x64 Servers Reviews
- REVIEW: 'Nehalem'-Based Sun Fire X4170 Is a Compelling 1U Server Choice
eWEEK - 08/28/09
Cameron Sturdevant described the Sun Fire X4170 server as "a compelling offering for data center IT managers," noting that the unit packs "copious amounts of computer power, local storage, network bandwidth and PCIe expansion capability into a neatly engineered, 1 U footprint." Cameron tested the x4170 as a virtualization host in eWEEK's VMware Sphere 4 test environment and reported that "the X4170 ably functioned," while also providing "plenty of configuration flexibility."
- Last of the red hot Sun servers
InfoWorld - 08/19/09
Paul Venezia described the new Sun Fire X2270 and Sun Fire X4270 servers as "the fastest x64 servers Sun has ever produced." He described the X4270 as "the best of both worlds, offering the 2U form factor that adds significant expansion opportunities and a wealth of local disk options," while he said the X2270 "would do extremely well as a front-end Web server, a small database server, or a member of a virtualization farm, with the addition of a few NICs or an HBA."
- Sun Microsystems Sun Fire X4275 storage server review
IT Pro - 08/18/09
Dave Mitchell took a close look at the Sun Fire X4275 which he said "puts forward a strong proposition as a storage server as it has a high potential capacity and plenty of room to expand." His review also highlighted the server's build and virtualization offerings along with its secure web interface and power monitoring utilities.
- Sun Fire X4275
ZDNet Australia - 07/02/2009
Craig Simms evaluated Sun's newest 2RU Nehalem-based X4275 server and commented, "Sun Microsystem's Sun Fire is an excellent all-rounder that can be custom-specced to suit most small-to-medium-business needs. Whether you need to apply yourself with some dense storage or just need the compute power of 16 cores, its flexibility is commendable."
- Sun Microsystems Sun Fire X2270 review
IT Pro - 04/28/09
Dave Mitchell gave the Sun Fire X2270, the new Intel Xeon 5500 processor based server, four out of six star rating and noting Sun's support for the processor ahead of HP and IBM. IT Pro's review was positive for overall value and highlighted the X2270 as a strong product offering.
- Sun Microsystems Sun Fire X4440
PC Pro - 03/31/09
Following on his earlier X4140 review, PC Pro's Dave Mitchell tested the larger X4440, similarly rating the unit 5 out of 6 stars and bestowing it the publications "Recommended" rating. He concluded, "The one and only 2U quad Opteron 8300 server on the market delivers a superb blend of features and value that's more than a match for the competition."
- Sun Microsystems Sun Fire X4140
PC Pro - 03/09/09
PC Pro's Dave Mitchell took a look at the Sun Fire X4140, giving the unit the publication's "Recommended" rating and five out of six stars. Overall, Dave is very positive about the server noting, "The Sun Fire X4140 is one classy 1U rack server that has more of everything than the competition and is very competitively priced."
- Flexibility in the datacenter with the X4150
Computerworld - 10/01/08
Martin MC Brown of ComputerWorld discusses Sun Fire X4150 server's "sweet spot" for current buyers. The article traces how purchases evolved from small add-on servers, to massive server infrastructure, and now to efficient uses of hardware through consolidation. With this in mind, Brown noted, "Whether the X4150 hits the sweet spot depends on your point of view, but I'm finding it really hard not to justify a machine with this flexibility to anybody who wants a decent machine." Brown concluded that the X4150 provides a high level of flexibility, specifically noting, "flexibility like that in the modern datacenter is a must."
- Sun Microsystems Sun Fire X4450 Server
ZDNet Australia - 09/05/08
ZDNet Australia's Michael Palamountain reviewed Sun Fire X4450 server and said, "for raw power Sun Microsystems' Sun Fire X4450 is the gutsiest server we've seen." Palamountain concluded that the benchmark results for the Sun Fire X4450 are "the best we have seen in high end servers - particularly the Sungard score - although we cannot claim to have tested such a machine with specs quite like this before."
