iXsystems Introducing iX-N4236 Orion II Server Series

The iX-N4236 Orion II Storage Server from iXsystems, Inc. is designed to handle storage-intensive tasks while remaining at an optimal temperature and drawing less power than other servers in its class. The Orion II’s complement of features and light energy footprint create an ideal environment for ZFS implementations, virtualization, and high-capacity storage.

The Orion II Server sports dual, intelligent Intel Xeon 5500 series quad-core processors, making it a powerful, efficient storage platform. Each Xeon processor saves power by automatically putting the CPU into the lowest available power state during periods of light utilization. Intel TurboBoost Technology raises performance on individual cores based on the needs of specific applications, ensuring efficient allocation of resources and increasing overall system performance. This intelligent power management, coupled with ultra-high efficiency power supplies and optional low-power hard drives and RAM, make the Orion II servers top of their class in storage capacity, compute power, and density per watt.

With dual Intel Xeon 5500 series processors and up to 144 GB of SDRAM, the Orion II provides an ideal environment for virtualization, and is also an ideal choice for database or data mining applications.

The JBOD Expansion Unit drive capacity is also a drastic improvement over the original Orion, so now you only need four expansion units to handle a task that used to take up to nine.

The front/rear drive bay design of the Orion II allows it to offer 50% more capacity than its predecessor, with 36 hot-swappable SAS/SATA drive bays in a 4U configuration. This allows for up to 72 terabytes of storage, with more space available through the optional Orion II JBOD Expansion Units. Also featuring a front/rear drive bay design, each expansion unit houses 45 drives, limiting the amount of rack space taken up for additional storage capacity. The expansion units are capable of up to 90TB of storage capacity per JBOD. By cascading up to a maximum four expansion units to the Orion II server, an aggregate capacity of 432TB can be achieved in only 20U of rack space.

"With dual Intel Xeon 5500 series processors and up to 144 GB of SDRAM, the Orion II provides an ideal environment for virtualization, and is also an ideal choice for database or data mining applications", says Xin Li, Senior Software Engineer at iXsystems. "The JBOD Expansion Unit drive capacity is also a drastic improvement over the original Orion, so now you only need four expansion units to handle a task that used to take up to nine."

To counteract the heat produced by 36 drives, the Orion II chassis was designed with optimum airflow and redundant cooling modules. By utilizing seven 5000rpm 8cm fans and a CPU Cooling Air Shroud, the Orion II achieves optimal cooling efficiency and fault tolerance.

The Orion II is the choice for ZFS implementations, with a large initial capacity, easy expansion, and simple-to-use management software.

Features of the iX-N4236 Orion II Server Series Include:

• Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors for ultimate computing power and intelligent energy usage
• Up to 144GB of energy efficient DDR3 1333/1066/800 SDRAM ECC Registered Memory
• 250GB, 500GB, 750GB, 1TB, and 2TB hard drives for fully customizable storage sizes
• 36 hot-swappable 3.5" SAS/SATA drive bays offer a maximum of 72 terabytes of storage per server
• Expandable to 432 TB of storage capacity with four optional Orion II JBOD Expansion Units
• A Gold Level, 1400W 93%+ energy efficient power supply to save on energy costs
• Seven x 8cm 5000 RPM cooling fans to help ensure 100% cooling redundancy
• Integrated IPMI 2.0 Remote Management, Lights Out Management, KVM over LAN, and Dedicated Management Interface

The iX-N4236 Orion II server series and JBOD Expansion units are immediately available for custom configuration, purchase, and delivery.