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Cons And Conclusion

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The MFSYS25 does have some drawbacks as well.

Lack of Power Down functionality on the MFSYS25 chassis:

  • No power switches on the chassis–The only way to completely shut the chassis down is by unplugging it.
  • No remote shut down–It would have been nice to have a remote shutdown option in the Modular Server Control user interface for the chassis, otherwise you have to be physically behind the MFSYS25 to shut it down.

No redundancy for the management module:

  • Since there’s a single NIC on the management module, losing the network connection to the chassis would prevent an admin from being able to manage the chassis remotely.

No built-in LED information panel on the front of the chassis that would provide quick stats about the server:

  • Because of the lack of physical status monitors on the MFSYS25, you have to log into a computer to see how the chassis is doing.  The built-in LED lights can only give you so much information.

LUN-sharing feature activation:

  • Customers shouldn’t have to pay extra for what is a standard SAN feature. 

Conclusion

The MFSYS25 is a great machine for a small- to medium-sized business. It has a great management tool, solid architecture, and built-in reliability that definitely make taking care of this machine a one-person job. 

As a remote server, I’m not sure it’s completely ready. It’s missing a couple of remote features that I’d like to see added before sticking the modular server in that little office out in the boonies. Some convenient features like remote chassis shutdown/restart, and additional operating system diagnostics would have added to the KVM and remote-hardware-management-features.

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thepeganator 30/01/2009 09:43
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And the point of this is...?

mi1ez 30/01/2009 10:38
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How much did intel pay for this advert?

PT88 30/01/2009 12:36
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Im not too sure if the readers of TomsHardware UK would be much interested in a Intel 24-Core, 14-Drive Modular Server

I agree, its just a big dirty advert!!

PhReaK2007 30/01/2009 13:33
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Very interesting .. I take it you guys dont really work with servers that much .. ??

cmashwin 30/01/2009 13:46
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I bet it wont even play CRYSIS!!!

vasthegreek 30/01/2009 14:04
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Why do people only care about articles based on games?
If the topic of an article doesn't interest you don't read it. Nobody is forcing you. Do you call your radio station or tv channel to tell them that the program they have on doesn't interest you?

God !!! I'm surrounded by morons !!!

cmashwin 30/01/2009 14:15
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Well i wud if they broadcast porn on a family show just cos its relevant to the dad..

God!! i am surrounded by geeks!!

Cragzman 30/01/2009 15:28
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Aye it won't play Crysis because its a SERVER! Hehe. To be honest I thought it would be funny to try and install Diablo 2 on a Server 2003 system. It kinda went TILT and gave me the finger.

Joking aside, I quite like this sort of geeky stuff as I work with networks everyday. Good to keep up with what's new and what to blow my budget on.

Anonymous 30/01/2009 15:52
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Its a nice bit of kit for sure, that setup with virtualisation would probably half the size of many companies server rooms. However it only makes sense if your going to fill the sysem with the maximum of servers and hard disks and need the capacity.Its perfect for a building
a powerfull server cluster.

Anonymous 30/01/2009 17:17
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obvious advert is obvious
however advert does go in depth and while it may not play crysis at full spec (what the hell will?) it does shine the noble light yet again out of intels a$$ to show that yet again they are trying to corner every market they can
as this is a ardware and occasional software site im not suprised this article is here a little less advert and a bit more under the hood and more in detail what we can do to it would be nice but meh
u pay for what u get and last time i checked im not paying for this site (just my interwebs bill)

thepeganator 30/01/2009 19:00
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Toms have always been intel biased, it sucks :/

Anonymous 30/01/2009 19:52
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It's nice to see some server reviews once in a while... don't listen to those gaming worshipers, to them virtualization doesn't compute because it cannot run Crysis.

Intel does some pretty good servers, it's sad that some of us have to search hard for proper reviews

Verge 30/01/2009 21:05
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You guys are like someone who watches the car reviews program and says 'I'm going to complain to the broadcaster, I don't like cars.'

I don't see that reviewing something from Intel shows 'intel bias' unless you can say how they've managed to tilt the playing field in Intel's favour.

wild9 31/01/2009 12:40
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Historically, Intel architecture has dictated that multi-core solutions connect via the FSB, limiting CPU-CPU bandwidth. AMD's solution was streets ahead (and competitively priced) and even now, it would take a lot of convincing for me to go back to Intel. I'm sure each person has their own reasons for choosing a particular setup, however.

Anonymous 01/02/2009 21:42
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Given that toms has never reviewed a server product such as this one ever before(and that there has been such products available through multiple products for many years); that this article makes no attempt to make a quality or critical review by using real world benchmarks, extensive and varied testing; there is no real attempt to compare this product to many other simillarily configured systems and finally that the reviwer seems content to offer nothing more than superfical and trite crtitism such as "this remote access server product has no power button"- I think its more than fair for the readers of toms to asume that intel had a hand in suggesting this review for marketing.

Tattysnuc 01/02/2009 22:14
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What a nice change to find a hardware site talking about new Industry HARDWARE, rather than just new gaming ware.

It's just a shame that some of the readers commenting on here think that they know all about hardware because they've built or overclocked a system at home, least of all those that then start throwing around insults directed at TOMS because it's not applicable to them.

salem80 02/02/2009 02:19
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But IBM BladeCenter QS22 Still much stronger .
see Roadrunner Supercomputer in wikipedia .
and NASA test it and found the 'Cell C' are 8 times faster then 'Xeon5150'.that's Cell C
and 'IBM PowerXCell 8i' use new article "40nm" in the
BladeCenter QS22 server .and it have two 'PowerXCell 8i' this mean at less 16 times faster the Intel crap Xeon .
X86 are really out the range now "they use it basically in late 70s to save the money on the DRAM because 1M cost that days about $5,000.!

Archie 18/02/2009 09:56
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Awesome review, am atm searching for some modular stable solution for our client, something like this should be enough fail-safe to provide 99% stability.

to trolls talking crap about shitty reviews:
go to your mommy ask for money for a gaming machine and go play crysis 2, scrubs.

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