IBM 7945D2U, x3650 M3 Product Manual

Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and

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expandable, rack-dense, 2U dual-socket server

Product Guide

February 2011

Product Overview

CONTENTS

Product Overview

Selling Features

Key Features

Key Options 1

x3650 M3 Images 1

x3650 M3 Specifications 1

The Bottom Line 1

Server Comparison 2

For More Information 2

Legal Information 2

IBM System x3650 M3

Business-critical 2U server packed with innovation

Suggested Uses: All sectors requiring highly available, energy-efficient, rack-optimized solution
for physical and virtual intensive commercial environments like eBusiness/eCommerce,
collaboration, virtualization, database, and enterprise resource planning applications.

Your challenge is to do more with less—serve more Web pages, handle more secure connections,
support more e-mail users. You need to reduce the costs of doing business and improve the
service you deliver to your customers while lowering your overall risk. The dual-socket IBM®
System x3650 M3 can reduce your costs with its new energy-smart design. It can improve service
with reduced operational complexity and increased management functionality. It will lower your IT
risk with the resiliency that comes from no single point of failure. And like all IBM servers, the
x3650 M3 offers you the trust that comes from the IBM global reach, service and support.

The x3650 M3 is a game-changing rack server that uses significantly less power than previous
generations, with unified systems management tools, leadership reliability, availability,
serviceability features and broad system flexibility, housed in a compact 2U mechanical package.

The x3650 M3 features Intel® Xeon® 5600 series 6-core and 4-core processors, with up to 12MB
of shared L3 cache, to provide you with the computing power you need to match your business
needs and growth. The new line of Intel processors delivers unprecedented intelligent
performance with features like adaptive performance for applications and environments, Turbo
Boost Technology and Hyper-Threading Technology, and integrated power gates and automated
power management.

The x3650 M3 supports up to 18 DIMMs / 192GB of RDIMM 1333MHz DDR3 memory (or up to 12
DIMMs / 48GB of UDIMM memory) and provides Chipkill™ ECC (Error Checking and Correcting)
protection—for high performance and reliability. For even higher levels of availability, the x3650
M3 also offers memory mirroring. Up to 4 integrated high-speed Gigabit Ethernet controllers
are available (offering TOE (TCP Offload Engine) support on Microsoft® Windows®), as are four
high-performance adapter slots (PCIe x8). The x3650 M3 offers an optional embedded
hypervisor to manage your virtual workloads.

The System x3650 M3 supports up to 16 high-performance hot-swap HDDs with an internal
storage capacity of 16TB1 (2.5-inch hot-swap Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) or Serial-Attached
ATA (SATA) drives). Alternatively, up to 16 solid-state drives (SSDs) are also available to keep
power low, improve resiliency, and offer up to 800GB of storage. To address your backup needs,
up to eight HDDs or SSDs and one internal tape drive or removable disk cartridge drive can be
used. The server includes a choice of several IBM ServeRAID® storage controllers that provide
broad levels of hardware-based RAID solutions. The ultra-dense 2U form factor allows
businesses to increase their computing power and spread their workload without outgrowing their
current data center. Up to 21 of these 2U servers can be installed in a single 42U rack, for a total
of up to 42 processors and 252 processor cores, offering tremendous deployment flexibility.

Standard in the x3650 M3 is the Integrated Management Module (IMM) that enables the user to
manage and control the server easily—both locally and remotely. In conjunction with the IMM, the
x3650 M3 comes with a Bosch BMP085 altitude sensor (altimeter) that governs fan rotation
based on altitude, to help lower your energy consumption. The IMM offers a high level of
manageability that is designed to keep costs down and the system up—even when network usage
increases. IBM’s innovative pop-out/drop-down light path diagnostics panel enables quick
servicing of the system if a problem develops. These advanced features help maximize network
availability by increasing uptime, as do hot-swap solid-state drives; hot-swap/redundant SAS or
SATA HDDs, redundant ultra-efficient power supplies and fan modules; Active Memory™;
integrated RAID; temperature-controlled fans with Calibrated Vectored Cooling™; IPMI 2.0
support, including highly secure remote power control and Serial over LAN; as well as text-
console redirect over LAN.

