The beginning of the second quarter of 2019 marked the update of the server portfolio by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. This update brings back to us the 'lost younger brother' — the HPE ProLiant DL100 series. As many have forgotten about its existence over the years, I propose to refresh our memories in this brief article.
The '100' series has long been known to many as a budget solution for architectures not expecting explosive growth and scaling. With a relatively low cost, the servers of the 100 series fit well into budget-constrained architectures. However, after the 7th generation, HPE decided to revisit its server solution portfolio to optimize production costs. The result was the disappearance of the 100 series, leading to difficulties in designing budget architectures with HPE solutions. Until now, we only had the 300 series at our disposal, which possesses outstanding performance and flexibility in configuration, but is not as tolerant of budget constraints.
Due to fierce competition, HPE has decided to bring back the 100 series into its portfolio. Starting from the current generation (Gen10), the 'hundreds' are returning to the Russian market. HPE ProLiant DL180 Gen10 has been available for order since early April, and ProLiant DL160 Gen10 will appear in the summer. Since I got my hands on the new DL180, I decided to go through its main pros and cons. As the 100 series is initially positioned as a simpler and more budget-friendly version of the 300 series, any review will inevitably lead to a comparison between them. This is what I will do, comparing the current DL380 and DL180 Gen10 models available on the market.
Both models are dual-processor, 2U universal servers (2U 2P) servers, suitable for practically any usage scenarios. This is the only common feature between the 'brothers'.
As already noted, the 'hundreds' differ in their limitations on the number of supported options and, in general, system configuration flexibility. The DL180 servers (as well as the DL160 in the future) will be available only as BTO — Built to Order.
This means a pre-prepared set of articles, each tied to specific CPU and RAM models. To be more precise, there are currently only 2 variations: single-processor configurations based on the Intel Xeon-Bronze 3106 and Xeon-Silver 4110, both with pre-installed 16Gb PC4-2666V-R RAM and a bay for 8 SFF disks.
The number of memory slots has been reduced to 16 compared to 24 slots in the DL380. The list of supported memory modules has been limited to only the one provided in the basic configuration: HPE 16GB (1x16GB) Single Rank x4 DDR4-2666 CAS-19-19-19 Registered Smart Memory Kit. Options for Dual Rank or Load Reduced DIMM are currently not available.
When it comes to data storage, the ProLiant DL100 series significantly lags behind the DL300 series:
- One disk bay for 8 SFF
- Built-in controller S100i
- Optional controllers E208i/E208e and P408i
In the future, additional optional bays for 8 SFF (up to 2 per chassis) and a new chassis for LFF drives are planned to be added.
For network access, the chassis is equipped with two 1 GE ports, which can be expanded to two 10/25Gb ports using the optional FlexibleLOM adapter.
The number of slots for PCI-E modules has not changed; the following options are available (with a dual-processor configuration):
- 3+3 PCI-E x8 (using FlexibleLOM requires a special Riser module)
- 1 PCI-E x16 + 4 PCI-E x8
Due to the new model's release, there is some confusion in the documentation. According to the QuickSpecs, only hard drives with SAS interfaces (300/600/1200 Gb 10k) are specified. However, the presence of the built-in Smart Array S100i RAID controller, which only supports SATA drives, raises questions about the accuracy of the documentation.
It is likely that all Gen10 SATA drives from other models are supported, serversas was the case previously. Conditionally, if a discrete RAID controller like the HPE Smart Array E208i is installed, the use of SAS drives will become possible.
Due to the freshness of the release (remind you, it took place in early April 2019, which is less than 3 weeks ago from the publication of this article), there is currently no complete list of supported options, but one can assume that NVMe drives and graphics accelerators are not supported since the power supply units have a limitation of 500W.
In the dry residue, we have a reliable "middle class" in performance, with sufficient capacity and the unchanged "perks" from HPE that need no further presentation.
Despite, or rather due to, the limited options of the 100 series model, it has proven to be a good solution for budget-constrained projects. If your tasks require the scalability and performance of the DL380 Gen10 but you couldn't afford it financially, then the DL180 Gen10 is designed specifically for you. Now it just remains to wait for the complete list of options and LFF chassis that will arrive on the Russian market together with the DL160 Gen10.
Source: habr.com
