Underappreciated 14-bay 2U storage server - HP DL180 G6 for $168 shipped
- Thread starter dba
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the SE1210 (1 socket) and SE1220 (2 socket) are just lefthand devices. Many times folks will try to sell them but will fail since they are very much not a normal board:
SE1220 - real bios, real ilo2 dedicated, 2 x8 (optional 3rd x4), 1 x 16, 8 drive bay without expander. Able to tap into power and hide some extra ssd inside
I have both and the SE1220 is my favorite server - the only beef is the lack of the built in USB slot to boot (and no sd).
They are bulletproof with the P420/1GB FBWC, and 450GB 15K SAS drives. I'd dare say just as if not better than the venerable DL380 (dl380 has two x8 and two x4 OR 4 x8 so you can rock two 10gbe nic's and two P420/LSI9266 cards, 4 built on gigabit plus ilo).
Speaking of sas expanders, i had 300gb ancient 15K sas drive blow up , i pulled and pushed it twice, then a 2TB SATA on the DL180 with SAS Expander failed. I pushed it , it rebuilt, no errors. (AKA the hot swap caused a drive to flip out).
The SAS expanders I do not enjoy and they impair performance greatly. The 8 bay LFF model is FAR faster.
However the Single 6gbit DL180 12LFF has one dedicated lane for SSD acceleration - and the P420/1gb FBWC deal o century controller has read caching. 1gb FBWC can do 750gb read-ahead and give you the rest for (boot/scratch). the 2GB FBWC can do 1.5TB SSD and the rest is yours to do with. 100% safe - i did the yank while under verify ATTO stress many times and a junky old X25-M made a helluva difference.
Unlike LSI, HP (PMC-adaptec) uses ILO style keys and licenses it per server - one key on the honor system - where as LSI is DRM ridden junk with the worlds worst interface.
HP just rocks. Want to hear my latest beef? The DELL R610 came with a special storage controller slot, and H700 in that slot. PCI-E 4.0 gen 1 !!! with fastpath I had 6 SSD hooked up, never could understand why the perc was slower! The cards have to be taped over (SMBUS) to work on other computers, that my friend is DELL JUNK.
Also you can get 18 dimms and 2 sockets in 1U with RPS on HP (DL160) or 9 dimms and 1 socket (DL320/SE1210 sorta).
The real kicker is the SE1220/DL180 uses INTEL NIC which doesn't suck. I've had so much problems with the broadcom that I never want to see them again.
There is a place that will sell you any DL180 you want, for instance I needed 12LFF only, not 14LFF, so the guy lit up a special auction for $200 for a cto (no cpu,power supply) with rails, shipped from CA to ATL (OUCH!). Perfect !
I've got this freebie DL120 G6 and i'm about to source a DL160 motherboard for it since I have a couple of E5520 and I need to replace my desktop that is crunching numbers with something that fits nicely in a rack.
Truly amazing server, I'd suggest the 8 drive version. The sas expander is another fail point and it may be possible to use the DL180 G6 4 slot (yes they made a 4 LFF version) with the 8 slot and perhaps rock two SAS controllers
SE1220 - real bios, real ilo2 dedicated, 2 x8 (optional 3rd x4), 1 x 16, 8 drive bay without expander. Able to tap into power and hide some extra ssd inside
I have both and the SE1220 is my favorite server - the only beef is the lack of the built in USB slot to boot (and no sd).
They are bulletproof with the P420/1GB FBWC, and 450GB 15K SAS drives. I'd dare say just as if not better than the venerable DL380 (dl380 has two x8 and two x4 OR 4 x8 so you can rock two 10gbe nic's and two P420/LSI9266 cards, 4 built on gigabit plus ilo).
Speaking of sas expanders, i had 300gb ancient 15K sas drive blow up , i pulled and pushed it twice, then a 2TB SATA on the DL180 with SAS Expander failed. I pushed it , it rebuilt, no errors. (AKA the hot swap caused a drive to flip out).
The SAS expanders I do not enjoy and they impair performance greatly. The 8 bay LFF model is FAR faster.
However the Single 6gbit DL180 12LFF has one dedicated lane for SSD acceleration - and the P420/1gb FBWC deal o century controller has read caching. 1gb FBWC can do 750gb read-ahead and give you the rest for (boot/scratch). the 2GB FBWC can do 1.5TB SSD and the rest is yours to do with. 100% safe - i did the yank while under verify ATTO stress many times and a junky old X25-M made a helluva difference.
Unlike LSI, HP (PMC-adaptec) uses ILO style keys
and licenses it per server - one key on the honor system - where as LSI is DRM ridden junk with the worlds worst interface.HP just rocks. Want to hear my latest beef? The DELL R610 came with a special storage controller slot, and H700 in that slot. PCI-E 4.0 gen 1 !!! with fastpath I had 6 SSD hooked up, never could understand why the perc was slower! The cards have to be taped over (SMBUS) to work on other computers, that my friend is DELL JUNK.
Also you can get 18 dimms and 2 sockets in 1U with RPS on HP (DL160) or 9 dimms and 1 socket (DL320/SE1210 sorta).
The real kicker is the SE1220/DL180 uses INTEL NIC which doesn't suck. I've had so much problems with the broadcom that I never want to see them again.
There is a place that will sell you any DL180 you want, for instance I needed 12LFF only, not 14LFF, so the guy lit up a special auction for $200 for a cto (no cpu,power supply) with rails, shipped from CA to ATL (OUCH!). Perfect !
I've got this freebie DL120 G6 and i'm about to source a DL160 motherboard for it since I have a couple of E5520 and I need to replace my desktop that is crunching numbers with something that fits nicely in a rack.
Truly amazing server, I'd suggest the 8 drive version. The sas expander is another fail point and it may be possible to use the DL180 G6 4 slot (yes they made a 4 LFF version) with the 8 slot and perhaps rock two SAS controllers
Has anyone bought one of these lately? It would appear the seller has jacked up the price to ~1300ish USD ( HP Proliant DL180 G6 Server 2X L5630 Quad Core 2 13GHz 8GB RAM No HDD P410 | eBay ) from the original $528 which makes this a signifigantly worse deal than it used to be. Any luck getting him to accept an offer for the original ammount?
I've exchanged quite a few emails with this seller last week over a CTO DL180. The price really quick went up from the "base" price with even the slightest upgrade.
I ended up winning this: Proliant DL180 G6 Dual Quad Core E5620 2 4GHz 16GB 12X300GB SAS Raid 507168 B21 | eBay
I thought it was a pretty decent deal considering it comes with 12 300GB SAS drives. The only thing it needed was some rails but these are <$30 on eBay.
I ended up winning this: Proliant DL180 G6 Dual Quad Core E5620 2 4GHz 16GB 12X300GB SAS Raid 507168 B21 | eBay
I thought it was a pretty decent deal considering it comes with 12 300GB SAS drives. The only thing it needed was some rails but these are <$30 on eBay.
Here's a better question maybe - what about options for L5520 and no-CPU just HS versions? L5639's are cheaper than L5630's now.
The CTO's start at around 275ish shipped with no trays and 1 PSU. Add in 2 L5639's (280ish) plus Raid Card ($100) plus ram and I suppose your pretty close to the original (1-200 more) which is a hell of a lot better than 800 more.....
Plus this way you get 4 more cores.
Plus this way you get 4 more cores.