Server Hardware Cheatsheet
Server Hardware Cheatsheet
Form factors, IPMI, ECC RAM, and redundancy at a glance.
Form Factors
| 1U (44 mm) | Dense rack servers ߀” quiet, power-efficient, limited drive bays |
| 2U (88 mm) | General purpose ߀” good balance of drives, expansion, and density |
| 4U (176 mm) | Storage servers, GPU compute, large drive counts |
| Tower | Small offices; same hardware as rack but in a tower chassis |
| Blade | High-density shared chassis ߀” shared power and networking backplane |
Remote Management
| IPMI | Generic standard (Supermicro, generic); web UI + IPMI tool CLI |
| iDRAC | Dell ߀” iDRAC9 on 14th gen+; full KVM, virtual media, power control |
| iLO | HPE ߀” iLO5/iLO6; equivalent to iDRAC with HP-specific features |
| XCC | Lenovo ThinkSystem ߀” Lenovo XClarity Controller |
| Default IP | Usually on a sticker on the server; default credentials in manual |
ECC RAM Types
| UDIMM ECC | Unbuffered ECC ߀” workstations; not supported on all server platforms |
| RDIMM | Registered DIMM ߀” standard server ECC RAM; required for high capacity configs |
| LRDIMM | Load-Reduced DIMM ߀” allows maximum capacity (e.g. 1.5 TB/socket); slightly higher latency |
| NVDIMM | Non-Volatile DIMM ߀” battery-backed; survives power loss; used for persistent memory |
Redundancy
| Redundant PSU | Two PSUs in load-sharing mode ߀” connect to separate circuits |
| Hot-swap drives | Replace failed drives without shutting down (RAID required) |
| Dual-port NIC | Two network ports ߀” one fails, traffic moves to the other (bonding/LACP) |
| UPS | Uninterruptible Power Supply ߀” battery backup for graceful shutdown on power loss |