Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Upgrading an HP ML330 G6 server
Upgrading an HP ML330 G6 server
Last weekend I purchased a second hand HP ML330 G6 server off eBay with the intention of setting up a machine with a decent amount of RAM and CPU cores to run a set of Virtual Machines in VMWare.
In this post I will provide an overview of what I bought and in a forthcoming post I will describe how I have set up the machine to run VMWare.
The ML330 G6 is a tower server which was released in 2009 and contains Xeon CPUs which are based around the Nehalem architecture - the same as that found in the first generation Core i7. The age of the machine means that both the machine itself and RAM / CPU upgrades are remarkably cheap. After the upgrades, the machine is plenty powerful enough for my purposes.
I deliberately chose a server with 2 CPUs - many only come with one installed. The motherboard itself only has 1 CPU slot, with a second processor requiring a mezzanine board. Having a second processor also increases the number of DIMM slots from 9 to 18.
My purchases were as follows:
HP ML330 G6 - �150
- 2 x Xeon 5504 (4 core, 4 thread)
- 8GB DDR3 Unbuffered ECC
- 4 x 250GB HDDs, RAID 5
64GB DDR3 Registered ECC - �65
- 16 x 4GB modules
2 x Intel Xeon 5645 - �51
- 6 core, 12 thread
Total cost: �266
RAM
Having 18 DIMM slots meant that I could get away with using the cheaper 4GB Registered modules. These worked out to be only around �1 per GB. Interestingly the (4x2GB) Unbuffered ECC memory modules that came with the machine cost around �30 second hand - �3.75 per GB.
CPUs
The fastest CPU that the ML330 can take is the Xeon X5650 (2.66Ghz, 6 core, 12 threads). These cost around �45 each on eBay, although can be imported from Aliexpress for around �37.
I chose the E5645, which is the third fastest 6 core CPU that the ML330 can take (2.4Ghz, 6 core, 12 threads) as it offers the best price/performance. I got a good deal at �51 for two, but generally they can be had for around �30 each on eBay.
Benchmarks
I quickly benchmarked the system before and after the upgrade using Geekbench.
| Processor | Cores | Single-Core | Multi-Core |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Xeon E5504 | 4 x 2.0Ghz Gainestown | 1453 | 6753 |
| Intel Xeon E5645 | 6 x 2.4Ghz Gulftown | 1558 | 11251 |
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