Fujitsu Primergy TX120 S2 review

For external connections you have seven USB2 ports, with five at the back and two behind the front cover. Usefully, these are considered two separate groups by the server's BIOS so it's possible to disable the rear ports and allow only the front ones to be used by a key holder. The extra RAID card may take up a PCI Express slot but there are three more up for grabs, comprising of two PCI Express and a single 32-bit PCI slot.

The TX120 makes it easy to be green, with our inline power meter recording a mere 61W with Server 2008 R2 idling along. Using SiSoft Sandra to pummel the T9400 processor into oblivion saw this rise to only 87W.

The TX120 also gets the full works for remote management as it's endowed with Fujitsu's standard iRMC2 embedded controller. This provides full remote web access to the server via a dedicated Fast Ethernet port at the rear.

The iRMC2 chip is close to HP's standard iLO2 controller. It also offers a smart web interface with complete status views of critical components and environmental values, plus access to power controls. An advanced iRMC2 upgrade brings in KVM-over-IP remote control and virtual media.

You also get ServerView Suite, which allows you to view servers and place them in different collections for easier management. Selecting one takes you to a complete listing of components where you can check on their status, pull up hardware inventories and link failures with alarms and alerts.

Despite their benefits, there's little choice for entry-level servers equipped with Core 2 Duo processors. Some competition to the TX120 S2 comes from Apple's diminutive Mac mini, which supports faster DDR3 memory and comes with Snow Leopard Server, which enforces no user limits and has a suite of business applications.

The TX120 S2 may cost more but it's almost as quiet as a Mac mini and it offers vastly superior internal expansion potential and fault tolerant storage options. If Windows Server is your chosen OS then this counts the Mac mini out, and the TX120 is also a better choice if it's remotely supported, as it offers the same management facilities as its larger Primergy brethren.

Author: Dave Mitchell