Review: HP Proliant DL300 Servers

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The launch of Intel's power-saving Haswell-EP processors has brought a new generation of low-power servers to the market. Among them is theHewlett-Packard Proliant DL360, a small-footprint screamer that delivered amazingly good performance in the CRN Test Center. This two-socket, 1U system offers numerous storage and expansion options and is great for small offices, branch offices and departments.

There's also a 2U version that can hold up to 24 2.5-inch drives or 12 3.5-inch drives. Other configurations leave room for front-accessible USB, VGA, optical drives and a rear drive cage.

The reduction in power consumption brought about by Haswell processors is remarkable. At idle, the DL360 drew between 40 watts and 42 watts. During most benchmarks, it consumed between 69 watts and 89 watts and peaked occasionally at 146 watts. Power draw between the system's two hot-swap power supplies remained fairly even. When variations did occur, they were usually by two watts and never more than four watts. Also, cooler-running Haswell processors require less cooling than prior generations, which also saves energy and cuts down on noise.

The tested unit was equipped with a pair of Xeon 14-core processors, 64 GB of DDR4 memory and two 10K SAS drives in a RAID 0 array. With this simple configuration, its throughput and transaction-processing marks were off the charts. List pricing of the DL360 starts at $2,799 with a six-core processor.

PUBLISHED OCT. 8, 2014