HP punts four new ProLiant servers at SMBs

Hewlett-Packard is pushing four new ProLiant servers destined for the wiring closets of mid-sized businesses. According to HP's Proliant marketing director John Gromala, the new systems will revamp the company's SMB gear with more compact systems and lower prices. The new systems are listed below. We will divide the unit specs …

[Matt Bryant]

Nice to see HP staying with both options!

Was a bit worried we'd see more new Xeon boxes than Opterons.

[Terry]

The key element is the HDDs

HP have been losing out to Dell at the bottom end of the market over internal disk capacity. HP went with 2.5" drives in their low end DL servers, where Dell stuck with 3.5" drives which offered a much higher capacity. It looks like we won't be seeing a 2.5" 300GB disk in the near future, so HP had to release these boxes to stay competitive.

[Craig Foster]

RE: The key element is the HDDs

I *like* the HP 2.5" SAS drives. They're fast, quiet and cool.

We've got a site with three HPs and they're still drowned out by the one Dell 745 NAS.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Craig Foster

you're making noise comparisons of current gen HP servers to 3 gen old Dell ones?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about an Itanium Proliant?

when's that one coming out? surely with Common System Interconnect it ought to be relatively simple to get Proliants with Itanium Inside (TM) as well as Xeon inside? Wouldn't this minimise HP's engineering development and ongoing support costs, making Itanium more affordable for anyone wanting lower end HP-UX and VMS machines, as well as offering a nice entry level box for anyone who may have other reasons for wanting Itanium?

[Michael Duke]

RE: What about an Itanium Proliant?

Integrity RX2660 and BL860c are the low end Itainium boxes.

I doubt you will ever see an Itainium ProLiant IMHO.

[Anonymous Coward]

Four HDD's???

Umm, four HDD's in 1U isn't new - and if it's a first for HP they should keep it quiet. Apple's first Xserve in 2002 had 4 HDD's (in caddies too), SuperMicro have always had a crap-load of 1U 4 HDD chassis... I'm too bored to make a longer list.

Admittedly, an HP chassis is full of plastic "stuff", strange boxy hinged metal things and no space for cables.

Like Ikea, HP are purveyors of self-assembly furniture, which more often than not, come with the wrong bits.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I doubt you will ever see an Itainium ProLiant IMHO."

Why would that be? Aren't Intel being entirely honest about the virtues of QuickPath (Common System Interconnect's official name)? If QuickPath does do what it's supposed to, how long will HP be able to afford to duplicate low-end hardware and firmware/software engineering and support resources, just for the sake of internal HP politics?