- Sun X4150 provides power in a slim case
ComputerWorld - 08/19/08
In an ongoing evaluation, Martin MC Brown of ComputerWorld wrote about some comparative performance testing he has completed on the X4150. Overall, Brown is quite enamored with the X4150, "the box is very powerful for what is a single U high pizza box. The eight cores and potential for up to 64GB of RAM make this a small powerhouse of computing, even before you include the storage that you could fit into the same space."
- Sun Server Delivers Heavyweight Performance
InformationWeek - 07/12/08
In this very positive review of the Sun Fire X4150 server, Jeff Ballard provided a excellent overview of the product, digging deep into the key features of processor, memory and expansion capabilities of the X4150. "The Sun Fire X4150 delivers the goods with 16 DIMM slots, three PCI-e slots, and dual quad-core Intel Harpertown processors. The X4150 supports up to 64 GB of memory and sports four Gigabit Ethernet slots, double what is offered by the Dell 1950, IBM x3550, and HP DL360," wrote Ballard.
- Sun Fire X4450: Challenging the HP and IBM bastion
AnandTech - 05/25/08
In this comparative review, Johan De Gelas determines that the Sun Fire X4450 has better serviceability, lower three-year TCOs and more power efficiency over comparable Dell and HP solutions. The evaluation is very positive, highlighting Sun's aggressive pricing strategy and the "Try and Buy" program. De Gelas concludes, "IBM and HP better take notice...X4450 is ahead of the pack."
- Lab test: Sun's X4150 shows the beef
InfoWorld.com - 05/23/08
Paul Venezia posted a very positive evaluation of the Sun Fire X4150, commenting "it's a very real competitor to HP's ProLiant DL360 G5, IBM's x3550, and Dell's PowerEdge 1950 III. In fact, the fit and finish of the X4150 are generally better than the rest of the field's and far ahead in local storage." Overall Venezia summed up his evaluation by saying, "the most suitable roles for the Sun Fire X4150 will be in database, Web serving, and virtualization tasks. In these spaces, the X4150 provides significant bang for the buck in nearly all respects."
- Hands On with the Sun Fire x4150
PC Magazine - 02/22/08
PC Magazine published a very positive review of the Sun Fire X4150 that praises all of the features and power that are included in such a small piece of hardware. The reviewer states: "Sun has kept its new Sun Fire in a 1U enclosure but has sacrificed absolutely nothing in the way of hardware or management features, building a box capable of competing with servers twice its size."
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- Sun's newest server: Dynamite comes in small packages
InfoWorld - 09/27/07
In a very positive review of the Sun Blade 6000, the product scores a rating of 8.5 ("Very Good") out of 10. The reviewer claims the 6000 series offers plenty of expansion and more blade options than any other blade system. He highlights features such as SAS/SATA SFF disk support, optional RAID 0,1,5,10 on the Intel blades, CompactFlash support and a well-designed expansion card layout, and concludes that the Sun Blade 6000 is a solid system for a nice price.
- Sun Fire X4600, Combining the Need for Speed With Energy Efficiency
ServerWatch - 06/21/07
ServerWatch posted a very positive evaluation of the Sun Fire X4600 server highlighting the design, product features and performance of the machine. The review praises the cooling efficiency, operating system flexibility and fast performance. The reviewer states: "Saying this server is "fast" doesn't really do it justice. Speed isn't nearly as important as good design, redundancy, and close attention to detail from a seasoned server manufacturer. Combine that with extreme flexibility and speed, and you have the X4600."
- Sun Fire X4600, Combining the Need for Speed With Energy Efficiency
ServerWatch - 06/21/07
ServerWatch posted a very positive evaluation of the Sun Fire X4600 server highlighting the design, product features and performance of the machine. The review praises the cooling efficiency, operating system flexibility and fast performance. The reviewer states: "Saying this server is "fast" doesn't really do it justice. Speed isn't nearly as important as good design, redundancy, and close attention to detail from a seasoned server manufacturer. Combine that with extreme flexibility and speed, and you have the X4600."
