IT Pro Verdict
The CyberServe Xeon SP1-P04S offers a great starter package for small businesses looking to move onto the Xeon Scalable ladder. The dual Intel SSDs add a lot of value, its upgrade potential makes it a solid, long-term investment and Broadberry doesn’t hold you to ransom with hard disk upgrades.
Pros
- +
Dual Intel SSDs included as standard; Free to install third-party drives; Good expansion potential
Cons
- -
No option to expand drive cages; Single-socket motherboard
Broadberry's CyberServe Xeon SP1-P04S is a great choice for small businesses that want an affordable Xeon Scalable tower that's ready to go out of the box. Along with a pair of fast 480GB Intel SATA SSDs, it's packed with a generous 32GB of DDR4 memory, offers plenty of space to grow and is priced right for IT managers on a strict budget.
Broadberry has equipped the CyberServe with a decent 8-core 2.1GHz Xeon Silver 4110 CPU - a popular choice for many server vendors as it offers plenty of power at a sensible price. There is one compromise though, as the server's Supermicro X11SPL-F motherboard is the single socket variety so dual CPU upgrades are off the table.
Nevertheless, the chassis has a high maximum 165W TDP rating so you can easily upgrade later on to a more powerful and core-heavy Gold 5100 or 6100 CPU if you feel the Silver is running out of steam. The resident 32GB of memory is provided on two 16GB sticks and will easily be enough for most small business apps, but this can also be pushed to a maximum of 1TB as the motherboard has a total of eight DIMM slots.
Upgrades are easy to carry out as the server presents a very tidy interior with clear access to all key components and all cabling neatly tucked out of the way. Seven PCI-Express slots are up for grabs so you can complement the dual Gigabit network ports with your choice of industry-standard 10-Gigabit adapters.
In fact, freedom of choice is a key feature of the CyberServe, in that Broadberry allows you to install your own hard disks - an act that may invalidate the warranty on some blue-chip servers. This also means you won't get stung when you want to upgrade, as you can shop around and get the best storage deals.
A single four-bay hot-swap drive cage lurks behind the lockable front door with disk carriers ready and waiting in the two spare bays. All storage is handled by the Intel C621 chipset which incorporates Intel's rapid storage technology enterprise (RSTe) RAID controller.
It supports stripes, mirrors and RAID5 arrays and is managed using Intel's free RSTe Windows utility. For upgrade testing, we hot-plugged in a couple of 12TB Seagate hard disks which popped up in the RSTe interface, allowing us to create a big 12TB mirrored repository for storing our business data.
You can't add more drive cages, as the space below the resident cage is occupied by a large blower fan which handles general chassis cooling. The CPU has an active heatsink and we found overall noise levels to be pleasantly low with the SPLnFFT iOS app on our iPad measuring a peaceful 42.2dB from 1m in front.
Remote management is on the cards too - the motherboard includes Supermicro's embedded RMM chip and dedicated network port. It isn't as feature-rich as HPE's iLO5 or Dell's iDRAC9 but the HTML5-based web interface provides remote access to power controls and reveals plenty of information about critical components.
The RMM comes as standard with full KVM remote control and virtual media services - features for which all the blue-chips charge extra. There's more, too: the free SuperDoctor 5 software uses the local Windows SNMP agent to monitor the server and presents a colourful web interface packed with graphs and status dials.
The CyberServe Xeon SP1-P04S offers a great starter package for small businesses looking to move onto the Xeon Scalable ladder. The dual Intel SSDs add a lot of value, its upgrade potential makes it a solid, long-term investment and Broadberry doesn't hold you to ransom with hard disk upgrades.
Verdict
The CyberServe Xeon SP1-P04S offers a great starter package for small businesses looking to move onto the Xeon Scalable ladder. The dual Intel SSDs add a lot of value, its upgrade potential makes it a solid, long-term investment and Broadberry doesn’t hold you to ransom with hard disk upgrades.
Tower chassis
Supermicro X11SPL-F motherboard
2.1GHz Xeon Silver 4110 CPU
32GB 2,400MHz DDR4 (max 1TB)
Intel C621 RSTe RAID
Supports RAID0, 1, 10, 5
2 x 480GB Intel S4500 Enterprise SATA SSDs (max 4)
1 x M.2 SATA SSD slot
2 x Gigabit
7 x PCI-E 3
500W fixed PSU
Supermicro RMM with 10/100
178 x 534 x 432mm (WDH)
Max 165W TDP
3yr on-site NBD warranty
