investment by reducing support costs, increasing availability and simplifying management
with integrated support for your multiproduct, multivendor hardware and software
environment. For more information on hardware maintenance, software support, solution
support and managed support, visit http://ibm.com/services/maintenance.
Key Options
IBM options for System x servers help you take your servers to
a higher level
You can rely on System x options to supply a complete solution for your business needs.
Options help you create an optimized server system to meet your data protection, storage
and availability needs. Every IBM option is designed and tested for peak performance and
flexibility, helping to maximize your return on investment. The combination of System x
servers and options lets you keep your fingers on the pulse of your e-business.
Processors —Intel Xeon processors provide high clock rates, a choice of 10, 8, 6, or 4
cores, a large L3 cache and advanced features for availability and manageability (processor-
specific). Large cache size, combined with fast 1066MHz memory access, reduces memory
latency and facilitates the movement of data through the processor and I/O devices. (Note:
System performance depends not only on the number of processors in the server but also on
the power and functionality of each processor.) Adding a third, or fourth processor may be a
cost-effective way to achieve significant performance improvements.
Memory — Memory is a significant factor in systems application performance. Adding more
memory to a System x server is one of the most effective ways to increase application
performance. An 8-core processor should have twice as much memory as a 4-core
processor. x3850 X5 and x3950 X5 servers support 64 DIMMs natively and 96 DIMMs using
a MAX5 memory expansion unit, or double that with two nodes and two MAX5 units. 1.35V
DIMMs (machine type 7143) can help reduce energy consumption by up to 19%.
Hard Disk Drives — IBM hard disk drives help customers improve the transaction and cost
performance of their System x servers. The choice of hard disk drives can be a critical aspect
of maximizing the I/O throughput of the system. SAS hard disk drives (2.5-inch) are available
for the eX5 servers with capacities of 500GB at 7,200 RPMs, up to 600GB at 10,000 RPMs,
and 146.8GB at 15,000 RPMs. Enterprise-class 2.5-inch SATA hard disk drives are available
with capacities of up to 500GB at 7,200 RPMs.
Solid State Drives — IBM offers a choice of 50GB or 200GB 1.8” solid-state drives as a
higher reliability, lower-energy-use alternative to internal HDDs. They can be used as a highly
available boot drive, for storing disk images, or for other uses that stress read performance,
such as databases.
High IOPS SSD PCIe Adapters — For storage media offering up to 500 times the I/O
operations per second (IOPS) and up to 7.7 times the bandwidth of 15,000-RPM HDDs, IBM
offers the 160GB High IOPS SS Class SSD PCIe Adapter, the 320GB High IOPS SS Class
SSD PCIe Adapter, the 320GB High IOPS MS Class SSD PCIe Adapter, and the 320GB
High IOPS SD Class SSD PCIe Adapter, as well as the 640GB High IOPS MLC Duo
Adapter. These adapters offer near-DRAM performance, with extremely high data retention
(up to 25 years) and RAID-grade data protection, and can be used in addition to HDDs and
SSDs.
IBM ServeRAID Controllers — System x servers using ServeRAID technology allow
companies to build a reliable foundation for business-critical computing. IBM ServeRAID
technology allows an array consisting of multiple physical hard disk drives to be treated as
one logical drive. ServeRAID technology also allows data to be stored redundantly, across
multiple hard disk drives— enhancing both the integrity and the availability of the data. SAS
and SATA ServeRAID controllers offer enhanced performance due to onboard processors
and cache. Because IBM ServeRAID controllers can help significantly improve data transfer
rates, this technology is extremely effective when implementing demanding, transaction-
oriented applications. By employing the advanced fault tolerance of IBM ServeRAID
technology, companies can effectively implement networked business systems that require
large amounts of storage space for data and applications that must be available for their
businesses to continue operating.