HP BL660c vs Dell M820 – A Comparison

If you are a recurring reader to this blog, you’ll know that I work for Dell (1 year as of August 15) which makes me a bit bias toward Dell.  However, with the recent announcements of 4 socket blade servers based on Intel’s E5-4600 processor by HP and Dell, I thought it would be interesting to see how they line up.  With the attempt to be unbiased, I’ve listed everything I thought was relative about both servers so that you, the reader, could make your own decision about which server would work best in your environment.  I welcome any feedback, thoughts or comments below.  The data below is from HP and Dell’s websites and is current as of 8.14.12.

Updated 8.15.12 – Changed bottom CPU offering on Dell (originally omitted.)  Added PDF version of this table.

HP ProLiant BL660c Blade Server Dell PowerEdge M820 Blade Server
Top CPU Offered Intel® Xeon® E5-4650 (2.7GHz/8-core/20MB/130W) Intel® Xeon® E5-4650 2.70 GHz, 20M Cache, 8.0GT/s QPI, Turbo, 8 Core, 130W 
Bottom CPU Offered Intel® Xeon® E5-4603 (2.0GHz/4-core/10MB/95W) Intel® Xeon® E5-4603 2.00GHz, 10M Cache, 6.4GT/s QPI, No Turbo, 4 Core, 95W
Total DIMM Slots 32 48
Maximum Memory 1TB 1.5TB
# of LAN On Motherboard (LOM) Ports 4 4
LOM Offerings HP FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port Broadcom 57810-k Dual port 10Gb 
  HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port Intel x520-k Dual Port 10Gb
  HP Ethernet 1Gb 2-port Qlogic QMD8262-k Dual Port 10Gb
# of Hot-Swap Drive Bays 2 2 or 4
Drives Supported 900GB 6G SAS 10K 900GB 10K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 6Gbps
  600GB 6G SAS 10K 900GB 10K RPM Self-Encrypting Serial-Attach SCSI 6Gbps 
  450GB 6G SAS 10K 600GB 10K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 6Gbps
  300GB 6G SAS 10K 300GB 15K RPM Self-Encrypting SAS 6Gbps
  300GB 6G SAS 15K 300GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 6Gbps
  146GB 6G SAS 15K 146GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 6Gbps
  1TB 6G SAS 7.2K (Midline) 1TB 7.2K RPM Near-Line SAS
  500GB 6G SAS 7.2K (Midline) 1TB 7.2K RPM Self-Encrypting Near-Line SAS 6Gbps,FIPS140-2
  1TB 6G SATA 7.2K (Midline) 500GB 7.2K RPM Near-Line SAS 6Gbps
  500GB 6G SATA.2K (Midline) 350GB PCIe SSD
  400GB 3G SATA MLC (Mainstream SSD) 400GB Solid State Drive Mainstream SAS SLC 6Gbps
  200GB 3G SATA MLC (Mainstream SSD) 200GB Solid State Drive Mainstream SAS SLC 6Gbps
  100GB 3G SATA MLC (Mainstream SSD) 200GB Solid State Drive SATA 3GB MLC
  400GB 6G SAS SLC (Performance SSD) 100GB Solid State Drive SATA 3GB MLC
  200GB 6G SAS SLC (Performance SSD)  
  800GB 6G SAS MLC (Mainstream SSD)  
  400GB 6G SAS MLC (Mainstream SSD)  
  200GB 6G SAS MLC (Mainstream SSD)  
Onboard RAID Controller Yes Yes
RAID Cache 512MB 512MB (H710 controller), 1GB Upgradeable (H710p controller)
RAID Options RAID 0, 1 RAID 0,1,10,5,50 (6,60 via RAID controller upgrade)
# of I/O expansion mezzanine slots 3 4
Mezzanine Card Expansion Offerings HP FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port Broadcom 5719 Quad Port 1Gb Ethernet
  HP Flex-10 10Gb 2-port  Intel i350 Quad Port 1Gb Ethernet
  HP Ethernet 1Gb 4-port  Intel x520-k Dual Port 10Gb
  HP LPe1205A 8Gb Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter (Emulex) Intel 10GbE -x/k Dual Port
  HP QMH2572 8Gb Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter (Qlogic) Broadcom 57810-k Dual port 10Gb 
  HP Smart Array P721m/2G FBWC 4-ports Ext Mezzanine SAS Controller Brocade BR1741M-k 10Gb
  HP Smart Array P721m/512 4-ports Ext Mezzanine SAS Controller Qlogic QMD8262-k Dual Port 10Gb
  HP QDR/EN InfiniBand 10Gb Dual Port  Emulex LPE1205-M 8Gbps Fibre Channel, Dual Port
  HP FDR/EN InfiniBand 10/40Gb Dual Port Qlogic QME2572 8Gbps Fibre Channel, Dual Port
    Mellanox Connect X3 FDR 10 Infinband, Dual Port
Standard USB / SD Ports One (1) integrated USB connector and one (1) MicroSDHC connector Two (2) Integrated and Three (3) External USB Ports; SD Slots Optional
Additional USB and SD Options HP 2GB USB Flash Media Drive Key Single 1GB SD Card
  HP 4GB MicroSDHC Flash Media Kit Single 2GB SD Card
    Redundant 1Gb SD Cards
    Redundant 2GB SD Cards

Here is a PDF version of this chart:

HP BL660c vs Dell M820

 

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 15 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace.  Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization.  Kevin works for Dell as a Server Specialist covering the Global 500 East market.

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