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Available 2Q/2011.

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

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Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and
expandable, rack-dense, 2U dual-socket server

Another improvement with the new generation of X-Architecture is the replacement of old BIOS
with a new generation United Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). UEFI provides a more
intuitive user interface and understandable event logs and better management.

With the inclusion of unique IBM service and support features such as the IMM, light path
diagnostics, IBM Systems Director, IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager™, IBM

ServerGuide™ and support for the optional Virtual Media Key for remote presence capability, the

x3650 M3 is designed for superior uptime.

The x3650 M3 passed the NEBS 1/ETSI equivalent compliance for both AC and DC power
supplies and compliance with 80 PLUS® and ENERGY STAR® standards (model dependent). For
more information about IBM’s ENERGY STAR compliance, visit

http://ibm.com/systems/greendc/green_technology/energy_star/index.html.

If you need highly manageable, dual-socket/multi-core computing power in a rack-dense package,
the x3650 M3 is the ideal system.

Selling Features

Price/Performance

The x3650 M3 offers numerous features to boost performance and reduce costs:

• Up to two 6-core or 4-core Xeon 5600 series processors and up to 12MB of cache per
processor, offer superior performance capable of tackling the toughest jobs. 64-bit extensions
provide the flexibility to run 32-bit and 64-bit applications concurrently. Xeon 5600 series
processors offer up to 54% better performance than the previous-generation 5500 series
processors (depending on workload).

• Low-voltage processors draw less energy and produce less waste heat than high-voltage
processors, thus helping to reduce data center energy costs. Selected 4-core Xeon 5600
series processors use only 40W (available via CTO) and selected 6-core processors consume
only 60W. This is less than half the wattage consumed by 130W processors.

• Eighteen DIMMs of registered 1333MHz DDR3 ECC memory with Chipkill2 protection
(optional) provide speed, high availability, and a memory capacity of up 192GB.

• x3650 M3 servers using the L5640, E5645, E5649 and 1333MHz X56xx processors support 2
DIMMs per channel (2DPC) at 1333MHz (running at 1.5V).

• Optional 50GB solid-state drives (SSDs) use only 2W of power per drive, vs. 9-10W for 2.5­inch HDDs. This is as much as 80% less power than a 2.5 inch HDD would use (with a
corresponding reduction in heat output).

• An altimeter works in conjunction with the IMM to govern fan rotation based on the readings
which it delivers to save money under normal conditions because the fans do not have to
spin at high speed.

• Four high-speed x8 (“by 8”) PCIe Gen 2 adapter slots offer investment protection by
supporting high-performance adapters, such as 10Gb Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand
cards, none of which will run in older 33MHz and 66MHz conventional PCI slots.

• The integrated ServeRAID-BR10il v2 controller (model-specific) provides RAID-0/1/1E and
full-duplex (bidirectional 3Gbps) data transf ers for SAS/SATA/SSD drives without consuming
a valuable adapter slot. Other server models include the 6Gbps ServeRAID-M1015 (RAID-
0/1/10, optional 5/50 with Self-Encrypting Disk, or SED) or the 6Gbps ServeRAID-M5014
controller, which provide RAID-0/1/10/5/50 with 256MB cache and optionally 6/60 with SED
.and optional battery backup, or the 6Gbps ServeRAID-M5015 controller, which provides

RAID-0/1/10/5/50 with 512MB of battery-backed cache (except CTO models) and optionally
6/60 with SED..

• Up to 16 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS/SATA hard disk drives offer high-performance with high
availability. SSDs offer even higher availability, with extremely high IOPS rates.

