This is a 2U rack-mounted server from Gigabyte meant for
all types of enterprises. The server is modular in nature and can be easily
upgraded. It has a Gigabyte server board from the GA-8IPXDR-E series that uses
the Intel EF7501 chipset with integrated ATi Rage XL graphics. The server board
features the mPGA 604 socket that can take dual Intel Xeon Prestonia CPUs of up
to 3.6 GHz. There is also support for 200/266 MHz DDR memory that can be
expanded up to 12 GB.
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For storage, we have both IDE and SCSI interfaces on board.
This lets you add up to six hot-swappable SCSI hard drives. The SCSI adapter is
an Adaptec 760 Ultra320. As another option, you can add RAID features using
either an Intel RAIDIOS or an Adaptec ASR-2010S Zero Channel RAID cards. The
server features two Gigabit Ethernet ports for connectivity. Coming to
expandability, it has four PCI-X and two PCI slots. It also has four USB ports,
two at rear and two at the front. The server we received came with a single 2.80
GHz Xeon processor, 1GB RAM and a single 72 GB SCSI hard drive. There was no
redundant power supply.
On the front panel of the server where you plug-in the SCSI
hard drive, it has two USB ports and one console port to configure the machine
OS (running Telnet service) using RS-232 cable. In our tests, we stressed the
server's I/O and Web performance. For I/O, we used NetBench that stressed the
system for file serving performance; and WebBench tested its web serving
capabilities. We used 19 PCs connected to the server over a Gigabit Ethernet
network to simulate 8 nodes. The test was configured to start sending I/O and
Web requests initially from a single client and then gradually increase the load
from the other 18 PCs. This allowed us to find out the exact load where the
performance of the server peaks or falls off. The server was running Win 2003
Server with Apache Web Server. In the NetBench benchmark, the server's peak
throughput was 407 Mbit/s with 30 clients and after that there was a fall in the
transfer rates as the load increased further. Plus, its response time was also
affected with the fall in transfer rates. During the NetBench test, the
server's response time was around 0.494 with 1 client. As the load was
increased, the response time started shooting up. For instance, with 5 clients,
the response time was 0.534 milli seconds, while with 15 clients, it came to
0.698 milli seconds. By the time the load increased to 38 clients, the response
time reached up to 1.6 milli seconds.
Here in NetBench, the Gigabyte server is able to take the load up to 407 Mbit/s. After that, the graph starts to decline | With the increase in load of the number of clients (in I/O test), the response time gradually rises |
Coming to its performance as a Web server, it was able to
reach up to 474 requests per second and after that it gave us the same stable
performance with the rest of the clients.
We compared this server to the Edge 2500 (from our December
2005 Server shootout) as it matches the configuration quite closely. The Edge
2500 had a single 3.0 GHz processor and 1 GB RAM and was configured with RAID
level 0. Comparison shows that the Gigabyte server scores lower than the Edge
2500 in both the tests. The reason for the low score could be the RAID level 0
on the Edge, while the Gigabyte server came without any RAID card at all.
Here, the server was able to take 474 rps. After that, it dropped till 400 rps and remained almost stable |
Bottom Line: The server
is a decent performer and can be easily used in small to medium organizations.
Plus, it's easy to upgrade, letting you start small if you are on a budget and
expand as your needs grow. However, considering the price and configuration, and
then comparing it with the other servers available in the market, we call it too
expensive.
Sanjay Majumder