Dell vs HP Server Gen 9

strocky · 13 Aug 2021 at 07:49

Looking to replace a 2008 Dell Poweredge PE1900 Server at work due to it showing it’s age.

Was advised by our IT subby to forget Dell and go down the HP route

However as we’ll be going down the 2nd hand route, I’m concerned about the failure rate of HP’s ILO boards

What are the pros and cons of both brands and what models should I be looking at up to £600 (Towers)

UEFI and ILO/IMPI a must

The server purpose is basically a glorified file server to 4 local PC’s in a small office running Windows Server 2019

Looking at 6 bays running 2 x SSD in Raid 0 (O/S) and 4 x Mech Drives running Raid 10 (Data)
Drives would be Samsung 830 128gb SSD / 4 x Samsung Spinpoint HD203WI 2TB

Critical data would be backed up to existing PowerVault RD1000 external drive (daily swap of two backup drives)

Client PC's are a mixture of Windows XP, 7 & 10

Armageus · 13 Aug 2021 at 10:25

Why does it need to be a server at all?

If it's just to share files then a NAS (Synology/Qnap etc) is a much better option. (and a NAS can do most other small business server things as well - e.g. printer sharing, DNS Server etc)

I've personally experience ILO failure on a HPE server - one of 3 used G9's that we picked up - so it certainly is a thing, although it should have been largely sorted via firmware updates on "V4" models.

It's also worth noting that HPE lock the firmware update ISO behind a valid warranty, so you would have to source them through other means.

Both the SSDs and Hard Drives you have mentioned, are models from 10 years+ ago - I'd question the value of installing them in anything (server/nas or otherwise) - you need new hard drives. Those era Samsung spinpoints probably don't even support TLER, so aren't ideal for a RAID array anyway, and certainly won't be ideal for either a modern HP or Dell RAID controller.

Unless your data is absolutely critical (which considering you are looking at used servers, and reusing old non-HPE hard drives), then I can't see why RAID10 is a requirement.

I assume the ILO/IMPI requirement is so your I.T. subby can remote in and manage it, but if your IT subby has been happily supporting a PE1900 (15 years old tech now - 2006 release date), then I'd be more interested in finding a new I.T. subby

strocky · 13 Aug 2021 at 10:55

Thanks for the helpful remarks, re the NAS option always found them to be low powered and over priced (I'm used to Windows Server so don't really want to start learning a new O/S or faffing about with VM)

The HPE FW update lock is the reason im more keen on a DELL solution

Will look into the TLER side of things thanks

A fair point re age of the drives (they happen to be lightly used from my existing builds)

Raid 10 was mainly so that if one drive failed the down time would be minimal

The Dell 2008 server has never had any support (bar it's original 3 year warranty and muggins here :eek:

)
The subby is only brought in once every few years to migrate new PC's into the network

LizardKing · 13 Aug 2021 at 14:09

what are your IOPS like? if its pretty low and/or you have a decent internet connection i'd be looking to go down the Azure fileshare route. I suspect what you save in power will more than cover most of the running costs from running a server of that age!

strocky · 13 Aug 2021 at 14:37

Can’t afford to be offline and our bb is limited to ADSL but an interesting idea

We also need shared access to a couple of programs that have active databases

#Chri5# · 15 Aug 2021 at 22:27

strocky said:
Can’t afford to be offline and our bb is limited to ADSL but an interesting idea

We also need shared access to a couple of programs that have active databases

Without wanting to be rude, you can't afford to be offline but are looking at 2nd hand hardware, RAID 0 for the OS (was that a typo and should be RAID 1?) and ~10 year old HDs? You've been very lucky IMHO if you've never had a decent outage on your existing Dell.

strocky · 16 Aug 2021 at 09:46

#Chri5# said:
Without wanting to be rude, you can't afford to be offline but are looking at 2nd hand hardware, RAID 0 for the OS (was that a typo and should be RAID 1?) and ~10 year old HDs? You've been very lucky IMHO if you've never had a decent outage on your existing Dell.

Not at all it's fair comment re the HDD's (will now be looking at new SSD's & HDD's) although new drives can and do fail
However the reality is Servers are built to last and the budget doesn't allow for a brand new server, hence having to go down the 2nd hand route

Re Raid 0, it wasn't a typo (due to the fact that it would only be hosting the O/S which could be easily re-installed via an image file) and also doubled the drive capacity
However given how cheap 256Gb SSD's are now, will prob go down the Raid 1 route for the O/S

However being offline because of your own issues is different to being offline because your internet has went down (one of these scenarios is in your own hands)

So back to the main question

What are the pros and cons of both brands and what models should I be looking at up to £600 (Towers)

blueboy2001 · 16 Aug 2021 at 10:43

I'd be more concerned about RAID controller failure than ILO's on the HPE Gen 9's - I think pretty much every one we ever sold with a RAID controller ended up having it replaced due to reporting failed cache modules. The cache modules are not replaceable like earlier versions, so it's new RAID card every time. The new style cache batteries fail for fun too. Gen 9's seemed to far more temperamental than anything than the earlier models, but they did settle down once they'd been around a couple of years so anything that has been looked after should have had all the common early issues resolved by the time it lands on the used market.

I don't have as much recent experience with Dell, the last Dell servers I bought was R420's which were OK, and I installed a load of R640's for a customer a couple of years ago which have been fine.