- Sun Fire X4500 server crams 48 drives into 4U
InfoWorld - 06/07/07
InfoWorld posted a very positive evaluation of the Sun Fire x4500 running ZFS. The combination of Sun Fire x4500 running Solaris 10 with ZFS scored an astounding 8.8 rating or "Excellent." The reviewer was impressed by the performance machine -- and was equally positive about the sheer amount of storage a hard drives that can be stored on the 4U servers. He wraps up his thoughts on the performance of the machine and its impact on Sun saying: "Thumper is aptly named and is a truly unique product from a company that seems to be pulling away from a faltering reputation in the server market. Recent studies have shown that within a few short years, the world will generate more data than it can store. It would seem that Sun is doing its part to bridge that gap."
- Blade server shootout: Dell vs. HP vs. Sun
InfoWorld - 01/15/07
InfoWorld posted a positive evaluation of the Sun Blade 8000 in a comparative shoot out with Dell and HP blade systems. In the review, the Sun blade server scores an 8.2 or "Very Good" rating. The reviewer highlights that Sun's blade system is significantly larger and more powerful than the other blade systems in the review and is ideal for HPC, high end database and virtualization tasks.
- Next-Gen Blade Servers
Network Computing - 12/07/06
This Network Computing analysis positions Sun very well in the blade market. The reviewer is very impressed with the new design of the Sun Blade 8000 server and x8400 blades. He states, "the beefy Sun Blade 8000 Modular System earned a perfect score for I/O bandwidth and could be a solid alternative to conventional servers for core-level applications, such as large Oracle or SAP environments, as well as high-performance I/O and compute-intensive apps. Its combination of four-way blades and massive bandwidth at both blade and midplane level sets a new standard for x86 blade performance and throughput."
- Sun's New Big Iron Bends the Rules
InfoWorld - 12/01/06
This review focuses on new features of the Sun Fire X4600 server and its overall performance. It also positions the x4600 very highly vs competitive offerings. After evaluating several virtualization, HPC and database functions, the reviewer concludes, "All these features lead me to the conclusion that this is one of the best-designed server chassis I've ever seen."
- Sun Fire Server Packs Storage Punch
eWEEK - 11/06/06
This eWEEK review focuses on the architecture and components of the X4500 and how these contribute to its performance. It positively highlights easy accessibility for servicing the server components and praises the new features of Solaris 10, such as fault manager and ZFS, as significant features enhancing the performance of the X4500. The review's conclusion, "in tests, we were impressed by the X4500's robust data protection capabilities, thanks to its redundant failover components and ZFS technology."
- Sun Fire x4100
Windows IT Pro - 07/01/06
Trisha Pendley from Windows IT Pro conducted a standalone review of the x4100 citing it as a recommended buy for SMBs looking for a small footprint and high performance. Specifically, she states: "the Sun Fire X4100 recently set three new x86 world records, according to a benchmark test that emulates server-side Java applications and measures performance in business operations per second and throughput. ....Suffice it to say, Sun appears to have met the challenge of providing a high-performance server for the Windows community."
- Sun On Fire With New Multicore x86 Servers
CRN - 02/24/06
In a very positive review at CRN, reviewer Marc Spiwak highlighted the value propositions delivered with the Sun Fire X4200, noting the performance and power consumption advantages of AMD Opteron-based servers versus Xeon-based servers, as well as the dual 32/64-bit support, superior reliability/redundancy and advanced manageability features offered with the Sun Fire X4200. He concluded that "the Sun Fire X4200 server reaches new levels of performance and efficiency."
- Muscular Sun Fire X4200 feels the burn
InfoWord - 02/23/06
In a review at InfoWorld, the Sun Fire X4200 server scored an 8.7 out of 10 possible points to earn the publication's 'Excellent' designation. The reviewer highlighted the advanced management capabilities and fast performance delivered with the Sun Fire X4200, concluding that the X4200 "is a serious server in a seriously well-designed package...an attractive, solid workhorse server and a good value for the money."
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