• The integrated dual-port Gigabit Ethernet controller with IPMI 2.0 provide high-speed network
communications. Two more NICs can be added to the planar with an additional dual-port Gb
Ethernet daughtercard. The TCP Offload Engine (TOE) feature offers higher performance for
TCP/IP traffic, with less overhead on the system processor.

• A high degree of device integration—including hot swap SAS/SATA HDDs or SSD drives,
multiple hardware-based ServeRAID options, Gigabit Ethernet ports, systems management
and video controllers—lowers costs and frees up valuable adapter slots.

• Energy-efficient components, including DDR3 memory, low-voltage transistors and voltage
regulator modules, and power supplies that are up to 90% efficient (model-specific), help keep
your energy bills down.

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All models require Chipkill-enabled DIMMs (provided standard) for Chipkill protection.

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

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Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and

Manageability

/ Security

expandable, rack-dense, 2U dual-socket server

Flexibility

The x3650 M3 has the ability to grow with your application requirements, thanks to

• A choice of 4-core or 6-core processors with 1.6 to 3.6GHz clock rates, up to 6.4
gigatransfers per second, and 40W to 130W maximum power draw.

• Up to 192GB of high-speed registered DDR3 system memory.

• A choice of either 1.5V DIMMs, or 1.35V DIMMs that consume 20% less energy.

• A choice of power supplies including 460W, 675W AC or DC, or energy-efficient 675W.

• Four available high-performance PCIe x8 adapter slots in all models. Optionally, riser cards

supporting PCI-X/133 or PCIe x16 adapters can be exchanged f or the PCIe x8 slots.

• Upgrading to the ServeRAID-M5015 controller provides 512MB of battery-backed cache to
enable higher-performance hardware RAID support, and allows the x3650 M3 to offer five
RAID levels standard: RAID-0/1/10/5/50 (and optionally 6/60 with SED).

• The five or six USB 2.0 ports (two front, two rear, one internal, plus one additional internal port
when the optional Tape Enablement Kit is installed) are up to 40X faster3 than older USB 1.1
ports. This provides speedy access to external HDDs (non-arrayed), optical drives, tape drives,
and other USB devices. Two ports are on the front of the unit and two are on the back. The
internal port supports a flash drive with embedded hypervisor or an internal tape or IBM RDX
removable disk storage drive.

• A choice of up to sixteen 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS/SATA HDDs or solid-state drives, or eight

2.5-inch drives and one internal tape drive, offer a variety of storage options. The SAS and
SATA HDD models provide a maximum of 16TB of internal hot-swap storage. The x3650 M3
supports a mix of hot-swap SAS, SATA and SSD drives.

• Alternatively, direct-attach, network-attached storage (NAS), or iSCSI or Fibre Channel­attached storage can be attached using IBM System Storage™ servers.

Powerful systems management features simplify local and remote management of the x3650 M3:

• The x3650 M3 includes an Integrated M anagement Module (IMM) to monitor server
availability, perform Predictive Failure Analysis, etc., and trigger IBM Systems Director alerts.
The IMM performs the functions of both the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) of
earlier systems and the Remote Supervisor Adapter II and is upgradeable to remote
presence/cKVM.

• An optional Virtual Media Key provides additional systems management capabilities, including
Web-based out-of-band control; virtual floppy and optical drive support; Windows “blue screen”
error capture; LDAP and SSL support; and remote redirection of keyboard, PCI video and text,
and mouse (cKVM). And it does all this without consuming a valuable adapter slot.

• Text Console Redirection support allows the administrator to remotely view x3650 M3 text
messages over Serial or LAN.

• Integrated industry-standard Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) next-generation
BIOS. New capabilities include:

– Human readable event logs — no more beep codes

– Complete out-of-band coverage by the Advance Settings Utility to simplify remote setup

– A complete setup solution, allowing adapter configuration functions to be moved into UEFI
– Consistent firmware management across an entire product line

• Integrated Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 support.

