HP ProLiant ML350 G5 review

Even power management is on the menu, as you get a 60-day evaluation of HP's latest Power Meter, Power Cap and Power Regulator options. The Power Meter offers graphs and tables showing consumption in Watts or Btu/hr, while the Power Cap feature is used to put limits on consumption.

The Power Regulator supports both AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon MP and DP processors, and dynamically controls power consumption by throttling back the processors when demand is low. Alternatively, you can set them to run at their lowest speed or highest performance, or hand control over to the OS where it can use Intel's Demand Based Switching or AMD's PowerNow instead.

The management bonanza doesn't stop here either, as you have HP's bootable SmartStart CD-ROM to get you off the starting blocks. This simplifies server installation by gathering together user and system information, loading drivers for all devices and automating OS installation.

Next up is HP's Systems Management Homepage, which provides a complete status report on all server components plus colour-coded alerts. And then there's HP's Systems Insight Manager (SIM) software suite, which delivers enhanced browser-based remote server monitoring. Any HP server with an Insight agent can be accessed remotely, and SIM provides a detailed report on system operations plus extensive alerting facilities.

There's no denying the ML350 G5 has masses of expansion potential, although the glut of 5.25in bays does reduce storage capacity substantially. Nevertheless, this is one very quiet and very well built server that offers good value and some quality remote management features.

Author: Dave Mitchell