Boston GP M100 review

All the internal power and interface cables are neatly bundled up and secured out of the way, making access to key components easy. The processor sits in the centre of the motherboard and is mounted by a large active heatsink.

General chassis cooling is handled by an 8cm diameter fan at the rear, along with the power supply's fan. Noise levels were low, with the three fans emitting a faint hum that would be almost inaudible in a normal office environment.

Four DIMM sockets are located above the processor, and the price includes a pair of 2GB sticks of 1,333MHz DDR3 RAM. This is the unbuffered UDIMM variety, so a maximum of 16GB is supported. If you want to push beyond this you must use registered RDIMMs as only these are available in 8GB modules.

Storage is handled by a large internal cage with room for up to four hard drives mounted in removable carriers. The price of the review system includes a pair of 500GB WD RE2 GreenPower SATA drives, but it's easy enough to add more as the cage can be released and swung through 90 degrees.

The M100 isn't particularly miserly in the power stakes. We recorded 52W in idle and with SiSoft Sandra loading all cores to near full utilisation this rose to a peak of 130W. Fujitsu's 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo-equipped TX120 S2 peaked at 87W, and HP's ML330 G6 and its single Xeon E5504 drew a maximum of 109W.

The X8SIL-F motherboard also has another trick up its sleeve as, along with the pair of Gigabit ports, it offers an embedded IPMI controller and dedicated network port for remote management. The well-designed web interface offers plenty of data about all motherboard sensors, plus options to issue SNMP trap and email alerts if preset thresholds are breached. Full control over power is provided so you can remotely power the server off and on and reset it.

While Dell and HP only offer it as an optional upgrade, Supermicro includes full remote control as standard so you can access the BIOS setup menu and OS via a browser. It also supports virtual floppy and optical drive media, allowing you to boot the server from another system and install an OS if required.

Despite its modest dimensions, the GP M100 packs in an impressive specification at a reasonable price. Chassis build quality is basic, but it's quiet enough for small office duties, the new X3470 chip delivers plenty of processing power and service providers will appreciate the remote management features.

Author: Dave Mitchell