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This server was recently purchased for file and print serving duties. We were actually on a tight budget and required a quality rackmount machine with raid-5 capabilities. We looked at the HP ML350 and it is basically a tower server which can be converted for 5U rackmount, the upgrades to the same spec with a raid-5 card (standard it is not supported) made it more expensive than the DL380. I did not also like the vertical orientation of the hard disks and the cd rom when it was in rackmount format, it just looked like a hack. The ML370 was another choice with the correct horizontal orientation of hard disks and cd rom but was too expensive. So basically with the DL380 we ended up with a 2U server that was designed for rackmount and we were buying in to the lower end of the enterprise market. |
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Nice boxes from HP |
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The DL380 is used in many corporations but they use racks full of them. This review will be expanded later because it will be better to comment at a time that i am more fluent with this model. At the moment I can say that the fans on this model are quite loud and have a whine which will not be appropriate to deploy near working people. If you want this server you will need a separate room for the computer equipment. Down the corridor with a closed door is nice. If you do not have a server room then forget about the DL series, the DL 1U servers make a worse sound. So if you still require rackmount and are wanting to buy HP then I would suggest to think about the ML 370 which has larger fans and is a proper rackmount designed machine 5U and not a tower conversion like the ML350. |
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The problem is that the new chipsets and processors are getting hotter and require more air cooling. The nocona chipset and the xeon processors that this unit uses are very hot. So basically heat and fan noise is going to be the future problem in server installations. |
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Anyway, this unit appears to be a good choice apart from the noise. The design is excellent and the components including the capacitors which are Sanyo OS-CON and tantalum on the board and in the power supply Nichicon and Rubycon are high spec and should last a while. The included raid card which is a Smart Array 6i has complaints about the performance but there is not enough budget to specify another, it should be satisfactory for 20 users. |
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HP includes the Smart Start software which will configure windows 2000/2003 server and netware including installing all the drivers. It is an excellent piece of software installing almost on its own and leaving you in windows server to configure the active directory, the users etc. A great piece of software and a good reason for choosing HP. We will continue with some pics of the machine and I will write some more when I become more familiar with it. |
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