New System X Models

IBM Announce M4 Systems

IBM have announced new entry level boxes to the System X portfolio. The systems are aimed at SMB organisations but promise enterprise class performance.


The IBM  X3100 M4 becomes the newest member of the tower range, It's a single socket server powered by the Intel Xeon E3-1200 series, which offers performance 30% higher than any other single socket server on the market. 

IBM's newest rack offering has also been announced, the IBM x3250 M4. Aimed at workloads such as archiving, web serving and printing the system is perfect for the small enterprise infrastructure. Exciting new features include redundant power, optional HW RAID and server-level memory with error correction giving businesses 24 x 7 reliability. 

IBM x206M - Flashback

IBM xSeries x206m (8485) 

When? 

The IBM x206m was released the same year that the United Kingdom law banning fox hunting, hare coursing and other sports which kill wild mammals was enforced.... got it yet? that's right, 2005. 

IBM's xSeries 206 was the middle of the scale model out of three new servers that marked IBM's entrance into the lower end of a quite crowded SMB marketplace. The system was pitched at smaller business with a strict budget to adhere to.

What was really good? 

For not alot of cash the x206m offered functionality and tools normally associated with enterprise level boxes. Businesses without 24/7 colocation server facilities must have felt the high-availability technologies such as optional redundant power supplies and IBM's integrated ServeRAID-8e, which enables data redundancy in RAID 0 disk-striping and RAID 1 disk-mirroring configurations were great. 

What was really bad? 

If you were a network admin looking to setup shared printers or directories, this might have been a struggle as no guides were provided. Thankfully these can now be found online. 

Covenco UK Ltd are the brokerage division of the Covenco Group. Specializing in end of life and second user hardware they help clients pro long the life of their existing hardware infrastructure, offering: buy,sell and rental options across the complete IBM system x and storage portfolio

IBM Flashback - x3550

It's been a while since my last post, probably longer than I'd usually like to leave it, but you can put that down to a busy start to Q4.

IBM x3550 (7978) 

When? 

2006, the year that Saddam Hussein's death sentence was carried out and England's 'golden generation' of footballers were dumped out of the German hosted 2006 world cup on penalties to Portugal. This was the year that IBM announced it's first system which would incorporate Intel's highly anticipated Dempsey processor, seen as the savior which could slay the AMD 200 series. 

The X3550 was the first example of IBM's new Systems branding and previewed what was to come across all their tower, rack and blade products. What was previously known as the eserver and Xseries was replaced with the System family name, with the model number indicating what hardware each model possesses.

What was really good? 

IBM spared no expense with the the internal design, it really was second to none. I've just popped the top cover on one of these systems in our warehouse and the first thing you see is the enormous heat-sinks and bays.On powering on, I notice that the fans are all hot-swappable, and noise levels aren't excessive considering the amount of air that needs to be shifted. 

The X3550 also supported fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory, something that not all competitors were using at the time of release and which improved performance due to the use of advanced memory buffers.

What was really bad? 

 The x3550 systems shipped with Intel's Dempsey processor. At time of release the new low power Woodcrest 5100 wasn't to far away. I don't personally understand why anyone would have bought into Dempsey. The 5000 chipset did allow an upgrade path to the Woodcrest 5100 series, however, Dempsey take up was limited, as some of IBM's main competitors skipped it completely in favour of Woodcrest. 

Covenco UK Ltd are the brokerage division of the Covenco Group. Specializing in end of life and second user hardware they help clients pro long the life of their existing hardware infrastructure, offering: buy,sell and rental options across the complete IBM system x and storage portfolio

IBM Flashback

I spend 8 hours a day in a museum. It's not located in one of the worlds largest cities, nor is it under threat from the increasing digitization of information that other museums are seeing at the moment. In fact , it's not even open to the public. 

Maybe I've been guilty of neglecting some of the antiques that I see on a daily basis, writing them off as pre-historic and no longer relevant. Perhaps I'm just getting old and look back more fondly on the past, but of late I've had a real change of heart and have taken alot from being able to understand the path that leads us to the present, in some cases I think it can even help with understanding what's to come. 

I'd like to share some artifacts from the museum with you in a 'Flashback series' 

IBM xSeries 226 (8488)

When? 

In the same year that Pope John Paul passed on (2005) and 4 million mourners fled to the Vatican, IBM announced the IBM Extended Design Architecture initiative. The x226 was one of the first machines to deliver on this promise, providing 'affordable 2 way performance' 

What was really good? 

Not having the ability to install 2 processors may now seem unthinkable, but the x226 was one of the first in its range to offer this. Dual core processors and upto 6 hot-swappable drives were just some of the extensive components available for the x226 which also offered fantastic management functionality through the use of IBM Director. 

What was really bad? 

$2950 was considered alot of cash for a system which was aimed primarily at small businesses that were looking to make their way up the ladder. Having said this, if a business had already endured the pains of growth the x226 would happily cater for more than 20 employees. 

Covenco UK Ltd are the brokerage division of the Covenco Group. Specializing in end of life and second user hardware they help clients pro long the life of their existing hardware infrastructure, offering: buy,sell and rental options across the complete IBM system x and storage portfolio.