HP Proliant DL380 G4 - Can this server still perform in 2011?

Question

Can the HP Proliant DL380 G4 series server still perform at high a quality in the 2011 IT world?

This may sound like a weird question but we are a very small company whose primary business is NOT IT related. So my IT dollars have to stretch a long way.

I am in need of a good web and database server. The load and demand for a while will be fairly low so I am not looking nor do I have the money to buy a brand new HP Dl380 G7 series box for $6K. While searching around today I found a company in ATL that buys servers off business leases and then stripes them down to parts. They clean, check and test each part and then custom "rebuild" the server based on whatever specs you request. The interesting thing is they also provide a 3-year warranty on all their servers they sell.

I am contemplating buying two of the following:

• HP Proliant DL380 G4 Dual (2) Intel Xeon 3.6 GHz 800Mhz 1MB Cache processors
• 8GB PC3200R ECC Memory
• 6 x 73GB U320 15K rpm SCSI drives
• Smart Array 6i Card
• Dual Power Supplies
• Plus the usual cdrom, dual nic, etc...

All this for $750 each or $1500 for two pretty nicely equipped servers. The price then jumps up on the next model up which is the G5 series. It goes from $750 to like $2000 for a comparable server. I just do not have $4000 to buy two servers right now.

So back to my original question, if I load Windows 2008 R2 Server and IIS 7 on one of the machines and Windows 2008 R2 server and MS SQL 2008 R2 Server on another machine, what kind of performance might I expect to see from these machines?

The facts is this series is now 3 versions behind the G7's and this series of server was built when Windows 200 Server was the dominant OS and Windows 2003 Server was just coming out.

If you are running Windows 2008 R2 Server on a G4 with similar or less specs I would love to hear what your performance is like.

Solution 1

A DL380 G4 is almost useful if you already own one. However, if you're buying today, there are plenty of other options. I'd recommend buying a modern system and virtualizing.

A SINGLE ProLiant DL3xx series from G5, G6 or G7 would easily serve both duties if equipped with the right amount of disk space. Couple that with free VMWare ESXi and you'll be better off in terms of parts availability, warranty and a path to expansion.

There are good suppliers of off-lease and refurbished HP gear. Don't go with anything less than a G5 with quad-core CPUs at this point. For $1500-$2000US, you could find a server that meets your needs WITH more than enough disk space. And that's from a quick check on eBay.

Solution 2

Having a couple of the G3 and the G4 servers, and all I have to add to this is the replacement parts are getting expensive..

Also when a disk broke (and they will.. eventually) we couldn't find the 3,5" disks in stock anywhere, so we had to go for a refurbished disk. It held up for probably 1-2 weeks then it went down again. Probably bad luck, but it could happen to you too!

Solution 3

If you get the SAS-Model for under 700.00 it's worth it!

• HP Proliant DL380 G4 Dual (2) Intel Xeon 3.8 GHz 800Mhz 2MB Cache processors
• 8->12GB PC3200R ECC Memory
• 4->8 74GB/146GB/300GB SAS 10,000RPM Hard Drives
• Dual Power Supplies
• Smart Array P600/256 BBWC Controller
• DVD-RW

I have 8 G4-SAS with this setup running win200864-R2. I use the server's to store/route MRI/Cat-Scan images, PACS systems and everything works great. Now they are in a colo, the G4s are 75+DB and dump alot of heat so keep that in mind.

I can get a dl380 g5 with 1 QC 2.66GHZ, 6GIG memory, DVD-RW, dual power supplies with 3 year HP warranty for 1000.00. The dl360 g5 goes for around 875.00, so I would not buy a dl380 g4 unless it was a SAS model loaded and for under 700.00.

Hope this helps.

Solution 4

The HP GL380 G4 is 64-bit however, HP does not support Windows Server 2008 R2. They do support Windows Server 2008 32/64 bit. It will "probably" work just fine, but you will not find support from HP with Windows Server 2008 R2. For $1500 you can probably find better systems suited for Windows Server 2008 R2. Try and work with a company that leases computing hardware, they usually sell the off lease machines cheap.

Solution 5

The negatives on this server: x64 but not capable of virtualization (i.e. no Hyper-V), RAM options are restrictive as heck, you'll only be able to do 8 Gigs of dual-sided DDR2, or 16 Gigs of Single sided.

the positives are that it is server hardware: good nics, i would assume the disks are enterprise class, and you can anticipate quality throughput at those points.

what you can do with it? Run Ubuntu or VMware esxi, make it a unix based firewall / router, or turn it into a NAS ISCSI box if you have the disks.... I would not advise running 2008 R2, though. Too many limitations.

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Comments

[John Gardeniers]

That G4 is more powerful than the G5 we have running here. What more can I say, other than I'd be happy to have one.

[Philip]

Keep in mind that a warranty for that server runs $800/yr right now. 750 + 800 * 3 = $3150. A brand new DL385G7 with more RAM & CPU, same warranty, is about $3300 (single PS and 3x146GB HD).

[Rex]

You can get 3rd party warranty support for much less than $800 - we're paying about $500/year on our DL380 G4's for 24x7x4hr response and have been very happy with their service.

[ewwhite]

The DL380 G4 has EM64t CPUs, so it can run 64-bit applications. However, the SCSI disk subsystem and other components have been equipped by SATA/SAS and it's not cost effective to upgrade or maintain such an old model.

[HostBits]

Where do you see that HP doesn't support 2008 R2?

[Snowlockk]

LAMP is not automatically better or even supported in certain cases. For instance what if he needs Microsoft SQL and to host a .Net app? At that point he needs Windows. Please don't assume LAMP is a solution to every problem..

[Joel Coel]

What makes you think LAMP has better performance? In the end, it's the same CPU cycles and RAM available. A lot people assume windows is worse because of the always-on gui, but in practice Windows does a good job of paging the RAM used for that to disk and it doesn't use any cpu tiime unless you're actually viewing the desktop and moving the mouse (and you shouldn't be doing that often on a server).

[MrGigu]

You just said that it can't do virtualisation (which is correct; well, you can but you can only run 32-bit guest OS's), but then recommend running ESXi on it?!