Hello,
I'm considering upgrading my two R720s to something more modern. My first choice was the Dell R740, mostly because I'm already familiar with Dell hardware. However it turns out, that the base R740 model does not support U.2 drives in the front bays, and the R740xd with U.2 support is outside of my budget. Also, the front bays are now apparently an integral part of the chassis, so If I get an 8 bay model I can't extend it later to 16 bays like it was possible with R720. So I started looking at the HPE DL380 G10. It seems that feature-wise this is a better platform. It supports U.2 drives, I can add more front bays if I need and there's an M.2 slot for a bot drive built into the riser. In terms of CPU support and RAM those seem to be the same. I can get both platforms in a similar configuration at a comparable price.
The obvious drawback with the HPE is the limited access to updates and drivers, but I may look for a way to work around it. Also if I decide to go with the HPE I wouldn't be able to reuse my rails and CMA.
Are there any other drawbacks of the HPE platform that I'm not seeing? My research seems to indicate that in this generation it is a better platform (although uglier than Dell). Is the iLO comparable to iDRAC, or is one of those better? Each of the servers would come with the extended license.
I'm considering upgrading my two R720s to something more modern. My first choice was the Dell R740, mostly because I'm already familiar with Dell hardware. However it turns out, that the base R740 model does not support U.2 drives in the front bays, and the R740xd with U.2 support is outside of my budget. Also, the front bays are now apparently an integral part of the chassis, so If I get an 8 bay model I can't extend it later to 16 bays like it was possible with R720. So I started looking at the HPE DL380 G10. It seems that feature-wise this is a better platform. It supports U.2 drives, I can add more front bays if I need and there's an M.2 slot for a bot drive built into the riser. In terms of CPU support and RAM those seem to be the same. I can get both platforms in a similar configuration at a comparable price.
The obvious drawback with the HPE is the limited access to updates and drivers, but I may look for a way to work around it. Also if I decide to go with the HPE I wouldn't be able to reuse my rails and CMA.
Are there any other drawbacks of the HPE platform that I'm not seeing? My research seems to indicate that in this generation it is a better platform (although uglier than Dell). Is the iLO comparable to iDRAC, or is one of those better? Each of the servers would come with the extended license.
