Underappreciated 14-bay 2U storage server - HP DL180 G6 for $168 shipped

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dba

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Feb 20, 2012
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San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
We talk about Norco and Supermicro storage server chassis all the time - and with good reason; they have lots of disk bays and are rather cheap.

One of our own members, mrkrad, gave me a tip on another model that definitely deserves consideration: the HP DL180 G6.

The dl180 G6 is a 2U chassis with up to 12 3.5" bays on the front and optionally two on the back. It's an HP server so of course it has redundant power supplies. It comes with a dual CPU motherboard that accepts Xeon 55xx and 56xx CPUs, including the cheap-as-chips Xeon L5520s. Many of these also include an HP P4xx RAID card (with or without battery). So, basically, these servers include all of the features that we look for in a storage chassis.

I am sure that these were rather expensive when new. Right now, however, they are cheap. I've seen them go for under $200 barebones (though look out for G5 versions that look the same but take 54xx CPUs) and can always be found for $400 in the basic configuration. With some patience, you can find a fully stuffed version for around $300.

If you are interested in one, and are willing to do some work, here is a dl180 G6 that includes the 14-bay chassis, dual power supplies, a RAID card, plus two L5630 CPUs for $528 with free shipping. The auction even includes rack rails - though no disk caddies.

HP Proliant DL180 G6 Server 2X L5630 Quad Core 2 13GHz 4GB RAM No HDD P410 008835859909 | eBay

Where did I get the $168 number in the headline? Easy: Sell those L5630 CPUs for $200 each, replace them with a single $40 L5520, and you just paid $168 for a storage server!

Disk caddies: http://www.ebay.com/itm/300883508281
 
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tjk

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Mar 3, 2013
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DBA, you mean the DL180 G6 correct? The DL160 G6 is a 1U server.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Looks very interesting indeed. Any info on noise? From the photos those redundat fans look like they would be quite noisy, but if HP was smart about speed control they could be reasonable.
 

mrkrad

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Oct 13, 2012
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Fantastic price. Make sure he's not selling a "SE" special edition server. No bios upgrades for those (lefthand,gateway storage typical).

Definitely worth $500. I'd see if they would cut you a deal and keep the sh*t p410/256. That could easily sell for $100 if not. I've got a stack of P410's laying around (sitting next to a stack or p420/1GFBWC) lol.

I'd trade new ZR30W for one of those servers ;) - seriously - buy two, sell the p410/256 and i'll trade you two 30" new hp monitors.
 

Jeggs101

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Dec 29, 2010
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Fantastic price. Make sure he's not selling a "SE" special edition server. No bios upgrades for those (lefthand,gateway storage typical).

Definitely worth $500. I'd see if they would cut you a deal and keep the sh*t p410/256. That could easily sell for $100 if not. I've got a stack of P410's laying around (sitting next to a stack or p420/1GFBWC) lol.

I'd trade new ZR30W for one of those servers ;) - seriously - buy two, sell the p410/256 and i'll trade you two 30" new hp monitors.
LOL seriously?
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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Since I'm sitting in O'Hare I did retail (ebay) therapy and ordered a DL180 G6. Will keep you guys updated on how these go.
 

dba

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Feb 20, 2012
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Do these ship with a reasonable raid controller or should I expect to drop in one?
Well they are gone now, but they came with an HP P410/256 RAID card, which I consider to be just fine, at least for low/medium performance needs, especially when paired with the ultracap/flash backup option. There are better cards, to be sure, but I have the P410/1GB FBWC that came with my DL585 and I use it along with eight 1TB 2.5" drives.
 

mrkrad

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Oct 13, 2012
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p410/256 is fine for a basic sas drive setup.

p420 or m5014 or 9266 is what I run in them.

The P4300 G2 Lefthand is this same box, except with SE1220 motherboard which is dual socket, dual INTEL (not broadcom!!) nic's, and ilo2/saap 1 engaged.

256 cache is 40-bit like the M5014 (half bandwidth) DDR2 compared to 512/1GB.

The P410 is no good for ssd unless you enjoy sata 3gbps.

NEVER buy used batteries. I think a lot of M5015/M5014 owners are feeling it by the looks of some posts.

Matter of fact, I pull the batteries out of the LSI controllers, they cause issues. HP uses a transparent design that works. My IBM M5014's (even with a brand new IBM battery) are a mess . All messed up charging situation/bad firmware/who knows.

This is a 1 series, and there is a reason the SE1220 was chosen over the DL180 G6 for the P4300 G2..

Btw, if you own HP SERVER drives, make sure you flash up. There was a bug in the last month that caused HP server drives to drop their load (heads) on the PLATTERS and damage the heads/platters. NASTY NASTY NASTY little bug! 100% DRIVE firmware problem.
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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I received my HP DL180 G6 today. Looks like they all sold.

Interesting note: The HP DL180 G6 has a SAS expander. So it is wired -> HP P410 -> SAS expander PCB that has 12 drives up front then 2 SATA cables that go to the rear storage. Found that to be an extra interesting facet. Could basically route 2x short SATA cables from the motherboard to the rear of the chassis and have an always-on 2 drive server and use the front for storage by wiring the SAS expander to a single SFF-8088 to the rear.

Booting it up soon.
 

mrkrad

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Oct 13, 2012
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Is that a single or dual port to the 12 drive cage? the older dl320s storage server aka msa2000/msa60 used a single port to the front and you could run a quad port back the rear for some SSD love and keep the front cage all SAS RE4 drives.

The dual wired sas expanders like the dl360 g6 actually provide an active/active target to the drives so the esxi raid controllers show two paths assuming your target disks are sas [dp].

If its a single port, then you could run true sas up front and sata in the rear with a fan-out cable and double up the power for 4 ssd.

If you mix sata and sas, SAS has to downgrade to SATA power levels which are not as nice as LVD sas power levels.

The P420/1gb FBWC deal would be killer with 4 SATA ssd in the rear in raid with o/s and ssd caching on them - they work great in my SE1220 motherboards which are basically used by hp for storage - they ditch the LO and replace it with a hardwired ILO port and replace the crappy broadcom nic's with intel nic's.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Their back...and at an even better price. $408 this time, but with only a single PSU instead of 2 (the 460w PSUs are available for $15 on ebay if you really want one).

At this price, assuming you really can sell the L5630s for $200 each, then you are getting the rest of the DL180 for $8. Seems like it might be a good deal :)

590636 001 HP Proliant DL180 G6 Server 1x L5630 Quad Core 2 13GHz 4GB RAM No HDD 008835859909 | eBay

(note: could be a mistaken listing. The title says 1x L5630, but the description in the body say 2x L5620).