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Gigabyte GS-SR29501 Server

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.

author-image
PCQ Bureau
New Update

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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Price:



Rs 1,00,000 (3 yrs warranty)

Meant

For:
Small to large enterprises
Key

Specs:
Dual Xeon, 12 GB DDR RAM, SCSI and IDE disk
Pros: Easy to upgrade 
Cons: Expensive
Contact: Gigabyte Technology,

MumbaiTel: 26526696

E-mail: gigabytesales@gigabyte.in


RQS# E15 or SMS 131502 to 9811800601

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.

publive-imageOn 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.

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publive-image publive-image
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.

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publive-image
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

it server hardware
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