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.
5
the older parallel PCI and PCI-X buses. A x8 PCI-E adapter offers approximately four times the maximum
throughput of a 133MHz PCI-X adapter
4
. (A x1 adapter offers throughput similar to a 66MHz PCI-X slot.)
Because the SAS, ServeRAID-8k, dual Gigabit Ethernet, systems management and video controllers
are integrated onto the system board, the six adapter slots are all available, which offers you a wide
degree of latitude in expansion options.
Large HDD Storage Capacity
The x3500 offers a choice of disk storage, supporting up to eight 3.5-inch hot-swap high-performance
Serial-Attach SCSI (SAS) or Serial ATA (SATA) drives, or up to twelve 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS drives:
3.5-inch SAS
• 10,000 RPMs — 73.4, 146.8, or 300GB (2.4TB maximum)
• 15,000 RPMs — 73.4 or 146.8GB (1.17TB)
2.5-inch SAS
• 10,000 RPMs — 36.4, 73.4, or 146.8GB (1.76TB maximum)
3.5-inch SATA
• 7,200 RPMs — 160, 250, 500, or 750GB (6.0TB)
Notes: Hot-swap SATA drives offer exactly the same reliability as fixed SATA drives. Only the system
availability improves using the swappable drives. (Less downtime is incurred removing 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.
Disk/Tape Controllers
All x3500 models include an integrated eight-port Adaptec AIC9580W Serial Attach SCSI (SAS)
controller. This controller supports up to eight internal SAS or SATA II LVD (low-voltage differential)
drives.
The integrated ServeRAID-8k controller offers hardware RAID-0/1/10/1E/5/6 support and 256MB of fast
PC2-4200 DDR2 battery-backed cache for high performance, without consuming a valuable adapter slot.
The RAID controller 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 SATA II drives at SATA II throughput (300MBps, half-duplex),
nearly equivalent to the throughput of Ultra320 SCSI.
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.
Drive Bays
The x3500 contains 11 drive bays in 3.5-inch HDD models and 15 bays in 2.5-inch HDD models. Some
models offer eight bays that support slimline (1.0") 3.5-inch hot-swap SAS drives totaling up to 2.4TB.
Other models offer 12 bays that support 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS drives totaling up to 1.76TB. In addition,
there are three 5.25-inch bays, one reserved for the optical drive and two for other purposes.
An internal full-high tape drive can be installed using two of the 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
6
speed half-high DVD-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 drives may be inserted or removed through the front of the server without powering off the
system.
For still more storage, a direct-attach, NAS or SAN external expansion option can be added, using an
optional controller.
4
Actual throughput will depend on the adapter vendor’s implementation.
5
Data transfer rates depend on many factors and are often less than the maximum possible.
6
Variable read rate. Actual playback speed varies and is often less than the maximum possible.
