I'm really interested in purchasing a Sun Fire x2200 but Sun sales support has not been responding to my email and IM requests for information about the base configuration.
Here's my question:
Does the base config (Config 1-M2) contain drive trays to install my own hard drives or are the bays just blanks and I would need to purchase drive trays separately?
I'm not familiar with that specific platform, but historically Sun has the rails on the disk
and not in the chassis.I vaguely remember something about the [url=http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SunFireV250/SunFireV250.html] Sunfire V250 system[/url] shipping with a couple of spares,
and that memory is only because it was unusual and out of the ordinary.
Do you have access to your usual Sun field service engineer?
If yes, then have them investigate for you.
> There are only plastic covers for bays. You are
> unable to mount own HDDs.
That's inconsistent with my experience. I just got a diskless x2200M2, and there are two slide-locking plastic-fronted carriers (simple, a little flimsy, but perfectly serviceable): you unscrew and remove a metal stiffening plate and screw your SATA disk in in its place, then just slide the assembly in place and lock. Worked for me. Remember that the builtin SATA connector on disks is automagically hot-swappable.
I'm a little disappointed that you didn't get this information from an official Sun source, though...
I received my SunFire x2200 yesterday. I am happy and annoyed.
I'm happy that it finally arrived.
I'm annoyed because I feel like sun pre-sales support lied to me. The server does indeed come with disk mounting rails/trays. I could have spend the money I spent on HDs from SUN and gotten ones twice as big.
Yes, SUN sales support is sometimes behind on its understanding of x86 servers. I can't tell you how many times I've put in a support call for a sun server running linux, and been asked to "send the /var/adm/messages file to us" (linux uses /var/log/messages), and "send the output of SUN vts "(this is a solaris/sparc utility).
But they are getting better, albeit slowly.
If it is any consolation, the support from HP is appalling (they barely realize they sell x86/linux servers), and talking to Dell about linux on a Poweredge is an exercise in extreme frustration.
Ultimately, I think you'll enjoy the x2200. We've been very pleased with the SUN systems we have in house. We run them flat out, 24x7, and they've proved to be very reliable, excellent performers.
