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:
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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I have to ask, why no comparison of the IBM Flex System x440 node?