Upgrading an old HP ProLiant ML350 Gen5

[TheBitFighter]

Hi there!

So i obtained an old HP ProLiant ML350 Gen5 from my old school when they upgraded their servers. I now want to use it for my own private and business applications.

As this piece of hardware has seen some years of use, I now want to upgrade it to give the machine a bit more punch.

But during my search for compatible hardware some questions arose:

 

1) I only want to run some applications on this server (Jira, ButBucket, Jira Helpdesk, Jenkins, a mail server, a web server, owncloud and a media streaming service but I'm not quite sure which program I'm going to use for this purpose yet. Everything is running on Ubuntu Server). Is the additional power worth the upgrade from one to two CPUs, more RAM and SSDs instead of HDDs?

 

2) The HP seems to need a PPM module to be able to run a second CPU. Is this the right part for it: https://www.amazon.com/HP-407748-001-Voltage-Regulator-Proliant/dp/B000W7BQW2

 

3) The current memory is DDR2 and runs on a clockspeed of 667 MHz. Does the new memory have to have the same clockspeed or can I use faster memory without running into compability issues?

 

4) I want to replace the old 2.5 inch HHDs with new 256 GB SSDs but the SLEDS seem proprietary even though the drives seem to be not. Are normal 2.5 inch SSDs fine with these?

 

5) I found a cooler that looked exactly the same as my already installed one but it is advertised for ML350 Gen4. Will it also work with a Gen5? https://www.amazon.com/HP-Heatsink-Xeon-Proliant-ML350/dp/B0009H1CQ0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469524252&sr=8-1&keywords=hp+cpu+heatsink+proliant+ml350

 

6) Does anybody know if this server has onboard gigabit ethernet?

 

Thanks for the help

Fabian

[thepriceyman]

Hi There!

ML350 Gen5's are pretty ancient hardware in terms of servers - I had a ML350 g5 a few years ago and it was suprisingly good!

So the server in itself can have a theroetical 2 CPU's however you would need the identical other processor (meaning you would have to buy the identical one that is already in there - also you would need to buy a PPM module - yes correct but I dont think that is the right one - I would have a look through Ebay for the correct one.

As to server software I would put VMWARE ESXI 5.5 (the free version) on it then you can host multiple virtual machines on it for the seperate applications / servers

Server uses a special type of DDR2 ECC memory meaning you have to be picky with the RAM you get as standard DDR2 will not work! (max ram is 32gb even with 2 processors unlike newer HP servers) 

I wouldnt bother with SSD's on a server you wont really notice the difference generally you would fill up the 8 drive bays and give it a RAID 5 or something like that 

heat sink : http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Proliant-ML350-G5-Heatsink-and-Fan-Assembly-413977-001-/310727618786

cheaper to get it on ebay again!

 

The server will have 2 onboard GIGABIT ethernet ports + a ILO4 port which stands for Intergrated Lights Out port esentially you can remote onto the server and remotely configure things such as BIOS, view the screen remotely configure RAID pretty much anything going in there.

 

 

[TheBitFighter]

Thanks dude!

3 hours ago, thepriceyman said:

So the server in itself can have a theroetical 2 CPU's however you would need the identical other processor (meaning you would have to buy the identical one that is already in there - also you would need to buy a PPM module - yes correct but I dont think that is the right one - I would have a look through Ebay for the correct one.

I looked up Amazon and I found the seamingly identical product with the question if this would be supported in a ML350 Gen5 and someone stated he had used it in his servers. Also the CPU is a Intel Xeon E5440 which is easy to get of Ebay so that's the lesser problem.

 

3 hours ago, thepriceyman said:

Server uses a special type of DDR2 ECC memory meaning you have to be picky with the RAM you get as standard DDR2 will not work! (max ram is 32gb even with 2 processors unlike newer HP servers) 

Any criteria I can say if it's compatible or will just HP certified RAM work?

 

3 hours ago, thepriceyman said:

I wouldnt bother with SSD's on a server you wont really notice the difference generally you would fill up the 8 drive bays and give it a RAID 5 or something like that

I wanted to use the server as a kind of "cache" for my storage server as this one stores all the data in a RAID 5 array (3x3 TB of WD Red goodness). So I should rather fill up the bays instead of replacing the drives which are already there, right?

 

And, talking about my storage server, do you have any advice for buying RAID cards for that kind of purpose? Or is onboard RAID good enough?

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 hours ago, thepriceyman said:

Server uses a special type of DDR2 ECC

This would be fbddr2.

[Electronics Wizardy]

23 minutes ago, TheBitFighter said:

I wanted to use the server as a kind of "cache" for my storage server as this one stores all the data in a RAID 5 array (3x3 TB of WD Red goodness). So I should rather fill up the bays instead of replacing the drives which are already there, right?

 

And, talking about my storage server, do you have any advice for buying RAID cards for that kind of purpose? Or is onboard RAID good enough?

A cache won't help you. You going to be limited to gig ethernet. The server should have a raid card built in. If you really want a ton of storage look for something like a dell md1000 and a external sas card.

[thepriceyman]

Onboard RAID is good enough you can only fit 8 drives in there which are normally SAS drives so not conventional SATA.

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

On 7/26/2016 at 7:20 AM, TheBitFighter said:

 

I wanted to use the server as a kind of "cache" for my storage server as this one stores all the data in a RAID 5 array (3x3 TB of WD Red goodness). So I should rather fill up the bays instead of replacing the drives which are already there, right?

 

And, talking about my storage server, do you have any advice for buying RAID cards for that kind of purpose? Or is onboard RAID good enough?

For gig eth you don't need a cache. You limited by gig eth, not the drives.

 

The onboard raid in servers is very good, so don't worry about that.

[Smite]

most of the Gen 5s use FBRam and there should be a few memory compatibility tools out there. it is very specific and other ddr2 memory will not work or even fit into the memory sockets. But rest assured this memory is still generally cheap.