This article is part of a group review of six 2U servers

The Calleo 302W from Transtec represents Supermicro’s second outing in this grouptest. The server uses the same chassis as the CAD2 Focus but is equipped with an X7DBE+ motherboard.

Storage options look almost as good as the red and black external case panels, with eight 3.5in hot-swap bays, four filled with cheaper 320GB WD Sata RE drives.

The interface cabling is something of a hotchpotch as the four occupied bays are looked after by a quad-port 3Ware Raid controller. The empty bays are wired through to a motherboard whose embedded Intel ESB2 Sata controller supports Raid-5. However, it only has six embedded ports – hence the extra Raid card.

Server management features are also thin on the ground as the Calleo’s price does not include Supermicro’s controller card. However, the board does have an embedded IPMI 2.0 chip that can be remotely accessed using the IPMI View utility, allowing administrators to monitor critical components and control power.

The internal layout is as tidy as that presented by the CAD2 system and the multitude of Sata cables have been tucked neatly out of harm’s way. A pair of speedy 3GHz 5160 dual-core Xeons are included in the price, partnered by 4GB of fully buffered memory. Remarkably, the full potential of the 5000P chipset can be realised as the motherboard has 16 Dimm sockets so RAM can be cranked right up to 64GB. Power redundancy is also on the cards as the server came with a pair of 700W hot-swap supplies.

Read the group review conclusion