IBM's System x3550 M3 claims to be a game changer: it has a significantly reduced power envelope, top resiliency with no single point of failure and a high-end hardware specification. In this exclusive review, we see whether it can topple Dell's PowerEdge R610 from the PC Pro A List.
The x3550 M3's redesigned front panel supports up to eight SFF hard disks, putting it ahead of the R610 and its six hot-swap bays, and level with HP's ProLiant DL360 G7, which also has room for eight drives.
The system on review has one hot-swap bay for four drives, but you can add an extra SAS/SATA 4-Pac HDD kit alongside, which comprises the drive cage, backplane and SAS cable. The review system included IBM's ServeRAID M5015 RAID controller, so it's possible to wire the extra cage directly to the spare port on this card.
The M5015 is the top dog in IBM's RAID card portfolio, with 512MB of battery-backed-up cache and supporting the latest 6Gbits/sec SAS drives. An advanced feature upgrade key costing £131 boosts support to RAID6 and 60 arrays plus SED (self encrypting disk) key management.