Boston Green Power 1200-6 review

The 1200-6 also scored well in our power consumption tests where we measured it drawing 335W in idle and peaking at 703W under extreme load from SiSoft Sandra. Its idle rating is identical to a similarly specified R815 but around 85W greater under load, although this could be down to higher output supplies provided by Boston.

Although the 1200-6 presents a fairly tidy interior, with easy access to all critical components, initial access could be made easier: the two push-buttons on the lid needed some persuasion to release.

Each processor is accompanied by eight DIMM sockets, with the price including 64GB of 1,333MHz DDR3 memory. A maximum capacity of 512GB makes the 1200-6 a good candidate for virtualisation, although there's only a single internal USB port for using an embedded hypervisor - the R815 has a pair of redundant SD card slots too.

Six hot-swap fans handle chassis cooling and most of the motherboard is covered by a large, transparent shroud to help direct airflow. The 1200-6 isn't as quiet as the R815, which is almost silent, but in a rack-cabinet installation its low noise levels won't be an issue.

Supermicro's embedded RMM provides dedicated remote management access to the server regardless of its condition. You can power it off and on, view a wide range of sensors for critical components, and fire up a remote control session.

Whereas the likes of HP, IBM and Dell expect you to buy an upgrade to get remote control and virtual media services, Supermicro includes these free. The RMM provides a good range of essential management features too, but with the focus now moving sharply to power management and monitoring, Supermicro would do well to consider adding these features to its solution.

SMBs looking to move up to 4P servers with a view to consolidating older 1P and 2P systems should check out the latest quad-socket Opteron 6100 options. With a price of just over £8,000, the Green Power 1200-6 costs less than half that of an equivalent 4P Xeon 7500 system.

The Dell PowerEdge R815 is more sophisticated with a superior design, better remote management tools and lower power consumption under load. However, a quick check on Dell's website shows that it would cost at least £1,000 more to get a similar specification, making Boston's alternative even better value.

Author: Dave Mitchell