Gateway GR360 F1 review

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the Gateway server brand in the UK, but thanks to the Acer Group it’s back, and this time it means business. Gateway’s launching a big family of rack, pedestal and blade servers, with a firm focus on SMBs and medium-sized businesses. In this exclusive review, we bring you the first look at its GR360 F1 rack server, which takes on HP’s ProLiant DL360 G6 (web ID: 256303).

Other servers in the Gateway family are also pitted against HP models: the Gateway GR380 2U rack server targets the top-selling HP ProLiant DL380 G6 and the pedestal-based GR350, the ML350 G6.

Gateway isn’t implementing a direct sales model but is targeting the channel only. It plans to compete in the 1,000-seat space, where it sees plenty of room for a creditable second place – so IBM and Dell are also in its sights.

So does the GR360 F1 give Gateway the ammunition to take on the big boys in the 1U rack world? First impressions are certainly positive. Build quality and design are good, and it has the measure of HP’s DL360 G6 in the storage department, as the server’s front panel has room for up to eight hot-swap SFF SAS or SATA hard disks. RAID options start with an embedded Intel controller that supports the six embedded SATA ports on the motherboard.

It can handle mirrors, stripes and RAID5, but these are implemented in software only. HP has the edge here, since the DL360 comes as standard with an embedded P410i controller and a pair of four-port SAS interfaces on the motherboard.

The GR360 can be easily upgraded to improve its storage outlook, as the L-shaped motherboard accepts Gateway’s Flex I/O cards. These offer some unusual expansion options: the cards plug directly into an interface slot at the bottom of the central riser.

They sit flush with the motherboard, so don’t obstruct the riser’s own PCI Express expansion slot above. There’s also room for another PCI Express card on the other side, although it would have to be very short so as not to obstruct the processor’s heatsink in front of it.

Gateway offers a good mix of Flex I/O cards: along with dual and quad-port Gigabit options, you have an SAS card that you’ll need if you want to use all eight drive bays. This sports a pair of four-port SAS interfaces, adds support for RAID6 arrays, and comes with 256MB of embedded cache.

The GR360 F1 is well built, although push-buttons on the lid make it difficult to remove without some screwdriver-related persuasion. However, the interior is tidy, with good access to components.

The server supports Xeon 5500 and 5600 processors, and the two banks of nine DIMM sockets mean you can go up to 192GB using DDR3 ECC-registered memory modules. Cooling is handled by a bank of six cold-swap fans in front, and although noise levels aren’t overly intrusive, they’re higher than that emitted by the ProLiant DL360 G6.

The GR360 beats HP for network connections since it has twice as many embedded Gigabit ports. It also matches it for power redundancy, as it supports a pair of hot-plug supplies.

The Gateway is also easy on the power supply: we measured the server drawing 93W with Server 2008 R2 in idle and 147W with SiSoft Sandra maxing out the eight logical processor cores. A DL360 G6 with an almost identical specification drew 100W and 157W in the same power tests.

For remote management, the server has an embedded RMM chip and dedicated network port. This offers a neat web interface, allowing you to remotely control the server and access its power supplies directly to turn it on and off, reset it or close down its OS.

You can view details about all critical components and use LDAP and RADIUS servers to authenticate remote access. The RMM features aren’t as sophisticated as HP’s iLO2 chip, but they do work well and include KVM over IP remote control as standard.

Gateway’s server deployment tools won’t beat Dell’s Lifecycle Controller, but its bootable Smart Setup disc does offer some useful utilities. These can be used to install an OS, configure the remote management controller, create RAID arrays and clone system configurations for use with multiple servers.

A glance at the PC Pro A List shows our favourite 1U rack server is still Dell’s PowerEdge R610 (see p32). Gateway’s GR360 F1 doesn’t have enough flair to push this off the list, but it does put up strong competition to HP’s DL360 G6 and offers far better value. DAVE MITCHELL

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