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Tyan Transport GT20 (B2865) Review

More Than Expected...

by Josh Walrath

GT20 Chassis

            Let me give a little bit of background about this review.  Tyan sent me the Tomcat K8E ages ago, and I have been unable to get a full review done on it.  I am very familiar with the board, and I know that its quality is pretty much unmatched.  It has served me for more than a year as my primary test bed for video card and processor reviews, and it has never given me a lick of trouble.  It also is a quick board with some decent overclocking potential.

The front of the GT20 is not terribly exciting, but it does look clean and professional.  The front USB ports are actually quite handy, especially considering that it only comes with a CD reader.  Hooking up a USB based DVD-R/RW can be a savior in situations when DVD media needs to be installed, or a quick backup of files is necessary.

            At work we needed to build a new mail server, as the old K6 based server just was not up to snuff.  Enabling on-server anti-virus and anti-spam programs caused the poor beast to crawl.  Not only that but we have started to worry about the lifespan of the components in the server as it only has one hard drive, limited memory, and a very old K6-2 which has been running non-stop for years.  So we started to shop around looking for what would be a good fit for the business, and would not actually cost an arm and a leg.

The construction of this server is really second to none.  It is incredibly solid and well built.  There are plenty of screw holes on the side for a number of mounting options.

            After looking around for some time, I thought I would give the Tyan Transport series a shot.  I had built rackmounts before for other clients, but they typically were based on Antec rack cases, and there was not a whole lot of server integration with such products.  To get things like true hot-swappable drives, then separate drive cages had to be purchased, and oftentimes there were fit and finish issues with such products.  When I ordered the Tyan I was fully expecting just a very basic rackmount case with the Tomcat K8E, basic drive cages, and a power supply slapped into it.  I was very wrong.

The back of the server is very utilitarian.  It has nothing on it that is not needed.  The ability to add one PCI or PCI-E card gives this server a nice edge.  Now that we are starting to see high performance PCI-E RAID cards and 750 GB SATA 3G drives, this could turn out to be a very cost effective, but incredibly fast file server.

            The first indication that this rackmount would be different than expected was the amount of extras bundled with the product.  First of all it had the rails included.  In most other rackmounts I have purchased, the rails were a separate purchase of their own.  In this package Tyan included a very nice set of rails that are easy to install.  That was the first surprise.  Tyan also includes other mounting hardware, full manuals on both the motherboard and an engineer’s guide to the rackmount, screws needed for the hard drive bays, a low-profile floppy mounting kit, SMDC mounting kit, and “ear rack” mounts for use without the rails.  It also includes an amazingly heavy, skived, low-profile, copper cooler.

I was taken aback when I first viewed the server with its top off.  I was frankly amazed at the level of integration, and the cleanliness of the layout.  This is a very easy server to work with.  Note the SATA cables plugging into the common backplane which allows the drives to be easily hot swappable.  Power is also delivered to the common backplane, so cable clutter is at a minimum.

            The case itself is very nice and solid, and it appears to be very well built.  It is heavy gauge steel and does not look to bend or dent easily, even under heavy duress.  It is not a lightweight chassis for its size though, but it is built to industrial strength.  Once the top cover is removed then we finally get to see what kind of integration Tyan has actually done.  The low-profile 350 watt power supply features two fans, one at the front and the other at the back.  This keeps the supply nice and cool, and even under load I never found the exhaust to be warm.

            The motherboard is firmly mounted and the lugs connecting the heatsink to the processor are brass as well (no plastic here).  Over the PCI-E 16X slot there is a metal band that holds into place the PCI-E slot extender.  This slot is actually extended twice (once 90 degrees, then another slot added to that to extend it so the card will physically be in the same place whether it is PCI-E or PCI.  The PCI slot extender only has the 90 degree section.  This mount will handle either the PCI-E mount, or the PCI.  It adds a lot of stability to any card that is installed, which can be a plus if the server is moved around.

From this angle we can see the 5 high speed fans that keep the air moving throughout the chassis.  These are really loud, but they push the air with surprising force.  Note the placement and routing of all wires and cables.  Again, a very clean layout considering the small amount of space provided by a 1U server.

            The copper cooler has an integrated shroud that directs air from two and a half of the five fans through the cooler.  The 5 fans are small, of good quality, and exceptionally loud.  Since they are small they have to spin at amazing speeds to move the mass of air needed to keep the server cool.  Under load I never noticed the exhaust from the main portion of the server get remotely warm, and the copper cooler itself stayed cool to the touch when running both a X2 3800 and a Opteron 144.

            The four drive bays are well built, and again are able to provide hot-swappable access.  The blue-lever locking mechanism on the bay is not bulletproof, but it does its job well.  Tyan designed a custom PCB that includes all power and data connections to the SATA drives, and it is compatible for use with secondary SATA controllers if higher performance RAID cards need to be used.

This gives a closer look at the common backplane for the SATA drives.  Note as well the fans get their power from this as well.  At the end closest to us is the low profile floppy connection.  If a fan fails, the warning LED on the front will alert the server administrator.

            Six external USB ports are included, with two on the front and four on the back.  This is quite handy for plugging in things like USB 2.0 DVD-RWs, flash memory, or any USB component.  As the rackmount only comes with a CD reader and no floppy, users may easily find a reason to use those front USB ports for extra connectivity and media purposes.  It is unfortunate that Tyan only put in a CD reader, as a lot of new media is coming out on DVD, and upgrading to a low profile DVD reader or writer is an extra expense that is frankly not necessary.  With Vista coming out this fall, and its server variants, we will see OS’s hitting DVD sooner rather than later.  Add to that current OS’s still require the use of a floppy disk to load most RAID drivers (NVIDIA RAID included), not including a low profile floppy is somewhat understandable from a cost standpoint, but not terribly smart considering that all server OS’s from Microsoft still require a floppy to utilize 3^rd party RAID functionality.  If the cover is taken off, it is quite easy to attach a floppy to the motherboard along with a handy floppy power connector, so standard floppy drives can be easily attached (but not permanently mounted) for OS installation duties.

Power is provided by a 350 watt Delta unit.  This features two fans so airflow is never an issue, even under load.  Because it is 350 watts, it can handle four full hard drives, a high end CPU, 4 GB of PC3200 DDR, and a secondary RAID card if needed.

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