The server arrived exactly as described with regard to CPUs, memory, and hard drives. Server was clean inside and out, but was obviously used (of course.) No dings, bent metal, or defects. It arrived with Server 2012R2 evaluation copy installed, with all 8 drives striped into a RAID0 array, which made it easy to check for issues.
The BIOS was current, but most of the other system firmware was a bit behind, so I updated them with downloads from the HP site. No issues performing the updates.
iLO works properly on the machine, but is unlicensed. If you want to be able to run a remote console through iLO for more than a few minutes, you will need an iLO license key. Once added to the server, the iLO remote console works properly as well. Note that you need the key for the remote console, but not for other features if iLO.
Don't expect this to be a quiet machine. It is a 1U rack form factor, and has a bank of 8 small fans in the front to force air through the case. The chassis is filled with temperature sensors (you can see all of them on the iLO webpage.) When the machine is idle, the fans run at about 20% speed, which is like a small desk fan. When it is booting up the fans run at around 55% to 60%, which is "ready for takeoff" mode. Don't plan on keeping it in your workspace...it may need to be set up in another room and wired into the network there.
It came with redundant, hot swappable power supplies. Great for server use, but with a caveat. The power supplies have NO power cables coming off of them. They attach directly to the motherboard through a single connector, much like a hot swappable hard drive. This means that there are no loose power cables to connect to an added PCI card.
There is a "slim line SATA" port to attach a DVD-ROM drive, where some power can be tapped (5V, 1.5A.) However, because of the layout of the case (1U height) and the way it manages heat (one row of fans up front), it is very sensitive to anything that obstructs or modifies the airflow in the case. so cable management that does not obstruct the airflow is critical. I tried adding a full height USB3 card with an external cable for port power to the server, and the fans switch to idling at 50%.
The server has two PCIe slots...one 8x half-height slot and one 16x full height slot. Great for SAS cards and 10Gb network cards, but I wouldn't try putting a video card into it (no external power connectors other than that SATA port.) Might be OK if the video card does not require a power supply connection, but I would still be worried that the fans would kick into "blow out your eardrums" mode.
The p420i raid card it uses is capable of using both SAS and SATA drives, but not in the same virtual disk. It can read SSDs as well. I reconfigured it with a 1TB Mushkin Reactor MLC sata drive I had handy as the OS drive. (Yes, I realize that consumer grade drives don't have nearly the write cycles of an enterprise grade SSD, but it will be fine as the OS drive, especially given the 1TB size vs the space requirement of a running OS. Of course, if your deploying a production server to a data center, other parameters apply...)
The p420i card has two operating modes...RAID and HBA. It can only do one or the other. In RAID mode, the physical drives are not visible to the user, only the RAID virtual drives. In HBA mode, the drives are all visible to the OS. That said, I was not able to get the machine to boot from a drive in the drive array in HBA mode. It was visible, but the machine reported that it could not boot from the drive. So plan on using the RAID functionality of the machine for all of the drives in the front bay, not storage spaces. (This can be worked around by booting off of an INTERNALLY mountable SD card...the server is designed to do this for added security. I did not try it as I do not have a suitable SD card handy.)
The evaluation version OS initially installed on the machine was password protected. I had to call to get the password. No issues doing so, the phone was answered immediately by someone who was able to give me the password. Nice service :)
Overall, the machine is exactly what I expected and the components were all as advertised. It included 2 power cords. The service call I had to make to the seller was answered quickly and competently. I would buy from this vendor again.
| Processor | 2.5 GHz celeron |
|---|---|
| RAM | 64 GB |
| Hard Drive | 300 GB HDD |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
