754524-B21

HPE 754524-B21 is a DL180 Gen9 8LFF CTO Server. It belongs to the ProLiant DL180 Gen9 Server range. Go by the part number. Items like this are routinely identical to look at and specific in what they actually fit.

What to check before you buy. Three things decide whether a server will suit the job. The generation, because the processors, memory and controllers that fit one generation generally do not fit the next even where the chassis looks identical. The drive configuration, because a chassis built for small form factor disks cannot take large form factor ones without a different cage and backplane. And how it is specified to be populated, since a second processor usually needs its own heatsink and may enable memory slots that are otherwise unusable. It is also worth asking what is physically included: rails, bezel, drive carriers and the remote management licence are all commonly sold separately from the chassis.

How we supply it. Supplied new where available, otherwise as tested stock with warranty, subject to availability. If you are unsure whether this is the right part, give us the model it is going into and we will confirm it. Quotes by the next working day.

754524-B21 is an HPE ProLiant DL180 Gen9 supplied as a configure-to-order chassis. It is not a working server as it ships: there is no processor, no memory and no drives in the box. You specify those separately, which is the point of buying it this way.

The DL180 Gen9 is a two-socket 2U built around drive capacity at a lower price than the DL380, which is why it turns up as a backup target, file server or storage node. It is a 2U rack machine with 2 processor sockets, taking Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 or v4 processors.

To put this into service you will need a processor, memory and drives, plus an operating system. The chassis takes two processors, but neither is included and a single-processor build is normal, with the caveat below about the slots that only come alive with the second processor fitted.

Storage is 8 x 3.5-inch (large form factor) bays. These are hot-plug bays, so a failed drive can be swapped without powering the server down. A further 4 LFF bays can be added as an option, taking it to 12 in total. Large form factor bays take the highest-capacity drives, which is what you want when the job is bulk storage rather than transactions.

The storage controller is the B140i, software RAID built into the chipset. Software RAID is adequate for boot volumes and light workloads; a database or virtualisation host usually wants a hardware controller with a write cache instead.

There are 16 DIMM slots for RDIMM, LRDIMM DDR4.

Expansion runs to 3 PCIe slots (some of which only become available once a second processor is fitted) with networking from the HPE Ethernet 1Gb 2-port i350 Adapter.

The fans are non-redundant, which means a fan failure is a service event rather than something the server rides out.

Management is HPE iLO with Intelligent Provisioning, which gives you remote console, power control and health monitoring independently of the installed operating system.

Worth getting right when you specify one of these:

• Whether you need the second processor. It is not only about cores: on these platforms some memory slots and some PCIe slots are wired to the second socket and stay inert until it is populated, so a one-processor build is cheaper but caps both memory bandwidth and expansion.
• How you populate the 16 DIMM slots. Filling them evenly across the memory channels matters more than the total figure — the same capacity spread correctly is measurably faster than the same capacity in too few slots.
• Whether the embedded software RAID is enough, or whether this needs a Smart Array controller with a write cache added at the same time.
• Drive carriers. ProLiant bays take HPE carriers, so bare drives bought separately will not simply slide in.

Green Code Technologies supplies HPE ProLiant servers from stock in the UK. If you want this quoted as a complete build — processor, memory, drives and controller specified for the workload you have in mind — ask us and we will put the configuration together and confirm it against HPE’s QuickSpecs before you order.