IBM System x3400 - Manual (Page 5)

An affordable dual-socket, dual- and quad-core SMP server
with high performance and data protection for small and
medium businesses
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
5
and installing the drives.) Hot-swap SAS drives use the Converged Tray for interchangeability with other
IBM System x
™ systems.
If you need more storage space, terabyte capacities are possible with external direct-attach, NAS and
SAN solutions.
Drive Bays
All x3400 models contain 7 drive bays standard. Hot-swap models are upgradeable to 11. All models offer
three 5.25-inch bays and four 3.5-inch HDD bays. Some models support up to four hot-swap SAS or
SATA drives; other models support up to four simple-swap SATA drives. The optional upgrade kit adds a
drive cage containing four more
hot-swap bays. This enables the installation of up to eight slimline (1.0")
SAS or SATA drives.
An internal full-high tape drive can be installed using both available 5.25-inch drive bays; alternatively, an
internal half-high tape drive can be installed using one of the 5.25-inch drive bays. The tape drive must
have a USB 2.0 interface. A 16X 4 speed half high CD-ROM drive with a SATA interface ships standard in
the other 5.25-inch bay. No diskette drive is supplied with any model; an external USB floppy drive may be
used, if needed.
Hot-swap and simple-swap drives may be inserted or removed through the front of the server. Hot-swap
drives do not require powering off the system. Simple-swap SATA drives do require powering off the
system first; however, no tools or jumpers are required for installation and removal, allowing for faster,
simpler servicing than fixed drives.
For still more storage, a direct-attach, NAS or SAN external expansion option can be added, using an
optional controller.
Disk/Tape Controllers
Some x3400 models include an integrated eight-port Adaptec AIC9580W Serial-Attach SCSI (SAS)
controller. Other x3400 models include a SATA controller, integrated in the Intel chipset.
The integrated SAS controller supports up to four internal SAS or SATA LVD (low-voltage differential)
hot-swap drives standard , and provides data transfer speeds of up to 300MB per second 5 in each
direction ( full-duplex) across the SAS bus, for an aggregate speed of 600MBps, nearly double that of
Ultra320 SCSI’s 320MBps (half-duplex) bandwidth. The serial design of the SAS bus allows maximum
performance to be maintained as additional drives are added. This controller also supports up to eight
Serial ATA II (SATA II) drives at SATA II throughput (300MBps, half-duplex). The Hot-Swap SAS/SATA
4-Pac HDD Option allows the installation of up to four additional (eight total) hot-swap SAS or SATA
drives.
The integrated ServeRAID-8k-l controller in the hot-swap models offers hardware RAID-0/1/10 support
and 32MB of fast PC2-4200 DDR2 cache for SAS or SATA drives. The ServeRAID-8k option adds three
additional RAID levels, RAID-1E, 5 and 6, along with 256MB of cache memory for higher performance,
and battery backup, without consuming a valuable adapter slot.
The integrated SATA II controller (simple-swap SATA models only) supports up to four internal simple-
swap LVD SATA drives. It provides firmware-based RAID-0/1 support standard. The system can be
upgraded to hardware-based
RAID-0/1/10/1E/5/6 for higher performance, using the same IBM
ServeRAID-8k SAS/SATA controller as the hot-swap server models.
Other supported RAID controllers include:
• ServeRAID-8s — SAS/SATA, 8-lanes, 256MB cache (optional battery-backup), x8 PCI-E (4 lanes
internal, 4 external; four-port cable for external SAS/SATA RAID storage)
In addition, the Ultra320 SCSI Controller 2 supports the use of an internal SCSI tape drive.
Internal Backup
The x3400 supports several internal tape backup options. Supported technologies include:
• DDS-5 (half-high)
• DDS-6 (half-high)
• LTO-2 Ultrium (half-high)
• LTO-3 Ultrium (full-high)
• VXA-3 (half-high)
High-Performance Adapter Slots
The x3400 provides two x8 (“by 8”) 4GBps PCI-E (PCI Express) full-length/full-height adapter slots
( Slots 2 and 3). Each is capable of supporting x1/x4/x8 adapters at full speed. Slot 1 is a half-length/full-
height x4 (2GBps) PCI-E slot; Slots 4 and 5 are full-length/full-height (1GBps) 133MHz PCI-X slots,
4 Variable read rate. Actual playback speed varies and is often less than the maximum possible.
5 Data transfer rates depend on many factors and are often less than the maximum possible.