HP ProLiant DL4x170h G6 review

The DL4x170h drew 28W in standby. We then powered up each node and took measurements with them running in idle and with SiSoft Sandra pushing all cores on each one to near-maximum utilisation. In idle we saw one, two, three and four nodes draw a total of 115W, 163W, 214W and 250W, and under pressure these figures peaked at 152W, 235W, 315W and 393W respectively.

The embedded Lights-Out 100i controller on each node shares the second Gigabit port and provides a basic remote-management feature set. From its web interface you can reset the node, power it on and off, and do a hard reset. The status of all critical components can be viewed, and the PEF (platform event filtering) feature allows you to select components and assign actions that will be carried out if they fail.

Unlike HP's iLO2 controller, the 100i web interface doesn't provide any power metering or capping tools. However, integrated into the chassis is HP's new PIC (power interface controller), and using the basic PPIC Windows command line utility allows you to apply node performance throttling settings to the entire system.

We'd recommend upgrading the 100i with the advanced package, as the extra KVM over IP and virtual media features were invaluable when it came to installing an OS. If you run a locally managed install you'll need to lose the mouse when adding an optical drive, since each node has only two USB ports.

The ProLiant DL4x170h scores highly for its value and low power consumption, but its cluttered interior fails to impress. The lack of hot-swap capabilities means downtime is a certainty if a node or fan fails, so we'd recommend the Boston Quattro 5500GP if you want superior redundancy in a multinode server.

Author: Dave Mitchell