• Industry-standard AES NI support for faster, stronger encryption (in 5600 series processors

only).

• Integrated IPMI 2.0 support alerts IBM Systems Director to anomalous environmental factors,
such as voltage and thermal conditions. It also supports highly secure remote power control
using data encryption.

• IBM Systems Director is included for proactive systems management. IBM Systems Director
comes with a portfolio of tools, including IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager, IBM
Service and Support Manager, and others. In addition, IBM Systems Director offers extended
systems management tools for additional server management and increased availability. When
a problem is encountered, IBM Systems Director can issue administrator alerts via e-mail,
pager, and other methods.

• IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager, an IBM-exclusive, is designed to take

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Data transfer rates may be less than the maximum possible.

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

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Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and
expandable, rack-dense, 2U dual-socket server

advantage of new system power management features, by providing actual realtime energy
monitoring, reporting, and capping features.

Availability and Serviceability

The System x3650 M3 provides many features to simplify serviceability and increase system
uptime:

• x3650 M3 servers offer Chipkill ECC memory protection4 (when using x4 DIMMs). Chipkill
memory is up to 16X better than standard ECC memory at correcting memory errors. This can
help reduce downtime caused by memory errors.

• The x3650 M3 offers memory mirroring f or redundancy in the event of a non-correctable
memory failure

• Toolless cover removal provides easy access to upgrades and serviceable parts, such as
HDDs and memory. Similarly, the Virtual Media Key and the ServeRAID controller can be
installed and replaced without tools. This means less time (and therefore less money) spent
servicing the x3650 M3. Additionally, hot-swap/redundant HDDs, fan modules and power
supplies, as well as online mirrored memory, mean greater system uptime while these
components are being serviced.

• New toolless slides ship with the server, together with a Cable Management Arm (CMA),
that allow the rack server to easily slide into place

• IBM Thermal Diagnostics allows the administrator to evaluate thermal data on the server
without taking the hardware offline. This can provide greater server uptime.

• The drop-down light path diagnostics panel and individual light path LEDs quickly lead the
technician to failed (or failing) components. This simplifies servicing, speeds up problem
resolution and helps improve network availability.

• Integrated 3Gbps or 6Gbps RAID controller to enhance system availability and data
protection without using a PCIe slot.

• IPMI 2.0 supports highly secure remote system power control using data encryption. This
allows an administrator to restart a server without having to visit it in person, saving travel time
and getting the server back up and running quickly and securely. It also adds new features to
those provided by IPMI 1.5, including VLAN support, Serial over LAN, enhanced
authentication and encryption algorithms (RM CP+ and AES) and a firmware firewall.

• Altitude- and temperature-controlled fans adjust to compensate for changing thermal
characteristics. At the lower speeds they draw less power and suffer less wear. Equally
important in a crowded data center, temperature-controlled fans produce less ambient noise in
the data center than if they were constantly running at full speed.

• The three-year (parts and labor) limited onsite warranty5 helps afford you peace of mind
and greater investment protection than a one-year warranty does.

Key Features

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Chipkill protection is supported with x4 DDR3 DIMMs, but not x8 DIMMs.

5

For terms and conditions or copies of the IBM Statement of Limited Warranty, call 800-772-2227 in the U.S. In Canada call 800-

426-2255. Telephone support may be subject to additional charges. For warranties including onsite labor, a technician is sent after
IBM attempts to resolve the problem remotely. International warranty service is available in any country in which this product is
sold.

