HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 X3216, 8GB-U, 4LFF, non-hot-pluggable, SATA, 200W power supply, 1J VOS entry-level server

Product Information

In our VDBench Workload Analysis the HPE MicroServer was able to put up some impressive numbers considering just how small it is. Peak highlights include 194K IOPS for 4K read, 150K IOPS for 4K write, 1.9GB/s for 64K read, and 1.7GB/s for 64K write. The MicroServer stayed under 1ms in both our SQL and Oracle test with highlights being 197K IOPS SQL, 178K IOPS SQL 90-10, 149K IOPS SQL 80-20, 134K IOPS Oracle, 172K IOPS Oracle 90-10, and 152K IOPS Oracle 80-20. The MicroServer once again saw a sub-millisecond in LC Boot with a peak of 60K IOPS. So overall when looking at how much storage I/O one can drive through the onboard SATA controller, it should be able to keep up with whichever four SATA devices you can mount inside, peaking at just under 2GB/s sequential read.

Upon unboxing the HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10, one will immediately notice a diminutive stature. The entire unit is 9.25″ x 9.06″ x 10.00″. Finished in a matte material, one gets the updated HPE logo and two front panel USB 3.0 ports. The top of the unit has a slim optical drive bay, however we suspect most people will use it for a SSD if at all. HPE ProLiant Microserver Gen10 Front Installed Windows Server 2019 Eval on to bare metal, Installs ok, but then goes super sluggish when running Hyper-V to the point of being unusable. Updated to the latest BIOS etc using the SPP iso.On the right rear of the unit, we find the primary system I/O. This includes four 1GbE NICs, a VGA and DisplayPort (for management) and four USB 3.2 Gen1 ports. HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus Rear IO View Next, we switched over to our VDI clone test, Full and Linked. For VDI Full Clone (FC) Boot, the HPE MicroServer stayed under 1ms until about 105K IOPS and peaked at 108,590 IOPS at a latency of 1.18ms. HPE IT investment solutions help you transform into a digital business with IT economics that aligns with your business goals. Continuing to add features such as a higher-end PCH and doubling bays may sound great, but then feature creep starts to bring it into HPE ProLiant ML30 Gen10 positioning. When we reviewed the ProLiant ML30 Gen10 we used an 8x 2.5″ model and that is based on a Xeon E platform as well. Our thought is that HPE is trying to service a specific market with the MSG10+ in the context of the company’s broader portfolio. HPE has an option for all-flash, it is simply a different server. Looking at software support, HPE covers off on most of the popular options. Microsoft Windows Server 2016 and 2019 are on the list, along with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.6, 7.7, 8.0, 8.1 and ClearOS. On the virtualization front VMware ESXi 6.5 U3 and 6.7 U3 are the supported options but require the Xeon E CPU.

For random 4K write, the MicroServer stayed under 1ms until about 150K IOPS which was roughly its peak at about 250µs latency before falling off in performance and latency jumping sharply. The HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus v2 server comes with an available complete set of services from HPE Pointnext Services, delivering confidence, reducing risk, and helping you realize agility and stability.With Oracle 80-20 the MicroServer hit a peak of 152,129 IOPS with a latency of 539µs before a slight drop. you want to compare embeds like top routers Nighhawk, WRT32, ok, they eat just a bit less energy but 4 to 10x slower performance on all ciphers – cant serve more than 1 user For performance testing we opted to configure our HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen 10 Plus with four Hynix SE4011 SATA SSDs. This flash configuration allowed us to better stress the platform with our application workloads as well as show peak storage performance through the storage controller using our vdbench workloads. The HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus v2 server measures 4.68 in (11.89 cm) and can be placed either horizontally or vertically to fit different customer workspaces. On the rear of the unit, we can see all of the ports and I/O surrounding a central fan. The fan is the only moving part in this generation. It is, therefore, non-redundant but half as likely to experience a fan failure as a two fan unit. HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus Rear

Our next local-storage application benchmark consists of a Percona MySQL OLTP database measured via SysBench. This test measures average TPS (Transactions Per Second), average latency, and average 99th percentile latency as well. In our HPE MicroServer Gen10 Plus Review we are going to cover a lot of ground, so get ready. This compact server is designed to be smaller and higher performing than the previous generation. What we have found over a few weeks of working with the system in various configurations is that this is an excellent platform.For VDI Linked Clone (LC) Boot, the MicroServer had sub-millisecond latency performance throughput with a peak of 60,364 IOPS and a latency of 977.3µs. All pre-configured models ship standard with one or more country-specific 6 ft/1.83m C5 power cords depending on models. The motherboard tray can be removed by removing two screws giving one access to the inside including the CPU, DRAM, PCIe card slot and iLO card. Its a tiny bit of cool engineering HPE included that most other brands would skip over. We wanted to point out a few key features. There is still a USB 2.0 Type-A internal port. We wish this could have been a USB 3 port but this is the same as the previous generation. HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus Internal USB Type A

On the topic of bombshells, one may have noticed the heatsink difference. The new MicroServer Gen10 Plus has a much larger heatsink with copper heat pipes to aid in cooling. While the Gen10 used an AMD Opteron SoC with up to 35W TDP, the new MicroServer Gen10 Plus uses Intel CPUs with TDPs up to 71W officially. HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 And Plus Heatsinks You can see the notch on the upper left side of the foam insert in the photo above. Moving the power supply to an external unit allowed HPE to increase the component density, clean up the cabling, and remove a fan from the assembly. MicroServer Gen10 Plus v Gen10 Motherboards The motherboard already has HPE’s iLO5 remote management controller chip onboard and to use it, you’ll need the aforementioned iLO enablement kit (part no. P13788-B21). It’s a great upgrade for the price as it fits in a dedicated bay above the PCI-E slot, provides its own network port and delivers many of the management features found in HPE’s high-end enterprise servers. On the Gen10 we had two USB 3 and two USB 2 ports, with the Gen10 Plus, they are all USB 3.2 on the rear of the Gen10 Plus. That is a nice upgrade. HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus PCIe And ILO Riser Installed One can also see a pair of 1GbE network ports. Networking is handled via Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5720. There are a total of two ports and these are detected in most OSes out of the box. HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 NIC Ubuntu

Support

For 2.5″ drives, you will need a 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter to mount 2.5″ drives, such as SSDs, into the MSG10+. This is not a huge deal, but it does add cost to the system. It would have been extremely cool if HPE could have found a way to add two 2.5″ SATA bays just below the 3.5″ bays even if they were for 7mm SATA only. In our HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 review, we are splitting the hardware overview into two parts. First, we are going to look at the general purpose server hardware. We are then going to focus on the storage-centric aspects of the server. The ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 is a storage-focused box so we wanted to align our review along that axis. HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Hardware Overview Tried installing the “supported” SmartArray card and it does work but it’s next to impossible to configure – BIOS doesn’t work just loops, offline SSA doesn’t work. Only way in the end was a Windows 10 to Go and run SSA on that. HP’s “support” were totally unfamiliar with the product too and quite unfamiliar with how things ought to work. The HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus is small. It measures 4.68″ x 9.65″ x 9.65″ (11.89 x 24.5 x 24.5cm.) it is also one attractive box to have around especially if you have excellent lighting to make the HPE logo pop. One can see a power button as well as status activity lights. The two USB ports are USB 3.2 Gen2 ports with means they are capable of 10Gbps operation. HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus Front