Need 7+ nodes with maximum power savings - Dell C5000 aye/nay?

[W3bbo2]

I've got a web application I want to deploy in the coming weeks/months and I've got an eye for high-availability so I reckon I'll need at least 7 independent nodes (it's running on Windows, so I need 2x Domain Controllers, 2x Database servers, 2x Web servers, and one more to run DPM).

(No, I'm not interested in virtualization).

I'm wondering which platform can give me the best performance-per-watt. My datacenter switched their billing from per-U to per-kWh so it makes sense more now than ever to consume as little power as possible and as far as I know, a C5125 with an Intel Xeon "L" processor sips around 50W if not less, which means a C5000 chassis with eight C5125s is only going to consume around 500W-600W which is astoundingly efficient.

But does anyone here have any experience with the platform or have any recommendations for alternative platforms with similar (or better) power consumption?

Thanks!

 

[Beansprout]

Is it HA if it's all in one chassis?

 

[W3bbo2]

Is it HA if it's all in one chassis?

That's something I've been concerning myself with, but the C5000 chassis is largely passive and has redundant PSUs and cooling -the only single points of failure are the onboard management system (I don't know if failure of this component brings the whole chassis down or not) and the backplane/PDU.

I'm more concerned about HA due to individual nodes being down (think Windows updates, or HDD replacements) than the chassis. I'll agree this isn't true "survival a nuclear war" HA.

If I go with a C5000 and If my web application takes off and it profitable enough I'll be looking into getting a second C5000 and splitting the HA load between the two chassis, I don't expect the power overhead will be much, and the additional space means I can load more applications on it (such as an HA Exchange installation).