High-Performance / High-Efficiency Xeon 5600 Series Processors

The x3650 M3 supports up to two high-performance Intel Xeon 5600 series processors, allowing
you to upgrade to a second processor as your business needs require. The x3650 M3 offers a
choice of processor clock rates, memory access speeds and energy draw, including:

• 130W 6-core Xeon 5600 model X5690 running at 3.46GHz, with impressive perf ormance/watt
(21.67W per core; 6.4GTps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, 1333MHz memory
access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 95W 6-core Xeon 5600 models X5675, X5660 or X5650 running at 3.06, 2.8 or 2.66GHz,
respectively, with reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (only 15.83W per
core; 6.4GTps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, 1333MHz memory access, 2 threads
per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 80W 6-core Xeon 5600 models E5649 or E5645 running at 2.53 or 2.4GHz, respectively, with
reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (only 13.33W per core; 5.86GTps QPI
speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, 1333MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel
Turbo Boost technology

• 60W 6-core Xeon 5600 low-voltage model L5640 running at 2.26GHz, with low power draw
and impressive performance/watt (only 10W per core; 5.86GTps QPI speed), and 12MB of
shared L3 cache, 1333MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost
technology

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• 80W 4-core Xeon 5600 models E5620 running at 2.4GHz, with reduced power draw and
impressive performance/watt (20W per core; 5.86GTps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor
cache, 1066MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 80W 4-core Xeon 5600 models E5607 or E5606 running at 2.26 or 2.13GHz, respectively, with
reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (20W per core; 4.8GTps QPI speed),
8MB of L3 processor cache, and 1066MHz memory access

• 80W 4-core Xeon 5600 model E5603 running at 1.6GHz with reduced power draw and
impressive performance/watt (20W per core; 4.8GTps QPI speed), 4MB of L3 processor
cache, and 1066MHz memory access

Also available, via configure-to-order (CTO):

• 130W 4-core Xeon 5600 model X5687 running at 3.6GHz, with impressive performance (32.5W
per core; 6.4GTps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, 1333MHz memory access, 2
threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 95W 4-core Xeon 5600 model X5672 running at 3.2GHz, with reduced draw and impressive
performance/watt (23.75W per core; 6.4GTps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache,
1333MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 130W 4-core Xeon 5600 model X5647 running at 2.93GHz with impressive performance
(32.5W per core; 5.86GTps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, 1066Hz memory
access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 40W 4-core Xeon 5600 low-voltage model L5630 running at 2.13GHz, with extremely low
power draw and amazing performance/watt (only 10W per core; 5.86GTps QPI speed), 12MB
of L3 processor cache, 1066MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost
technology

• 40W 4-core Xeon 5600 low-voltage model L5609 running at 1.86GHz, with extremely low
power draw and amazing performance/watt (only 10W per core; 4.8GTps QPI speed), 12MB of
L3 processor cache, and 1066MHz memory access

With the Xeon 5600 series processors, Intel has diverged from its traditional Symmetric
Multiprocessing (SMP) architecture to a Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) architecture. The
processors are connected through serial coherency links called QuickPath Interconnect (QPI). QPI
is capable of 6.4, 5.86 or 4.8 GTps (gigatransfers per second), depending on the processor model.

Four-core Xeon processors contain four complete processor cores; 6-core processors, similarly,
contain six cores. Each 5600 series processor contains one 256KB L2 cache per core and one
12MB L3 cache shared by all the cores. The shared cache is dynamically allocated between the
cores as needed. The multiple cores appear to software as multiple physical processors. The 4­and 6- core processors offer considerably higher performance than a same-speed Xeon processor
with 2 cores.

Turbo Boost Technology increases performance by translating the temperature, power and
current head room into higher frequency. It will dynamically increase by 133MHz for short and
regular intervals until the upper limit is met or the maximum possible upside for the number of
active cores is reached. The maximum frequency is dependent on the number of active cores. The
amount of time the processor spends in the Turbo Boost Technology state depends on the
workload and operating environment, providing the performance you need, when and where you
need it. For example, a 3.46GHz 6-core X5690 processor with 3-6 cores active can run the cores
at 3.6GHz. With only one or two cores active, the same processor can run those cores at

3.73GHz. Similarly, a 3.6GHz 4-core X5687 processor can run at 3.73GHz or even 3.86GHz.

