The new Oracle X5-2 & X5-2L x86 Servers are shipping and they follow the same format as previous generations with 8, 12 & 24 disk chassis. Changes are the use of the  newer Intel Haswell-EP Xeon E5-2600 v3 range (up to two 18-Core), DDR4 memory, 12Gb SAS disk controllers and more DIMM slots, 24 in total to give a maximum memory capacity of 768GB. Prices are down 5%-9% over the previous generation for pretty much like for like comparisons.

What is new is the use of an optional Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) PCIe switch that allows you to use up to four hot swappable, high bandwidth flash 1.6TB SSD’s. Unlike standard SSD’s (which can also be specified) these bypass the SAS controller. Be aware you must specify this capability when you order the server as it cannot be retrofitted afterwards. It is a low cost options (~€193) so worth ordering if you think you might use NVMe disk later even if not straight away.

Support for these flash disks is Solaris 11.2 and Oracle Linux.