Pros & Cons
HP ProLiant DL380 G4 Specs
| Monitor Type: | None |
| Operating System: | Windows Server 2003 |
| Processor Family: | Intel Xeon |
| RAID: | Yes |
| RAM: | 1 GB |
| Storage Capacity (as Tested): | 108 GB |
| Type: | Server |
Company:
Hewlett Packard, www.hp.com
Price:
$6,694 direct
Spec Data:
Dual 3.6-GHz Intel Xeon (Nocona), 1GB 400-MHz DDR2 SDRAM, three 36GB 15,000-rpm SCSI drives in a RAID 5 array, Smart Array 6i SCSI RAID controller, 3 PCI-X slots, hot-swappable 550W power supply, Windows Server 2003 Standard.
Pros:
EM64T technology. Good WebBench performance. Well marked interior. Easy to service components. Insight Manager support software.
Cons:
Can't take full advantage of 64-bit until Windows Server 64 ships. PCI-Express cards of any type are still rare. Tested system didn't ship will full complement of fans and power supplies.
Bottom Line:
As an addition to your stable of ProLiant servers, the DL380 is a decent introduction to the new world of Nocona-Lindenhurst.
Review
It may have the same look and feel as previous ProLiant servers, with maroon and dark-gray drive bay latches, but beneath the hood of the HP ProLiant DL380 G4 is brand-new Intel technology—and a decent implementation at that. Click here to read our of
It may have the same look and feel as previous ProLiant servers, with maroon and dark-gray drive bay latches, but beneath the hood of the HP ProLiant DL380 G4 is brand-new Intel technology—and a decent implementation at that.
As with most of the servers here, a row of hot-swappable fans separates the drive bays from the rest of the chassis. One difference is that at this price, and with this configuration, HP left three of the fan slots unoccupied. We recommend opting for the extra fans, and even a second power supply, if you're ordering this box for an enterprise that demands high availability.
The latch and opening mechanism of the DL380 seem even better than the IBM server's. Under the hood, everything serviceable is clearly marked, with actual labels rather than cryptic color coding. Even the CPUs and CPU heat sinks are easily accessible; the latches on the heat sink tension mounts seem more robust than the latches on many servers.
HP includes the usual suite of server management tools in Insight Manager and on the Smart Start driver discs, which can help configure the DL380. HP's integrated Lights Out (iLO) Advanced can help you check and configure the server even if the OS is not working. An improvement over the previous version of iLO is the ability to share one of the ports on the on-board NICs instead of on the management card, saving a port on your network switch for other servers.
The DL380 was a decent but not spectacular performer on our WebBench tests, tending to follow rather than lead. Its E-Commerce numbers were good, with the DL380 peaking just before the Aberdeen Stirling 208S and the Dell PowerEdge 2850 in throughput and requests per second. At 60 clients, the DL380 managed a better average response time on NetBench than either the Aberdeen or IBM servers, but it was quite a bit below the Dell in overall file-sharing performance. Still, if your environment presents only moderate file-serving loads, the HP can handle the task.
As an addition to your stable of ProLiant servers, the DL380 is a decent introduction to the new world of Nocona-Lindenhurst. For those who already have Insight Manager in place for server configuration and monitoring, the DL380 is a good choice for mission-critical servers.