ProLiant servers of Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) are highly utilized throughout the world. These HPE servers are notable for their scalability and reliability, which makes them desirable for a wide variety of organizations.
HPE first released its ninth generation (Gen9) of ProLiant servers in 2014. Subsequently, in 2017, HPE released the tenth generation (Gen10). With three years of product evolution between Gen9 and Gen10, there are some important differences to understand.
To help you determine which generation is the best fit for your organization’s needs, let’s take a closer look at the similarities and differences between HPE ProLiant Gen9 and Gen10 servers.
Overview of HPE ProLiant Servers
At a fundamental level, HPE ProLiant servers consist of DDR memory, storage, and network adapters. Taken together this is commonly known as “HPE Server Options”. HPE Server Options are intended to offer high levels of productivity for any size workload, emphasize reliability, and remain affordable depending on your budget. This concept makes HPE ProLiant Gen10 servers with configurable HPE Server Options a great choice for many different environments ranging from small businesses to large enterprise-level data centers.
In fact, the tenth generation of HPE ProLiant servers offers IT leaders many different options when it comes to building an optimal environment to meet their needs. Gen10 servers include racks with multiple height, width, and depth options, as well as power distribution units (PDU) ranging from small to enterprise scale. Moreover, Gen10 servers offer virtual machine (VM) capabilities. Gen10 servers were also designed for use in hybrid cloud environments. Part of the reason for this is that the new scalable CPUs from Intel (discussed below) are optimized based on workload for the hybrid cloud.
HPE Gen9 vs. Gen10: CPU and Memory
HPE Gen10 servers provide Intelligent System Tuning (IST), which enhances performance through core boosting, jitter smoothing, and workload matching. When it comes to processors, HPE ProLiant Gen9 servers include Intel’s Xeon E5-2600 v3/v4 for DL100, DL300, and ML300 ranges. By comparison, Gen10 servers offer Xeon v5 Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum CPUs with as many as 28 cores per processor. These newer Xeon v5 processors translate to a 27% increase in core and a 71% increase in performance compared to Gen9 servers.
Gen9 and Gen10 servers offer IT leaders multiple options when it comes to HPE memory types and DIMM sizes to best meet their performance demands. Gen10 servers include HPE Standard Memory as well as HPE SmartMemory for workloads with intense memory demands. HPE SmartMemory provides 2666 MegaTransfers per second (MT / sec) and HPE Fast Fault Tolerance technology. Gen10 servers provide fast permanent memory—commonly called “Persistent Memory”. Persistent Memory has the potential to reach the terabyte level. Specifically, HPE Scalable Persistent Memory is made up of three primary components, which include dedicated flash memory for stability, DRAM to speed up applications, and a backup power supply for optimal data transfer from DRAM to flash.
HPE ProLiant Gen10 servers also provide a 66% increase in memory bandwidth for memory-intensive applications compared to Gen9 servers, as is evidenced by the following comparative data points:
Gen10 vs. Gen9 Memory Bandwidth Comparison
- HPE ProLiant Gen10: 12 Channels x 2666 data transfer rate x 8 bytes = 256 GB / sec
- HPE ProLiant Gen9: 8 channels x 2400 data transfer rate x 8 bytes = 154 GB / sec
HPE Gen9 vs. Gen10: Server Storage
In comparison to Gen9 servers, Gen10 server storage includes solid state drives (SSDs), hard disk drives (HDDs), and HPE Smart Array Controllers. Gen10 servers’ new line of enterprise RAID controllers helps maximize data availability, performance, and storage capacity. Specifically, they provide up to 1.6 million I/O operations per second (IOPS) and 65% better performance compared to Gen9 servers. Moreover, Gen10 controllers use as much as 45% less power compared to Gen9. The new mixed mode of Gen10 offers great flexibility via host bus adapter (HBA) and RAID simultaneously on one controller. In turn, this efficiency makes the PCIe slot available for additional utilization.
HPE Gen9 vs. Gen10: Security
Compared to Gen9 HPE ProLiant servers, Gen10 offers enhanced security through HPE’s Silicon Root of Trust and run-time firmware verification, which protect against cyberattacks and malware respectively. HPE server networking adapters assist in the prevention, detection, and recovery from cyberattacks through the protection of data, applications, and server infrastructure by authenticating firmware through HPE Root of Trust architecture. Moreover, Gen10 hardware security is bolstered by HPE Chassis Intrusion Detection Kits.
HPE Gen9 vs. Gen10: Expansion
HPE designed both Gen9 and Gen10 ProLiant servers to be expandable. This expansion allows the servers to bring on board more memory, larger hard disks, and other additional components. For example, Gen10 servers can start with as many as 28 cores and be subsequently expanded to 36 cores or more, which means the internal storage of Gen10 servers can reach upwards of 459 TB.
Similarly, Gen9 HPE ProLiant servers are also quite expandable as they can start with as many as 22 cores and expand to 36. Moreover, some Gen9 models include optional risers with two or three slots each, as well as expansion slots that can be utilized as needed. These include both half-length, full-height slots and full-height, half-length slots.
HPE Server Hardware and Services You Can Trust
At Curvature, we are experts in both Gen9 and Gen10 HPE ProLiant servers. Based on our decades of experience, we will help you maximize your existing HPE server infrastructure by providing you with cost-effective expansion options. Additionally, if a refresh of your server hardware is needed, we have many options for you to choose from.
Our server hardware inventory is well-stocked and always available at our distribution centers around the world (AMER, EMEA, and APAC). This global reach gives you the peace of mind of Next Business Day (NBD) shipments to nearly anywhere in the world. Plus, we provide a limited lifetime warranty on almost all our products. Curvature’s Professional Services, through Park Place Technologies, will install and set up your new server and then provide ongoing world-class third party maintenance so that you enjoy maximum server performance and uptime.
For more information on expanding your server infrastructure, upgrading your server hardware, or receiving third-party support you can trust, reach out to Curvature today!
