HP ProLiant ML370 G6 vs Dell Poweredge T710 [closed]

Question

I'm looking of replacing our old ML350 G5 tower server which is used as a development system (so it's not constantly powered on and sits besides my desk). Noise levels from the old ML350 G5 were ok, but what bothered me was that ILO2 was so slow. Also, the new server should be able to take a Nvidia Quadro graphics card for GPGPU. I now read about ILO3, how great it is and also that it's much faster, but unfortunately the ML350 G6 is still stuck with the old and slow ILO2 for some reason. So we had a look at the ML370 G6 which would do everything we want.

However, as we purchase HP and Dell, I also had a look at the Dell side, and found the Poweredge T710, which again would do everything that we want it to do. However, my experience with Dell gear is limited.

As this is a development system we don't really need redundancy (aside from a RAID5 setup), so we won't use redundant fans or dual PSUs unless it provides some advantage for us (I heard some servers were actually more silent with redundant fans?).

So maybe someone who works with both servers (ML370 G6 and Dell T710) can answer a few questions?

• How is Dells DRAC6 Enterprise compared to HP ILO3 Advanced?
• How are the noise levels of both ML370 G6 and T710, also compared with a ML350 G5 (1 PSU, two processors, full memory, 6 3.5" SATA disks)
• On the Dell server, does the PSU fan run when the server is powered down? (we had a Dell PE 840 which had the PSU fan constantly running even when it was switched off, and it annoyed the hell out of me, if the server is switched off it should be silent! Our ML350 G5 only runs the PSU fan for a few minutes to cool down the PSU and then shuts off which is fine. What about the T710?)

I'm also interested in reliability of these servers (they both came to market in 2009 so there should be some empirical data available).

Please remember we are looking at the tower variants, not the rack variants, which can have different fan settings that affect noise levels.

Thanks,

Dave

Answer 1

I can speak to some aspects of the Proliant and Dell models as I have both a DL370 G6 and an T710 sitting in front of me at the moment. I'm doing the head-to-head because some of my developers prefer Dell, but I'm more of an HP person (and the environment is 90% HP). Will you be running Linux or Windows on this new system? VMWare? That can play a role in the decision.

ILO3 versus DRAC... I prefer ILO over DRAC, but only because of familiarity and a history of useful enhancements through firmware upgrades. In my opinion, the DRAC just recently got to the same level. Assuming firmware is fully up-to-date on both, though, either will do the job. Both can be addressed from within the operating system with the agents. Both have remote media and remote consoles and command-line access. DRAC and ILO offer a good at-a-glance view of system health. Both pass the IE/Safari/Firefox/Chrome usability tests. As long as you're using the fully-featured variants of the DRAC or ILO, you'll be fine.

This may not be an argument, since the DL/ML70 G6 only come with the ILO2. Again, with current firmware, the ILO2 is perfectly fine. The 370 model is really only reserved for certain scenarios from HP's perspective; tower usage or internal expandability. Otherwise, there is no real reason to consider it over the current DL380 G7, which is revised a bit more frequently and benefits from greater industry mindshare and deployment numbers. The DL/ML370 is available in the same processor steppings, though. The unit I have here is a DL370 G6 with X5690 3.47GHz CPUs. The reason I'm using it is that I need speed AND multiple full-height, full-length PCI slots for a specific application.

On the HP, the DL370 and ML370 share the same 4U chassis. The G6 and G7-era machines have been close to silent, as I've had to deploy these in small offices and space-constrained environments. The Dell here has fans that are a bit more whiny in timbre, but it isn't a deal-breaker, depending on your noise threshold. I used to spec the ML350 G4 and G5 in small customer settings. I would specifically use them because of the lower noise levels than their 370 counterparts. I think this DL370 G6 is about the same as a ML350 G6 and lower than a 350 G5, depending on if the G5 has the redundant fan kit.

I'm curious about your question about PSU fans. These are servers. Won't they be running full-time? I WOULD recommend dual power supplies regardless of what you buy. It's simple insurance.

For you, I'd recommend updating the firmware of your existing ILO2 in the ML350 G5 to at least version 2.05. Look at the revision history/changelog.