When the inactive cores are needed again, they are dynamically turned back on and the
processor frequency is adjusted accordingly.

In processors implementing Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, each core has two threads
capable of running an independent process. Thus, a 6-core processor can run 12 threads
concurrently.

Intelligent Power Capability powers individual processor elements on and off as needed, to
reduce power draw.

Execute Disable Bit functionality can help prevent certain classes of malicious buffer overflow
attacks when combined with a supporting operating system.

Intel’s Virtualization Technology (VT) integrates hardware-level virtualization hooks that allow
operating system vendors to better utilize the hardware for virtualization workloads.

DDR3 Memory with Chipkill ECC Protection

The x3650 M3 ships with registered double data rate III (DDR3) memory and provides Active
Memory features, including advanced Chipkill memory protection (using x4 DIMMs), for up to
16X better error correction than standard ECC memory. In addition to offering better performance
than DDR2 or fully-buffered memory, DDR3 memory also uses less energy. DDR2 memory

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DDR3 memory is even more efficient, using up to 15% less energy than DDR2 memory.

The x3650 M3 currently supports up to 144GB of RDIMM (registered DIMM) memory in 18 DIMM
slots (192GB in 12 slots), or up to 48GB of UDIMM (unbuffered DIMM) memory in 12 slots. The
x3650 M3 also supports either energy-efficient 1.35V DIMMs or standard 1.5V DIMMs. Redesign
in the architecture of the Xeon 5500 and 5600 series processors bring radical changes in the way
memory works in these servers. For example, the Xeon 5500 and 5600 series processors
integrate the memory controller inside the processor, resulting in two memory controllers in a
2-socket system. Each memory controller has three memory channels. Depending on the type of
memory, population of memory, and processor model, the memory may be clocked at 1333MHz,
1066MHz, or 800MHz.

Notes: In the example above, with two processors installed, if one DIMM per channel is to be
installed, follow the numbering in light blue. For two DIMMs per channel, use blue and yellow. If
only one processor is installed, only the first nine DIMM slots can be used. Adding a second
processor not only doubles the amount of memory available for use, but also doubles the number
of memory controllers, thus doubling the system memory bandwidth. If you add a second
processor, but no additional memory for the second processor, the second processor would have
to access the memory from the first processor “remotely,” resulting in longer latencies and lower
performance. The latency to access remote memory is almost 75% higher than local memory
access. So, the goal should be to always populate both processors with memory.

The 1333MHz E56xx, L5640, and X56xx processor models support up to 1333MHz memory clock
speed and 2 DIMMs per channel (2DPC) at 1333MHz with single-rank and dual-rank RDIMMs and
UDIMMs running at 1.5V. Other processors access memory at 1066MHz.

Using 1333MHz memory (where supported) versus 1066MHz DIMMs offers up to 9% better
performance, while memory running at 1066MHz produces up to 28% better performance than
memory running at 800MHz. Xeon 5600 series processors access memory with almost 50%
lower latency than the earlier 5400 series processors. That can result in faster processing of
latency-sensitive workloads.

Regardless of memory speed, the Xeon 5600 platform represents a significant improvement in
memory bandwidth over the previous Xeon 5400 platform. At 1333MHz, the improvement is
almost 500% over the previous generation. This huge improvement is mainly due to the dual
integrated memory controllers and faster DDR3 1333MHz memory. Throughput at 800MHz is 25
gigabytes per second (GBps); at 1066MHz it’s 32GBps; and at 1333MHz it’s 35GBps. This
improvement translates into improved application performance and scalability.

Memory interleaving refers to how physical memory is interleaved across the physical DIMMs. A
balanced system provides the best interleaving. A Xeon 5600 series processor-based system is
balanced when all memory channels on a socket have the same amount of memory.

The Xeon 5600 series processors support single-, dual-, and quad-rank memory. A memory rank
is simply a segment of memory that is addressed by a specific address bit.

