Psychz - Steve
Votes: 0Posted On: Sep 21, 2018 06:42:01
Today, with the increasing demand for better hardware and the rising cost of power and infrastructure space, the technology is aggressively delivering a various type of hardware options to suit specific requirements. Rack Servers and Blade servers are such two examples of servers that are commonly used in the datacenters worldwide. The following information will serve as a guide to both servers to provide a better understanding of each piece of equipment.
Both, a Blade Server and a Rack server can be utilized to do the same kind of work. But, what matters is which one can do the work most efficiently and economically based on your processing needs and the layout of your space. Be sure to take into consideration the thermal and electrical requirements of your machine.
What are Rack Servers?
A server that is built specifically to be mounted within a rack is a Rack server or Rack-mounted server. These servers are wider and are fitted into a rack using mounting screws or rails. Rackmount servers are self-sufficient meaning the cooling, power supplies, hard disks, processors, memory, raid controller are all enclosed within that single server.
Rack servers are economical and great choice if your server requirement is small. You can simply plug the rack mounted server into a standard electrical outlet and connect the network cables and the device is operational.
If you only require a small number of servers, they are the best choice economically due to the lower upfront costs.
Benefits of Rack Servers
Self Sufficient: Rack servers come with the required hardware to perform everything a server needs including memory, raid controller data drives, power supply, cooling unit. These are powerful standalone machines that can be used to run high-end applications.
Cooling: A rack server comes with an inbuilt cooling fan making the cooling process of the server easier than others.
Economical: Rack mounted servers continue to be the most cost effective computer network option for small to medium-sized operations.
What are Blade Servers?
Blade servers are modular servers that must be mounted in a blade enclosure which includes power supplies and networking components. Further, this Blade enclosure can mount in a rack. This way a Blade enclosure allows multiple Blade servers to be housed in a smaller area.
Unlike Rack Servers, Blade servers only have CPUs, memory, network controllers, storage drives. Any kind of upgrade will lead to the replacement of the device as there is no additional space provision in the Blade server. When attached with a Network Attached Storage (NAS), a Blade server can be used to perform high computing requirement. You can hot swap components in a Blade server, which means you do not have to take the entire machine offline if you want to swap a failed drive.
Benefits of Blade server
Less space required: Since a Blade server is packed with only essentials, they require minimum space and can provide high processing output.
Quick Serviceability: The Hot Swappable feature allows a Blade server to maintain redundancy. So if there is a problem with one of the blades, it can be pulled out and replaced without taking the entire machine offline.
Reduced usage of cables: All the Blade servers are mounted in a Blade enclosure which means it does not need individual cables for each server.
