Opinions on HP ProLiant ML115 G5

[Swanster]

The Dual Core versions I have use roughly 90Watts idle and 120ish under load. A quick google shows the Quad Core version to idle around 88-99Watts and load upto 140 although the author mentioned that he wasn't sure of the load levels when he took the readings.

http://www.techhead.co.uk/installing-vmware-esx-and-esxi-35-on-an-hp-proliant-ml115-g5-quad-core

Fantastic, thanks. Based on the cost, and them using almost the same amount of power as my current file server, it seems like a great buy. Just got to decide which one

 

[RomeoS]

The logical place.

Aye found it, wasn't listed when I ordered a few months ago. Amazing how much prices have dropped.

Swanster, its getting more difficult to find the dual core version of the 115 G5 but I would snap up one of the quad cores, even if its a tiny bit overkill for a file server.

 

[m_cozzy]

Well I received my ML110 G5 server & promptly moved the esxi usb key, 8gb of 5400 ocz ram and seagate disk over from the old whitebox server into this one & everything worked great


However....

I wanted to also use disk that came with it for additional storage, a 250gb seagte ES.2 drive (Nice bonus to get an ES disk, or so I thought)with hpg6 firmware.
This runs like an absolute dog. With just one virtual machine on this disk its soooo slow. Running nbench on the virtual machine resulted in:-
write 2 MBps
read 35 MBps
With more than one vm running on this disk both read & write plummet even further with read now in sigle digits.

I have just copied it over to another normal 7200.10 (the same as is in there already) and with the same one machine it gives:-
write 42 MBps
read 47 MBps

Even running nbench on the existing 7200.10, that currently has 9 virtual machines running, gives approx 35 MBps read & write.

Anyone else have performance issues with the ES disk

 

[brendy]

The standard io on these things is below that of an ml115 for some reason or another, I think I mentioned this above somewhere. Im not 100% sure why HP felt the need for the 110 and 115 when they are in the same price bracket, perhaps just an intel & AMD option. I dunno.

 

[Origin]

Im not 100% sure why HP felt the need for the 110 and 115 when they are in the same price bracket, perhaps just an intel & AMD option. I dunno.

They like to offer a version of boxes with each manf cpu in it where possible and reasonable to do so.

 

[.:MBK:.]

aye for any good market there will be a 0 (intel) and 5 (amd) option, IBM like to do this aswell


so is this 115 quad opteron pretty handy for light vmware use? i ask cos i can source it a lot cheaper than a lot of the 110 G5s

 

[ricky1981]

I am using the 115 and it's great for ESX/ESXi

 

[fishfishfish]

The ES2 in my ML115 is super quick. I've been dead impressed with it, and even splashed out on a second one. Here's a quick benchmark on the single disk.

/sbin/hdparm -t /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1:
Timing buffered disk reads: 200MB in 1.97 seconds = 101.72MB/sec

Still waiting for my new USB key to turn up so I can test out ESXi on it. I've been playing with OpenSolaris 08.11 recently in a Virtualbox machine and that's awesome, so might put that on it.

 

[Swanster]

Swanster, its getting more difficult to find the dual core version of the 115 G5 but I would snap up one of the quad cores, even if its a tiny bit overkill for a file server.

Thanks, ending up getting one of the quad cores. I was planning to use it for CCTV as well (my old file server struggled), so not a total over kill, and to run an XP virtual machine (I use Linux).
I've added 4GB of the ocz ram from ocuk (ordered Friday afternoon, arrived this morning - which I thought was rather good for free delivery), 2 extra HDDs, and found it idles at around 105W (for anyone running Linux on it - loading the powernow stuff reduces power consumption by ~10w when idle).

I've also found that the one PCI slot it has is the 3.3v variety, so my old PCI 4ch CCTV capture doesn't fit

 

[wonder_lander]

Can XP be installed on this?

Ideally in the config of :


AMD Opteron™ 1352 Quad Core Processor 2.10 GHz
2 x 2GB Crucial ECC RAM
1 x 250GB (Standard kit)
2 x 500GB (Samsung F1's)

I am looking to use XP as I have a license for that and install XP to preinstalled drive.

I then want to raid 1 the two samsungs (any issue doing this in XP) for storing my data on.

I then will have an attached external drive which will take daily backups from the raid array and then to back that up I will upload to Mozy.

Does all that sound feasible?

 

[ricky1981]

Can't see any reason why that won't work

 

[adeq1]

Picked mine up today, running ESXi, 8GB of Corsair RAM and (for the moment) a single samsung 1TB disk. Works like a charm, ESXi sees all the hardware no problems (using the USB stick boot that is), it even was able to accomodate my PCI/PCI-X dual port NIC well, sort of - its backside is hanging out of the PCI slot .

Great little box, especially since i was considering spending almost the same amount of money just to buy a CPU (Q6600) to build my own white-box.

 

[.:MBK:.]

doh missed the boat it seems, was gonna pick one up for 160 odd, checked yesterday and they are back at HP retail rates, dang

 

[wonder_lander]

I picked one up for £159.79 inc yesterday. Showing 2 in stock today!

 

[#Chri5#]

Just ordered one for ESXi testing - prices are up to £199 but a quad core with 8GB (Kingston EEC) for £300 is staggering.

 

[Origin]

Prices should come back down again in the next couple of days...

 

[#Chri5#]

Wouldn't surprise me, but then I'll buy another

 

[.:MBK:.]

aye found some places that havent price adjusted yet and picked one up, guess its all down to the mood of HP

 

[wonder_lander]

Can anyone recommend me a card reader for this? I guess something to sit in the spare drive bay above the DVD Writer would be good (5.25")

 

[Origin]

Should be back down in price now for resellers getting new stock