A typical memory DIMM description is 8GB 2Rx4 DIMM:

• The 2R designator is the rank count for this particular DIMM (2R = dual-rank)

• The x4 designator is the data width (in bits) of the rank

It is important to ensure that DIMMs with the appropriate number of ranks are populated in each
channel for optimal performance. Whenever possible, use dual-rank DIMMs in the system. Dual­rank DIMMs offer better interleaving and hence better performance than single-rank DIMMs. For

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six 2GB single-rank DIMMs by 7% for SPECjbb2005. Dual-rank DIMMs are also better than quad­rank DIMMs because quad-rank DIMMs will cause the memory speed to be down-clocked.

Another important guideline is to populate equivalent ranks per channel. For instance, mixing one
single-rank DIMM and one dual-rank DIMM in a channel should be avoided.

Notes: It is important to populate all three memory channels in each processor. The relative
memory bandwidth decreases as the number of channels populated decreases. This is because
the bandwidth of all the memory channels is utilized to support the capability of the processor. So,
as the channels are decreased, the burden to support the requisite bandwidth is increased on the
remaining channels, causing them to become a bottleneck. RDIMMs and UDIMMs cannot be
used in the same server. If 1.5V and 1.35V DIMMs are mixed, all DIMMs will run at 1.5V.

In addition to Chipkill error correction, the x3650 M3 offers an additional level of IBM Active
Memory protection: memory mirroring.

Memory mirroring works much like disk mirroring. The total memory is divided into three channels:
a primary channel, a backup channel, and an unused channel. Data is written concurrently to both
the primary and backup channels. If a DIMM fails in one of the DIMMs in the primary channel, it is
instantly disabled and the mirrored memory in the backup channel becomes active (primary) until
the failing DIMM is replaced. One-third of total memory is available for use at any one time with
mirroring enabled. (Note: Due to the double writes to memory, performance is affected.) Because
the third channel is disabled with mirroring active, there is no point in populating it with memory.

Mirroring is handled at the hardware level; no operating system support is required.

DDR3 memory is currently available in 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB RDIMMs, or 2GB and 4GB
UDIMMs. DIMMs are installed individually (not in pairs). However, for performance reasons, in a
2-processor system, it’s best to install a DIMM per processor.

Maximum memory capacity and speed in 2-processor configurations include:

Memory

Frequency

1333MHz

1333MHz

1066MHz

800MHz

800MHz

800MHz-

1333MHz

(Mirroring)

Integrated Virtualization

All models of the x3550 M3 support a USB 2.0 Flash Key installed preloaded with VMware
vSphere Hypervisor (formerly ESXi). Rather than management through a Service Console based

on a Linux operating system, vSphere Hypervisor relies on aggregate management tools,
including VirtualCenter, the Remote Command Line interface and the introduction of CIM for
standards-based and agentless hardware monitoring.

vSphere Hypervisor includes all the performance, scalability and compatibility features of a
hypervisor installed on disk, including full VMFS support across FC SAN, iSCSI SAN, and NAS,
and 4-way VSMP. Because it runs from flash memory, it’s extremely fast and ideal for diskless
configurations. It also offers enhanced security, because it runs without an operating system­based console and is updated/patched much like firmware.

DIMMs per

Channel

1

(6 DIMMs)

2

(12 DIMMs)

2

(12 DIMMs)

3

(18 DIMMs)

2

(12 DIMMs)

2

(12 DIMMs)

Max. Memory

Capacity

48GB RDIMM
24GB UDIMM

96GB RDIMM
48GB UDIMM

96GB RDIMM
48GB UDIMM

144GB RDIMM All of processors

192GB RDIMM All of processors

64GB RDIMM
16GB UDIMM

and X56xx 1333MHz processors

and X56xx 1333MHz processors

E560x, E5620, X5647, L5609 and

5600 Series

E5645, E5649, L5640

E5645, E5649, L5640

L5630

All of processors

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