Advantages of Blade Servers Over Rack Mount Servers

Advantages of Blade Servers

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Question

Which of the following would be an advantage to using a blade server as opposed to a rack mount server?

Answers

Explanations

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A. B. C. D.

B.

The correct answer is B. Blade servers offer more rack density.

Blade servers and rack-mount servers are both types of computer servers that are used to run applications and store data. However, there are some key differences between the two types of servers that make one better suited for certain applications than the other.

A rack-mount server is a standalone server that is mounted in a rack. It typically takes up one or more rack units (RU) of space and is designed to be a self-contained unit that can run a variety of applications. Rack-mount servers can have multiple processors, large amounts of RAM, and multiple hard drives for storing data.

A blade server is a type of server that is designed to be housed in a blade enclosure. Blade enclosures are typically used in data centers and can hold multiple blade servers, power supplies, and cooling systems. Blade servers are smaller than rack-mount servers and are designed to be hot-swappable, meaning that they can be removed and replaced without disrupting other blades in the enclosure.

Blade servers offer several advantages over rack-mount servers, including:

  1. More rack density: Blade servers are much smaller than rack-mount servers, which means that more blade servers can be housed in a single blade enclosure. This can be a major advantage for data centers that need to maximize their use of space.

  2. Greater scalability: Because blade servers are hot-swappable, it is easy to add or remove blades from a blade enclosure. This makes it easy to scale up or down as needed.

  3. Reduced cabling: Blade enclosures typically have a single set of cables that connect to all the blades in the enclosure. This can reduce the amount of cabling needed in a data center, which can make it easier to manage.

  4. More efficient cooling: Blade enclosures are designed to provide efficient cooling to all the blades in the enclosure. This can be a major advantage in data centers where cooling can be a significant issue.

In contrast, the other options provided in the question are not necessarily advantages of blade servers over rack-mount servers:

A. Internal tape drives: This is not an advantage of blade servers, as most modern servers do not use tape drives for backup and storage.

C. Faster: Blade servers are not necessarily faster than rack-mount servers. Server speed is determined by a variety of factors, including processor speed, RAM, and storage.

D. More RAM: Blade servers do not necessarily allow for more RAM than rack-mount servers. Both types of servers can be configured with large amounts of RAM.