HP ML350 G5 – 26 Months Later (Part 1)
I got my HP ML350 G5 just about 26 months ago, and as I was sitting here today, thinking about it and what a difference it has made, I thought it was time to provide a real world look at it's strengths and weaknesses after living with it for over two years. We all see reviews of new hardware, and they're interesting, but it's not often we get a chance to hear how a machine is to live with, day in and day out over an extended period. After all, it's easy to love it during the honeymoon, when it's new and fresh. But how is it after the bloom has worn off? Certainly in some cases, not nearly as exciting and lovely as when you first got it.
And, since I seem to be stuck in a marriage metaphor today, the ML350 and I are now very much like an old married couple. Maybe it's not quite as exciting, and certainly the ML350 is no longer young as it was, but we do seem to fit well together.
Just to save you looking back at specs, this ML350 was just about the top of the line when I got it. Obviously, that's no longer true, but it's still pretty impressive:
2 - Xeon 5130 dual core processors
8 - 2 GB FBDIMM RAM modules
8 - 72 GB, 15,000 RPM, 2.5" SFF SAS drives
1 - HP Smart Array P400 RAID controller w/ 512 Mb
2 - Power supplies
To this all HP portion, I've added:
1 - Adaptec 48300 SAS controller
2 - 36 GB, 10k, 3.5" SAS drives (RAID-1 system disk)
2 - 400 GB, 7.2k, SATA-II drives (RAID-0)
(in case you're wondering, the RAID-0 is for storing ISOs and other downloads. Everything on it is completely replaceable, but it lets me use the SAS array strictly for storing VMs on.)
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we’ll look at what I like and dislike about the ML-350 next.