Rack servers are ideal for businesses that need to pack powerful processing solutions for web serving, high-performance computing (HPC), compute nodes and so on into small spaces. The 2U systems featured in this grouptest use their extra height and muscle to offer a wider range of features than their slimline 1U counterparts.

2U devices can provide much higher disk capacities for storage-hungry applications. For example, the system from CAD2 came with more than 2TB of storage and still had room for more.

With more space for PCI-X and PCI-E slots, 2U devices also permit a greater number of expansion options than their slimmer brethren, while the use of half-height cards allows all the standard motherboard slots to be gainfully employed.

We asked vendors who contributed devices for this group test to configure the best systems they could provide for a maximum price of £4,000 + VAT and the cost of the operating system (OS) licence. This cost bracket allowed CAD2, Dell, Evesham Technology, Fujitsu Siemens, HP and Transtec to deliver systems equipped with some interesting processing possibilities and still have enough room to manoeuvre on memory and storage. Although IBM originally volunteered to submit a server, it subsequently opted out.

Read the reviews:

CAD2 Focus 6025B-3R

Dell PowerEdge 2950

Evesham Technology SilverEdge 2000AL

Fujitsu Siemens Primergy RX300S3

HP ProLiant DL380 G5

Transtec Calleo 302W