facebook rss twitter

Review: Armari BrontaStor 822R-E4

by Parm Mann on 6 August 2013, 10:00

Tags: Armari

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qabzd5

Add to My Vault: x

Conclusion

...the BrontaStor 822R is shaping up to be one of the best-performing servers available, and it arrives in a convenient NAS-like form factor that will appeal to all sorts of business environments.

It's clear that Armari has poured time, money and commitment into the development of the new BrontaStor. The 822R-E4 enterprise server is well-made, packs a substantial amount of performance and has the flexibility to meet a wide range of usage scenarios.

Outside of rack solutions, the BrontaStor 822R is shaping up to be one of the best-performing servers available, and it arrives in a convenient NAS-like form factor that will appeal to all sorts of business environments.

And it's clear that this is merely the tip of the iceberg. We already know that a 12-core, liquid-cooled variant is in the works, and looking ahead, smaller, more-affordable mini-ITX consumer variants are also in the pipeline.

As far as hardware is concerned, the BrontaStor range has got it where it counts. High capacities, the latest Intel Haswell processors, hardware RAID, PCIe expansion, IPMI support and dual redundant power supplies are just some of the attractions. For advanced users and network administrators, the fact that this hardware prowess can be allied to a choice of operating systems will be welcome news, but Armari may need to speed up development of its Linux-based BrontaStor OS if it's to attract mainstream customers who are seeking a solution that's powerful and extremely easy to configure.

Specialised though it may be, the BrontaStor 822R-E4 is a server made by networking afficionados for networking afficionados.

The Good

Small footprint, compared to a rack
Choice of operating system
Relatively low noise
High performance
Flexible customisation options

The Bad

Lacks front USB 3.0 port
Software setup could be simpler

HEXUS Awards


Armari BrontaStor 822R-E4

HEXUS Where2Buy

TBC. Full details will appear on BrontaStor.com when the 822R officially launches in September.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!
Did I miss the price somewhere? Nope I was just lazy. that's serious dough for a serious setup!
very base model £1,495
Shame not to see some more random data benchmarks or something more relevant to use as shared storage with virtual machine hosts. Something this powerful is kind of wasted on sequential file operations and streaming, seems like it'd work nicely as an iSCSI or NFS system.
I wish i was a few hundred quid less in price. :(
Jay
I wish i was a few hundred quid less in price. :(

If you want stuff like hot swap power supplies, then sorry that costs money.

If not, then build your own.

£60 Cheap motherboard with 6 sata connections and should support ECC ram: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-m5a78l-m-usb3-amd-760g-s-am3plus-ddr3-sata-ii-3gb-s-raid-sata-pcie-(x16)-graphics-on-board-matx
£90 for FX6300 cpu http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-fx-6300-black-edition-vishera-six-core-s-am3plus-35ghz-14mb-total-cache-95w-retail
£73 for a 5 disk tray: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/icy-box-ib-545ssk-tray-less-5-bay-back-plane-for-35-sata-sas-into-3-x-525-bays

Add plenty of ECC ram, case with space for the drive array in the front, decent PSU. If I get time later I might try and finish a spec, I am kind of interested now how much it would cost :D

6 SATA ports gives you one boot drive + 5 raid array drives. If you run raid-Z then you don't want a raid controller in the way anyway.

Edit to add:
£52 Case with 9 5.25" external bays: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/sharkoon-t9-value-black-edition-case-inc-front-usb-30-audio-and-cable-management-w-o-psu
£94 for 8GB Unbuffered ECC RAM: 2x http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-hynix-server-memory-ddr3-pc3-12800-%281600%29-240-pins-ecc-unbuffered-cas-11-11-11