Intel’s 24-Core, 14-Drive Modular Server Reviewed

Ed: Julio Urquidi designs and manages Windows and Linux servers at a large medical center.

Let's say you're part of a small company that has identified a satellite office with some extra space, and you are tasked to set up a couple of servers that would be low maintenance, reliable, and compact.  Perhaps, you also need the flexibility to add a couple more servers, but are restricted by power requirements and hardware costs. You might also work for a small- or medium-sized business that needs to add a system that provides redundancy and easy-to-use administrative tools that won’t kill your budget.

The Intel MFSYS25 Modular Server System may be the server solution you are looking for. 

The MFSYS25 can hold six servers and a built in SAN; all in a single package.

The MFSYS25 is a flexible chassis-based system that has room for six server-like compute modules. It offers networking with an Ethernet switch module and includes a built-in SAN (storage area network) that holds 14 2.5” SAS drives and can be shared between server modules. The chassis and its components are all managed through a Web-enabled administration tool. Overall, the MFSYS25 is designed to provide a remotely managed environment that is robust and stable with redundant power, storage, and cooling for up to six servers.

Using Intel’s Multi-Flex architecture, the rack-based MFSYS25 puts a lot of power into a relatively small server footprint for small- to medium-sized businesses and remote offices. Using 4 GB DIMMs, the total memory capacity can reach up to 192 GB of RAM if you pack each of the six available Compute Modules with 32 GB of memory. The system is uniquely flexible, as it enables easy administration in setting up storage pools within the MFSYS25’s SAN.  In turn, this allows the administrator to assign the disks in these pools to the compute modules in multiple options of RAID configurations. The system supports up to 12 dual-core and quad-core Xeon processors, and up to two processors per server module, giving the MFSYS25 plenty of horsepower to run today’s apps. 

Note: The MFSYS25 is one of two Intel modular servers. The other modular server in the line, called the MFSYS35, is different in that is can hold six 3.5” SATA or SAS drives.

Our demo system consisted of the following;

• One MFSYS25 chassis
• Three MFS5000SI compute modules,
• One Ethernet switch module
• One management module
• One storage controller module
• 14 2.5" SAS hard drives
• Three power supply modules (fourth Power Supply not used)
• Two main cooling modules
• One I/O cooling module