AMD Athlon MP 2200+ Server Roundup - September 2002

CCSI RC0222 - 2U

Computer & Control Solutions, Inc. (CCSI) provided another system for this roundup - the RC0222, a 2U solution. The benefit of going to a 2U form factor is that you get much better expansion options in terms of drive bays as well as the ability to accommodate at least two PCI cards (usually 3).

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Just by looking at the outside of the RC0222 you can get an idea for some of the improved expansion that comes with the 2U form factor. From the front you can see a total of six removable drive bays, up from a meager two bays on the 1U version. The added space also allowed CCSI to outfit the server with a full-sized CD-ROM drive as well as a floppy drive.

The system comes with a removable front panel similar to the one on CCSI's 1U platform, but as you can tell from the picture above we didn't have it mounted on our test system. The reason being that the system was slightly damaged during shipping, which is unfortunately a very common occurrence when shipping these servers through any of the major carriers; we've had this happen to a few of our own servers when using UPS or FedEx as well.

Here's what the handle is supposed to look like:

Here's what ended up being delivered:

Note that we are looking at some very sturdy metal being bent here; don't you just love the delivery companies?

The damage here occurred on the left handle where it was clearly bent out of place. The only real prevention is to ship the systems with the handles removed which isn't always possible. The damage was definitely not the fault of CCSI as the system was packed properly but it does serve as a warning to those that are looking to ship via any of the major carriers, this sort of thing can happen. The damage here is not nearly as bad as we've seen before, there have been situations we've seen where cases can no longer be rack-mounted because of damage sustained during shipping.