http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00710263/c00710263.pdf

Mental, eh?

Mine is configured like this:

- Dual redundant PSUs.
- 2x quad-core Xeons at 2.0 GHz. (Yes, you read correctly. That's 8 
cores in total.)
- 4x 1 GB RAM (i.e., 4 GB RAM on two channels.)
- 6x SAS 72 GB HDs spinning at 10,000 RPM. (Configured as two RAID-1 
arrays with one hot spare and one cold spare.)

Points of interest:

- 1U rack-mount form factor. (It's bloody heavy BTW.)

- It comes with sliding rails and a bendy cable arm to automatically 
fold or extend the cables as you slide the server into or out of the 
rack. Completely tool-less installation. Everything snaps into place. (I 
have *no idea* how the hell you take it apart again, should you want to.)

- When mine arrived, I had to open it up and install the optional extras 
myself. In particular, it is highly non-obvious how to remove the air 

had to install the second CPU and the second pair of RAM boards.

- The CPU chip comes inside a "processor installation tool". This 
consists of a handle to hold it by, and when you press down it's 
supposed to release the chip [but doesn't]; The chip itself doesn't 
appear to have any pins, which is kinda weird.

- There's a button on the front that turns on a light at the back. So if 
you have a rack with 10 of them, you can figure out which one to plug 
your cables into.

- There's a little schematic on the front of the server showing you 
where all the components are. And each one as a little LED next to it 
that turns red if that component fails. That's the fans (it has 6), the 
individual CPUs (both of them), the individual RAM boards (of which 
there can be up to 8), the dual-redundant PSUs, even the freakin' 
battery on the RAID controller!

- Front-mounted hot-swap drive bays. (I've got 6 drives - and you know 
what? Each one is tiny, yet arrived in a really huge box!)

- Each drive has an activity light and a failure light. (One colour 
indicates failure, the other indicates "pre-failure warning event".)

- When you select a drive or group of drives in the RAID configuration 
program, those drives physically light up blue in the rack. Isn't that nice?

- It uses only ECC RAM. In addition to that, you can configure the RAM 
controller to mirror your RAM at the hardware level, and even setup "hot 
spare" RAM. As if ECC wasn't enough on its own!

- The server has 6 fans. Six freaking fans. Six of 'em! When I first 
turned it on, it sounded like a washing machine on a fast spin cycle. I 
thought I was going to go deaf! >_< Fortunately, after about 30 seconds 
they all throttled down, and now the server is mostly inaudible.

- It comes with a remote management system that lets you turn the server 
on and off remotely, check for hardware faults remotely, save a crash 
dump even though the OS isn't running, reflash the various firmware 
remotely and so on.

- You can set a hardware timer so that if the HP device driver doesn't 
send a heartbeat message every X seconds (i.e., your OS has crashed), 
the server automatically does a hard reset.

- The server has a firmware ROM, and a backup ROM. If one doesn't work, 
it uses the other. On top of that, the server has an internal USB port 
on the motherboard itself so you can install a firmware update from a 
USB flash drive. Clearly somebody has had far too long to think about 
all this!

- Hmm. Availability, much? On top of that, there's the warranty. If you 
buy a fridge from Argos, it has a warranty. The warranty says that if it 
breaks, they will [eventually] fix it for free, or replace it. It might 
take you a month or two though. HP say they will have a technition 
on-site by the next business day, and replacement parts will arrive 
on-site within 5 business days. And we didn't even pay for their 
extended service plan, this is just the default support level!

- The server consumes up to 1,000 W of electrical power and generates up 
to 3,300 BTUs of heat per hour.


a bargin, really. I mean, *damn*! It's got 8 cores in total, it's got 
fault-tolerance by the bucket, it's got hot-swap components all over the 
place, it's got sophisticated diagnostic hardware, it's got a truckload 
of remote management, it even comes with a CD that loads all the drivers 
and installs Windows for you! And *if*, by some improbable _miracle_, it 
breaks somehow, they promise to fix it for free. Within 5 business days. 
WHAT THE HELL MORE DO YOU WANT?!?!! >_<

Seriously. This is the puppy.

...although, having just said all that, the cable arm isn't as nice as 
the Dell one. It's a bit flimsy, and bends in planes it shouldn't. Also, 
the automated installer doesn't support Windows 2000 Server, which is 
what the company IT department wanted me to use. Wasted a few hours on 
that one. But that's about all I can actually find to complain about.

PS. What *the hell* is a "PPM"? And why is it 80% heatsink??

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