Low cost, high performance and high data throughput server blade

• US 8,671,153 B1
• Filed: 08/19/2011
• Issued: 03/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/20/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Acqis LLC (Acqis Technology Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Acqis LLC (Acqis Technology Incorporated)
• Inventors: Chu, William W. Y.
• Primary Examiner(s): Donaghue, Larry
• Application Number:
  US13/214,020
• Time in Patent Office: 935 Days
• Field of Search: 709/213, 710/305
• US Class Current: 709/213
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/28 using burst mode transfer, e.g. direct memory access DMA, cycle steal G06F13/32 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4022 using switching circuits, e.g. switching matrix, connection or expansion network G06F13/4009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4068 Electrical coupling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/409 Mechanical coupling back panels H05K7/1438
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4282 on a serial bus, e.g. I2C bus, SPI bus on daisy chain buses G06F13/4247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/161 Computing infrastructure, e.g. computer clusters, blade chassis or hardware partitioning casings, cabinets, racks or drawers for data centers H05K5/00
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A server blade insertable into a chassis of a blade server system includes a main circuit board coupled to the chassis upon insertion, a plurality of connectors residing on the main circuit board, a plurality of grouped hard disk drives, and a plurality of computer modules, each insertable into a corresponding one of the connectors. Each of the grouped hard disk drives couples to one or more of the computer modules. Each of the grouped hard disk drives includes a first hard disk drive exposed proximate to a front side of the chassis, and a second hard disk drive positioned between the first hard disk drive and a back side of the chassis. A subset of the grouped hard disk drives includes a first grouped hard disk drive and a second grouped hard disk drive stacked on the first grouped hard disk drive.

Claims

1. A server blade insertable into a chassis of a blade server system, the server blade comprising:

a main circuit board coupled to the chassis upon insertion;

a plurality of connectors disposed on the main circuit board;

a plurality of computer modules, each insertable into a corresponding one of the plurality of connectors; and

a hub disposed on the main circuit board that couples to the chassis and to a communication controller included in each of the plurality of computer modules;

wherein the hub processes input data to obtain requests distributed to the plurality of computer modules, each of the plurality of computer modules generates an output data stream in response to a corresponding request, each output data stream has a first bandwidth higher than a second bandwidth of the corresponding request, and the hub aggregates the output data streams of the plurality of computer modules to obtain output data.

2. The server blade of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of computer modules includes:

an integrated system chip comprising a processor and a memory controller;

a main memory directly coupled to the memory controller;

an input/output hub; and

a mass storage device.

3. The server blade of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of grouped hard disk drives, wherein:

each of the plurality of grouped hard disk drives is coupled to one or more of the plurality of computer modules; and

each of the plurality of grouped hard disk drives includes a first hard disk drive exposed proximate to a front side of the chassis, and a second hard disk drive positioned between the first hard disk drive and a back side of the chassis.

4. The server blade of claim 3, wherein a first subset of the plurality of grouped hard disk drives is positioned proximate to a first lateral side of the server blade, and a second subset of the plurality of grouped hard disk drives is positioned proximate to a second lateral side of the server blade opposite to the first lateral side, so as to allow airflow from the front side of the chassis to pass between the first subset and the second subset.

5. The server blade of claim 4, further comprising an air baffle positioned to direct airflow that has passed between the first subset and the second subset toward the first lateral side of the server blade.