Sun Fire X4100

                Since Oracle’s acquisition of Sun back in 2010, the popularity of Sun servers has remained roughly the same. What kind of loyalty does that illustrate, that even after a company’s merger and the discontinuation of several product lines, people remain loyal to the product? Obviously, the majority of people with Sun products have found their investment to be a good one. As the Sun market continues on, the demand for Sun servers and parts has only risen. Are you currently checking into getting a Sun server for your next model? The great part about Sun servers is their extensive degree of manageability and affordability. Not sure which Sun server is right for you? There are plenty of entry-level Sun servers out there, but among the most popular is the Sun Fire X4100. Check it out below.

Rack Optimized

The Sun X4100 is a rack optimized server model. Rack servers have the advantage of vertical scalability. Why take up more room than necessary with multiple tower servers when you can “stack” servers atop one another in a rack or a cabinet? The Sun X4100 is a 1U model, taking up one unit of vertical space. While some rack servers take up to six unites, the 1U remains a nice and slim model, easily incorporated into existing server arrays.

Performance

The Sun Fire X4100 features support for AMD Opteron 254 processors. With two processors each clocking in at 2.8 GHz with a 1 MB L2 cache, the Sun Fire X4100 is great for mission critical processing and cuts down on down time due to processing bottlenecks. The dual processor capability is also backed up by a minimum memory configuration of eight gigabytes, and a maximum DDR SDRAM of sixteen gigabytes. The X4100 also supports two seventy-three gigabyte hard drives with spindle speeds up to ten thousand RPMs. SCSI drives with that high a spindle speed offer some of the fastest data writes on the market, making for even faster performance.

In addition, these hard drives are also hot-swappable. Hot-swappable means you can exchange a hard drive without needing to power down the server. This is especially important considering potential downtime caused by hard drive failures. It would be much better to keep a server running from a single hard drive than power down to perform maintenance on a failing or broken hard drive.

Purchasing

Owing to the limited availability of Sun equipment, finding a Sun Fire X4100 can sometimes prove to be quite difficult. You may be able to find a server online via various ecommerce sites, but you run the risk of defective equipment. A more direct and reliable method involves visiting a refurbished reseller. Refurbished computer stores often stock systems and parts, and can configure whole systems from components to order. When purchasing a refurbished Sun Fire X4100, always make certain it has been tested for quality and has received a warranty for all work performed on it.