Skip Links

Network World

  • Social Web 
  • Email 
  • Close

HP's 'shorty' blade server takes fresh approach

c3000 series rates highly for storage in the branch office
By Tom Henderson, Rand Dvorak , Network World , 10/29/2007
Newsletter Signup
  • Share/Email
  • Tweet This
  • Comment
  • Print

The big question when we opened the crate containing HP's BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure was: Is this thing a blade server or is it a modular server put into a 6U rack profile? It's a bit of both. 

With its brand-new c3000 hybrid chassis, HP has remade its now-famous tower enclosure and the server's guts into a flexible blade-enclosure format, retaining all the niceties of discrete servers but adding the flexibility of rack/blade modularity. HP's c3000 Enclosure has a horizontal blade design that can accommodate as many as four full-width c-class blade devices or eight half-width server or storage blades.

Unlike HP's higher-end c7000-class blades, the c3000-family blade server is not the typical blade enclosure designed to be piled high and deep inside a network operations center. Instead, the c3000 we tested seems best suited for branch offices where it'll take up just the first six rack spaces, ostensibly sharing the rack real estate with other supporting equipment (routers, storage-area-network blocks and other network devices or appliances).


How we tested HP's BladeSystem
Archive of Network World tests
Subscribe to the Network Product Test Results newsletter

The overall performance of these blades was quite good, but we have to note that HP knew our blade server tests incorporate a "green" element -- we measure the electricity required to drive these things -- and shipped low-end CPUs, thereby optimizing it for low power consumption.

HP also supplied two server blades, the HP BL460c (based on a 64-bit Intel dual-core 1.6GHz Xeon 5110 CPU; this is the slowest one shipped on the blade); and the HP BL465c that uses Advanced Micro Devices' 2110 HE CPU (1.8GHz, 64-bit, dual-core, also the slowest and smallest shipped with an AMD CPU). Both server blades came with 1GB of memory and have similar serial-attached-SCSI drive connections.

BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure OVERALL RATING
4.63
Company: HP Cost: $22,100 as tested. Pros: Comprehensive "data center in a box" opotions; strong management and deployment tools. Cons: Administration tools need unification; number of options available is staggering.
The breakdown   
Management/monitoring 25% 4.5
Power efficiency/performance 25% 4.5
Flexibility/features 25% 5
Serviceability 25% 4.5
TOTAL SCORE  4.63
Scoring Key: 5: Exceptional; 4: Very good; 3: Average; 2: Below average; 1: Consistently subpar
Click to see: NetResults for c3000

  • Share/Email
  • Tweet This
  • Comment
  • Print
Partner Content

Explore the Ultrium Edge

The powerful tape technology can address data security with tape encryption as well as long term data protection.

Find Out More

Disk and Tape Square Off

Discover what disk and tape really cost and which solution provides lower total cost of ownership and optimizes energy use for your organization

Download this White Paper

Don't Fall for the Myths

The Clipper Group explores the truth behind the myths of tape, digging into the misconceptions in the disk vs. tape debate.

Review this information

information examination

An examination of information security issues, methods and securing data with LTO-4 tape drive encryption

Read this analysis

Comment
Login
Forgot your account info?
Add comment
Anonymous comments subject to approval. Register here for member benefits.
Have a NetworkWorld account? Log in here. Register now for a free account.

Videos

rssRss Feed