HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 review

HP has sharpened its focus on SMBs recently, with a range of affordable entry-level server systems. It’s now revamped its compact MicroServer, and in this exclusive review we take a closer look at the Gen8 version.

It’s principally designed to be easy to set up and use, and is built to be shown off as well, since HP offers the unit with a range of coloured front panel kits.

Prices start as low as £308 exc VAT, for which you get a dual-core 2.3GHz Celeron plus a 2GB stick of DDR3. If you want more horsepower, HP also offers a version with a 2.5GHz Pentium G2020T. For hard disks, you can purchase HP’s non-hotplug SATA drives, and our system was supplied with an optional 500GB HP 6G Midline drive.

The embedded Smart Array B120i chip supports mirrors, stripes and RAID10 arrays, but the four drive bays are cold-swap only. If you want more, you could add a Smart Array P222 SAS/SATA RAID card; this is overkill, though, since the card costs as much as the server. Our review unit was supplied with HP’s optional DVD-RW drive, although its £90 price tag is a little steep.

However, the rest of the offering is impressive. Build quality is superb and the Gen8 model remedies many of its predecessor’s shortcomings. The metal and plastic front door can be locked from the inside, and the four drive carriers behind it are much more solid. The chassis has an LED strip across the front, which acts as an at-a-glance system status indicator.

Internal access is also easier. The entire chassis cover can be removed after releasing two thumbscrews, and the MicroServer’s innards are far less cluttered. There’s nothing obscuring the two DIMM sockets on the right-hand side of the motherboard, and the PCI Express slot on the left is just as easy to access. You don’t need a screwdriver for the latter either, since a quick-release clip holds the card in place. Even the motherboard is simple to remove: just unplug four cables, release a retaining clip on the rear panel, and slide the entire board out the back.

As far as noise and power are concerned, it’s equally accomplished. The Celeron CPU has a large, passive heatsink with all system cooling handled by a single, 12cm fan at the rear. It isn’t silent, but its low noise levels won’t worry a small office. The Celeron has a modest 35W TDP, so the server won’t use up much power either. In idle, we measured the review system drawing only 30W.

The MicroServer Gen8 is a fine candidate for virtualisation testing. Along with an internal USB port, there’s also a microSD card slot on the motherboard’s edge for booting into an embedded hypervisor. However, the two features that really stand out are its remote-management and OS-deployment tools. The original MicroServer supported HP’s optional RAC (remote access card), but this one comes with the standard iLO4 chip found on higher-end ProLiants.

This provides a dedicated network port at the rear and a web interface that delivers masses of data on every system component, plus HP’s Intelligent Provisioning makes OS installation a breeze. You’ll need to upgrade to iLO4 Advanced if you want remote control and virtual media services, though.

Finally, the MicroServer has Gigabit network expansion covered, with its optional eight-port PS1810-8G switch, which is designed to fit snugly on top or underneath the server.

The optional extras can increase the asking price, but HP’s MicroServer Gen8 is a cracking little server, suited to a wide range of tasks. It packs a broad range of features into its modest dimensions, and is highly recommended as a low-cost small-business server or test platform.

Related Posts

Samsung Galaxy S7 Review: A Great Phone in its Day, but Don’t Buy One “Your Payment Requires Additional Review” in Zelle – What Does it Mean? Private Internet Access Review Pluto TV Review—Is It Worth It? ExpressVPN Review – Unbiased and Tested In-House CyberGhost Review How to Use GIPHY in Slack How to Add a Footer to Only One Page in Google Docs How to Convert Rows to Columns in Google Sheets