IBM System x3630 M3 Specification

Also see for x3630 M3 7377: Product guide Problem determination and service guide

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A cost-optimized storage-rich alternative to traditional enterprise 2U dual-socket serversPlease see the Legal Information section for important notices and information. 7rank DIMMs offer better interleaving and hence better performance than single-rank DIMMs. Forinstance, a system populated with six 2GB dual-rank DIMMs outperforms a system populatedwith six 2GB single-rank DIMMs by 7% for SPECjbb2005. Dual-rank DIMMs are also better thanquad-rank 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, mixingone 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 relativememory bandwidth decreases as the number of channels populated decreases. This is becausethe 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 onthe remaining channels, causing them to become a bottleneck. If 1.5V and 1.35V DIMMs aremixed, all DIMMs will run at 1.5V.In addition to Chipkill error correction, the x3630 M3 offers an additional level of IBM ActiveMemory protection: memory mirroring.Memory mirroring works much like disk mirroring. The total memory is divided into threechannels: a primary channel, a backup channel, and an unused channel. Data is writtenconcurrently to both the primary and backup channels. If a DIMM fails in one of the DIMMs in theprimary channel, it is instantly disabled and the mirrored memory in the backup channel becomesactive (primary) until the failing DIMM is replaced. One-third of total memory is available for useat any one time with mirroring enabled. (Note: Due to the double writes to memory, performanceis affected.) Because the third channel is disabled with mirroring active, there is no point inpopulating it with memory.Mirroring is handled at the hardware level; no operating system support is required.DDR3 memory is currently available in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB RDIMMs. DIMMs canbe installed individually (not in pairs). However, for performance reasons, in a 2-processorsystem, it’s best to install a DIMM per processor.Maximum memory capacity and speed in 2-processor configurations include:MemoryFrequencyDIMMs perChannelMax. MemoryCapacity 5600 Series 5500 Series1333MHz 1(6 DIMMs) 96GB RDIMMX5650, L5640,E5645 andaboveN/A1333MHz 25(12 DIMMs) 192GB RDIMMX5650, L5640,E5645 andaboveN/A1066MHz 2(12 DIMMs) 192GB RDIMM All N/A800MHz 2(12 DIMMs) 192GB RDIMM N/A E5503, E5506,E5507800MHz-1333MHz2(8 DIMMs) 64GB RDIMM All AllIntegrated VirtualizationAll models of the x3630 M3 support a USB 2.0 Flash Key installed preloaded with VMwarevSphere Hypervisor (formerly ESXi). Rather than management through a Service Consolebased on a Linux operating system, vSphere Hypervisor relies on aggregate management tools,including VirtualCenter, the Remote Command Line interface and the introduction of CIM forstandards-based and agentless hardware monitoring.vSphere Hypervisor includes all the performance, scalability and compatibility features of ahypervisor 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 disklessconfigurations. It also offers enhanced security, because it runs without an operating system-based console and is updated/patched much like firmware.5 2 DIMMs per channel at 1333MHz is supported only with 1.5V RDIMMs or 1.35V-capable DIMMs running at 1.5V.