NEC Express5800 120Rj-2

The chassis lid is in two parts, and under the front section nestles a bank of eight hot-swap cooling fans. We weren't impressed with the operational noise levels, as the 120Rj-2 is a lot louder than equivalent rack systems from HP or Dell. Behind the fans are two E5405 Xeon processors mounted with chunky passive copper heatsinks, while further back is a bank of 12 DIMM sockets.

The review system came equipped with a very generous 8GB, which can be upgraded to a hefty 48GB. Usefully, the server offers good memory fault tolerance, as it supports both mirroring across two separate banks and online sparing within each bank.

The PCI-E LSI RAID card is mounted in a large riser assembly and its interface cables are neatly stowed out of harm's way. There's plenty of room for more cards, as the riser has a total of four PCI-E and two PCI-X slots. Power fault tolerance is also on the cards, as the server came with both 750W hot-plug supplies included.

At first glance, the Express5800 120Rj-2 looks to be offering a very good hardware package for the price, combined with plenty of room to grow with demand. However, in a direct comparison with HP's ProLiant rack servers we have no doubts that NEC comes up wanting in a number of areas, since noise levels are a lot higher, remote management facilities are inferior, and power controls aren't high enough on NEC's agenda.

Author: Dave Mitchell