company news about Key Characteristics of Rack Servers

Form Factor: They are measured in "Rack Units" (U). One "U" equals 1.75 inches (44.45 mm) in height. Common rack servers are 1U, 2U, or 4U tall. A 1U server is very slim, while a 4U server is thicker, often allowing for more powerful components like additional hard drives or GPUs.

• 1U Server: Very dense, maximizes the number of servers per rack.

• 2U Server: A popular balance of performance, expandability, and cooling.

Density and Efficiency: By stacking servers vertically in a rack, organizations can fit a tremendous amount of computing power into a small footprint (e.g., 42 servers in a single rack). This is crucial for data centers where floor space is expensive.

Centralized Management: Racks provide a unified structure for power, networking, and cooling.

• Power Distribution Units (PDUs): Act like sophisticated power strips for the entire rack.

• KVM Switches: Allow a single keyboard, monitor, and mouse to control any server in the rack.

• Networking Switches: All servers in the rack connect to a central switch for network communication.

Component Similarity: Inside, a rack server contains the same core components as a high-end desktop computer, but they are often more robust and redundant:

• Processors (CPUs): Typically multiple, high-core-count server-grade CPUs (e.g., Intel Xeon, AMD EPYC).

• Memory (RAM): Large amounts of error-correcting (ECC) memory.

• Storage: Bays for multiple hard drives (HDDs) or solid-state drives (SSDs), often configured in RAID for performance and redundancy.

• Network Interfaces: Multiple high-speed network ports (1 GbE, 10 GbE, 25 GbE, etc.).