New servers - HP DL360G6

[dood]

We got in a whole bunch of these at $1000 each brand new from CDW. They're configured with a single E5504 quad core 2.0ghz, can support dual. Come stock with 2x2gb ddr3, and no drives

So, let's play with some hard drives, shall we?

The drives are HP DG0146FAMWL. They're 146gb 10k Dual-Port SAS drives.

First up, we have 3 of them in a RAID5 config, with a 256mb cache module upgrade installed:



Fairly predictable. Nice throughput start to finish, with a little bit of rotational speed loss, and a nice burst to the controller.

Next, let's look at 4 of these in RAID10 with no cache upgrade:



Interesting... Better throughput, but with no rotational loss. Access is a little better, but burst is lacking. (Keep in mind this is same server, just different drive configs)

Okay, so lets give it the beans and throw the 256mb cache in there.

So, RAID10, 4 drives, 256mb cache installed:



SWEET JEEBUS! Guess I just found the reason for no rotational loss in the last one... the controller wasn't keeping up with the drives, even at their slowest! So, we have incredible throughput, obvious rotational loss, but an incredible average! Burst rate is still not the same as the RAID5, which confuses me.

Still, this makes for one fast server! Unfortunately, immediately following the last test, I shut the server down, and now it won't POST. I think when I removed the cache module from it again, I might've borked something up. Still working on that...

[willawake]

Re: New servers - HP DL360G6

Unfortunately, immediately following the last test, I shut the server down, and now it won't POST. I think when I removed the cache module from it again, I might've borked something up. Still working on that...

bleh. i hope its not like my dl380g4. i shut it down without messing with nothing and it never posted again. did make all the flashy lights each time though. tried everything and in the end got a new refurb board. let me know what happens.

nice pieces though and a great price. are the fans noisy?

[dood]

Re: New servers - HP DL360G6

bleh. i hope its not like my dl380g4. i shut it down without messing with nothing and it never posted again. did make all the flashy lights each time though. tried everything and in the end got a new refurb board. let me know what happens.

nice pieces though and a great price. are the fans noisy?

I definately toasted the board. I think it's because I removed the RAID cache module without unplugging the server. That's the only thing I can figure.

Swapped the drives and the cache module over to another server and all is well.

The fans are not bad when they're running at low speed. When they're all the way on high, they're real screamers. Keep in mind they have to be small, high RPM fans, due to the 1u formfactor. For their size, these things can move some serious air, though!

One thing to note, is that I have this server running in my office. It hovers around 70-72F in here. The back server room is set to 68. In my office, the fans never go above low speed except when running through the POST tests. I ran through the server '08 install and all windows updates, and they never sped up at all. This thing is quieter than my desktop PC. I'm quite impressed.

[dood]

Re: New servers - HP DL360G6

So, I figured I'd go for broke and reconfigure it in RAID0. I also wanted to see if Windows 7 would run on these (one of the guys here is considering using one as his desktop). So, reconfigured and reinstalled.

Started up HDTune, and my mouth was wide open when I turned around.



I think I've hit the upper limit on the RAID controller in this server.

We'll see when my 4 15k drives come in

[dood]

Re: New servers - HP DL360G6

I've done a little research, and supposedly these are 6gbps drives and 6gbps controller... so, I'm not sure why it seems to be topping out at 250-270MBps

[stj]

Re: New servers - HP DL360G6

try Linux on it, it probably has better drivers.