Fujitsu Primergy RX600 S5 review

Fujitsu’s first Xeon 7500 rack server has a sharp focus on consolidation and virtualisation in the enterprise. It looks very good value and in this exclusive review we see if how it stacks up against Dell and IBM.

IT Pro Verdict

Xeon 7500 systems are being offered as a more cost-effective alternative to RISC systems and Fujitsu’s new RX600 S5 scores very well for value. Dell’s R910 has more features aimed at virtualisation but Fujitsu’s expansion potential is the best of all these types of systems we’ve seen so far. The Primergy is also very well designed and built and offers high levels of redundancy.

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Power management and budgeting options allow you to choose between the best performance, minimum power settings or power capping. The latter can turn the server off or initiate a graceful shutdown is it draws more than its allotted power.

We ran a further test with the management controller set to the minimum power setting. With SiSoft Sandra back in action we recorded a maximum draw of only 616W under load showing this feature to be working perfectly.

For systems management software Fujitsu takes a different tack to Dell, IBM and HP as its ServerView Suite concentrates on server management only. Consequently, we found it much easier to deploy and use than Dell's Management Console or HP's Insight Control Edition which both want to manage everything on your network.

All servers with the agent installed are shown in the ServerList interface and can be placed in different collections for easier management. It provides a complete listing of all hardware components along with their status. Hardware inventory is also available and you can link errors or failures with alarms and alerts.

Fujitsu's new RX600 S5 has the same target market as Dell and IBM so expensive, proprietary RISC systems are under attack here as well. Fujitsu scores well for value and the system offers a very high expansion potential. Pricewise it's on a par with the PowerEdge R910 although Dell does offer a better internal storage capacity plus its remote management and virtualisation features are superior.

Verdict

Xeon 7500 systems are being offered as a more cost-effective alternative to RISC systems and Fujitsu’s new RX600 S5 scores very well for value. Dell’s R910 has more features aimed at virtualisation but Fujitsu’s expansion potential is the best of all these types of systems we’ve seen so far. The Primergy is also very well designed and built and offers high levels of redundancy.

Chassis: 4U rack CPU: 4 x 2GHz X7550 Xeon Memory: 64GB 1066MHz RDIMM DDR3 expandable to 1TB Storage: 4 x 147GB Fujitsu 15K SFF SAS 6Gb/sec hard disks in hot-swap carriers RAID: Fujitsu 8-port SAS 6Gb with 512MB cache and BBU Array support: RAID0, 1, 10, 5, 50, 6, 60 Expansion: 10 x PCI-e slots Network: 4 x Gigabit with TOE, dual-port 8Gb/sec FC PCI-e card Power: 3 x 850W hot-plug supplies (max 4) Management: iRMC S2 with 10/100 port and Advanced upgrade Software: Fujitsu ServerView Suite software package.

Dave Mitchell
Dave Mitchell

Dave is an IT consultant and freelance journalist specialising in hands-on reviews of computer networking products covering all market sectors from small businesses to enterprises. Founder of Binary Testing Ltd – the UK’s premier independent network testing laboratory - Dave has over 45 years of experience in the IT industry.

Dave has produced many thousands of in-depth business networking product reviews from his lab which have been reproduced globally. Writing for ITPro and its sister title, PC Pro, he covers all areas of business IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, network security, data protection, cloud, infrastructure and services.

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