IBM X3500 - Manual

A stable, long-life, dual-socket, dual- and quad-core SMP
server, offering high-performance, massive capacity and
outstanding availability
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
1
Product Guide
December 2007
IBM System x3500
Product Overview
CONTENTS
Product Overview 1
Selling Features 1
Key Features 3
Key Options 9
x3500 Images 11
x3500 Specifications 12
The Bottom Line 14
For More Information 16
Legal Information 16
Outstanding performance, capacity and availability
[ Suggested uses: Workgroups of medium-to-large corporations; remote offices; fast growing small
businesses]
In a distributed computing environment, servers are spread across many locations; therefore, as limited
resources challenge IT management high availability is crucial. The
dual-socket IBM ® System x3500,
incorporating IBM X-Architecture ™ features, delivers the superior power and availability needed by small
businesses and those with branch or remote locations. The x3500 supports the latest quad- and dual-
core Intel ® Xeon ™ processors, designed with up to a leading-edge 1333MHz front-side bus (FSB), 64-bit
extensions (EM64T), and either 4MB (dual-core) or 8MB or 12MB (quad-core) of L2 cache, to help
provide you with the computing power you need to match your business needs and growth. In addition, the
x3500 uses industry-standard
fully buffered 667MHz memory with Chipkill ™ ECC (Error Checking and
Correcting) protection—for high performance and reliability. For even higher levels of availability, the
x3500 also offers a choice of optional online hot-spare memory or memory mirroring.
Dual integrated high-
speed Gigabit Ethernet controllers are standard, as are high-performance adapter slots (PCI-E x8 and x4
and PCI-X/133).
All models offer impressive scalability, including dual-processor support and up to 48GB of memory. Some
models support eight high-performance 3.5-inch hot-swap Serial-Attach SCSI (SAS) with an internal
storage capacity of up to 2.4TB 1 , or eight hot-swap 3.5-inch Serial ATA II (SATA II) hard disk drives with
a total capacity of up to 6.0TB. Other models support twelve 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS drives (up to
1.76TB). For additional performance and high availability, the x3500 includes the ServeRAID-8k controller
standard, with
256MB of battery-backed cache, providing RAID-0/1/10/1E/5/6 support. The x3500 ships
as a tower unit; an optional rack conversion kit turns the x3500 into a 5U rack-mounted server to help save
precious data center floor space.
Standard in the x3500 is a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) that enables users to manage
and control the server easily—both locally and remotely. This high level of manageability is designed to
keep costs down and the system up—even when network usage increases. The built-in,
externally
viewable light path diagnostics panel enables quick servicing of the system if a problem develops.
These advanced features help maximize network availability by increasing uptime, as do
hot-
swap/redundant HDDs, power and fans; Active Memory ™ ; integrated RAID; temperature-controlled
fans with Calibrated Vectored Cooling ™ ; industry-standard IPMI 2.0 support, including highly secure
remote power control and Serial over LAN; as well as text-console redirect over LAN.
With the inclusion of unique IBM service and support features such as light path diagnostics, IBM
Director, IBM ServerGuide ™ and support for the optional IBM Remote Supervisor Adapter II SlimLine,
the x3500 is equally well designed for a locally managed data center environment as for a remotely
managed or stand-alone environment, while offering maximum availability.
For a balance of high-performance dual-core, dual-socket processing, high availability and vast internal
storage, the x3500 is the ideal system.
Selling Features Price/Performance
The x3500 offers numerous features to help boost performance and reduce product and operating costs:
• Up to two multi-core Xeon processors with high-end 1066MHz or 1333MHz front side bus and either
12MB, 8MB, or 4MB (processor-specific) of integrated Level 2 cache per processor offer superior
performance capable of tackling the toughest jobs.
64-bit extensions provide the flexibility to run 32-
bit and 64-bit applications concurrently.
• Low-voltage processors draw less power and produce less waste heat than high-voltage processors,
thus helping to reduce data center energy costs. Some dual-core Xeon processors use only 65W. This
is half the wattage consumed by older 130W processors. On a per-core basis, the 80W quad-core
processors are even more economical, consuming only 20W per core, vs. 32.5W per core for the 65W
1 GB equals 1,000,000,000 bytes and TB equals 1,000,000,000,000 bytes when referring to hard disk drive capacity. Accessible
capacity may be less.