Getac X500 Mobile Server review

Not content with producing some of the toughest notebooks in the world, Getac has branched out with the rough-and-tumble X500 Mobile Server. Built to handle the harshest of environments, the X500 will go where normal servers would fear to tread.

It’s designed to provide an off-the-shelf Windows server for field engineers, emergency services and even battlefield command operations. And from the moment you pick up this 8.6kgs briefcase by its metal carry handle you just know it’s up to the job.

Clothed in a magnesium alloy shell, the X500 is tested to the MIL-STD-810G standard. This barrage of tests validates resistance to high and low temperatures, high altitude, exposure to fluids, dust, sand and fungus, repeated drops from 1.2m and a lot more punishment besides.

The X500’s IP65 rating means that it’s fully dust resistant and capable of shrugging off low power water jets from any angle. If it bumps into anything, the thick rubbers buffers on its corners and around the screen means it’ll just bounce off.

The X500 has what it takes on the inside, too. The price includes Windows Server 2012 and while the 1.73GHz Core i7-820QM quad-core CPU is several generations old, it has more than enough grunt to keep everything running smoothly. Our review unit came filled with the maximum 16GB of DDR3 RAM and equipped with an Nvidia GeForce GT330M graphics chipset.

In its basic form the X500 stands at around 64mm high but our system had the optional RAID expansion unit fitted which swells the chassis to 119mm thick. Also constructed of magnesium alloy and tested to the same rigorous standards, this has room for up to five SFF SATA drives mounted in shock-proof caddies.

Three are accessed from the front behind a drop-down panel with two more at the back. The expansion unit incorporates an Adaptec 6805 RAID controller which supports all key arrays types including RAID-6 and drive hot-swapping.

The expansion unit links to a dedicated port on the motherboard and appears to Windows Server 2012 as a bunch of local hard disks. Using the Adaptec Storage Manager utility we could create, delete and monitor our arrays and the expansion unit also has five status LEDs which warn of any hard disk or array related problems.