The HPE experience is a little more polished - their interfaces for the ILO's and updates are nicer to use, but there's very little in it in hardware terms. For second hand kit Dell is perhaps the better choice due to firmware availability but equally it depends on the source and what's available.

strocky · 16 Aug 2021 at 11:22

blueboy2001 said:
I'd be more concerned about RAID controller failure than ILO's on the HPE Gen 9's - I think pretty much every one we ever sold with a RAID controller ended up having it replaced due to reporting failed cache modules. The cache modules are not replaceable like earlier versions, so it's new RAID card every time. The new style cache batteries fail for fun too. Gen 9's seemed to far more temperamental than anything than the earlier models, but they did settle down once they'd been around a couple of years so anything that has been looked after should have had all the common early issues resolved by the time it lands on the used market.

I don't have as much recent experience with Dell, the last Dell servers I bought was R420's which were OK, and I installed a load of R640's for a customer a couple of years ago which have been fine.

The HPE experience is a little more polished - their interfaces for the ILO's and updates are nicer to use, but there's very little in it in hardware terms. For second hand kit Dell is perhaps the better choice due to firmware availability but equally it depends on the source and what's available.

Thanks for the insight, will speak to the boss and see if I can persuade them to up the budget and buy a new Dell T340 or HPE ProLiant ML30 Gen10 Server with 3 years warranty

strocky · 17 Aug 2021 at 09:48

Well the good news is I've convinced the boss to go for a new HP or DELL and purchase new HDD's

Toughnoodle · 17 Aug 2021 at 22:14

I don't think you'll get much for £600. I'd spend around that on a business PC (and then Office Home and Business on-top) - never-mind a server. Also, I can't help on HP vs Dell as I've only bought Dell servers for the past 20 years.

If you want console access then you'll need a full iDrac Enterprise license AFAIK (rather than the usual iDrac Express) and could be costly (unless it's on offer). I usually find RDP is enough and you only need console access for the rare bad Windows update.
You'll want Windows Server 2019 Essentials because it doesn't require CALs. It has some limitations, but they won't apply to a 4 PC network (e.g. can't have a 2nd Domain Controller). The T340 looks like a bit of a beast for a 4 PC network, but it ticks the most important boxes, e.g. dual PSU and hot-pluggable drives. It's always worth paying more for a better hardware RAID controller option.

I think you could buy the server without storage to keep the costs down, but that comes at a risk, e.g. they won't be covered under the Dell warranty and won't be certified as compatible with the rest of the server. I would try to keep all of the storage SSD based it you can - it'll make it much snappier and reliable. I've bought 3.5" caddies and 3.5" to 2.5" brackets on Amazon to make Samsung consumer SATA SSD's work for disaster recovery servers.

It'll support UEFI/GPT and can be shipped with it enabled if you choose that option. I would price it up on the website and then try a SMB account manager to get their best price.

Buy enough RAM to accommodate the database + extra for the OS if you can.

strocky · 18 Aug 2021 at 09:51

Thanks for the detailed reply, budget on the server only is up to £1k

Re storage, 80% of it will be old archived data and pictures of the bosses grandweans so mechanical drives will be fine
Although will be using SSD's for the O/S

I am swithering towards the HP as it has a NMVE slot for the O/S (however this does take away the RAID safety net)

My mate's wife works quite high up at Dell, so might see what sort of staff discount she can offer

Armageus · 18 Aug 2021 at 10:43

strocky said:
Re storage, 80% of it will be old archived data and pictures of the bosses grandweans so mechanical drives will be fine

I'd be telling him to get his personal data off the business server. It would be better on a personal cloud account, a usb hard drive, and/or backed up on some DVDs

strocky · 18 Aug 2021 at 10:55

Armageus said:
I'd be telling him to get his personal data off the business server. It would be better on a personal cloud account, a usb hard drive, and/or backed up on some DVDs

You tell your boss the same and let me know how you get on :eek:

strocky · 18 Aug 2021 at 10:56

Forgot to ask, is it worth adding a BOSS card to the server?
And when using non-certified drives, would I only have an issue with the H330 or H730 Raid Card?

Armageus · 18 Aug 2021 at 13:00

strocky said:
You tell your boss the same and let me know how you get on

Better that than telling him when the server fails and the data is lost

strocky · 18 Aug 2021 at 13:13

Armageus said:
Better that than telling him when the server fails and the data is lost

The photos will be uploaded to the cloud as well and the server will be Raid 10, so may as well use the spare capacity that would be going to waste

strocky · 18 Aug 2021 at 22:18

So been offered the following refurb on a 5 year RTB warranty for approx £1000 + VAT, after looking at the HP offers think this is the way to go

Dell PowerEdge T340
1 x Intel Xeon E-2226G
2 x 8Gb Memory
Dell Perc H330
IDRAC 9
Dual PSU
BOSS Card
2 x 256Gb Dell M.2 SSD's

ZedPowered · 19 Aug 2021 at 20:12

Seems expensive. M.2 isn't what you want for a business RAID setup. I have a workstation in the MM for half that with better specs.... and in warranty.

strocky · 19 Aug 2021 at 20:26

ZedPowered said:
Seems expensive. M.2 isn't what you want for a business RAID setup. I have a workstation in the MM for half that with better specs.... and in warranty.

Unfortunately pulled the trigger and don’t have enough posts to access the MM