HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 Server

The HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 server is powerful, general-purpose server. This server is perfect for businesses of all sizes. This 2U rackmount server has three chassis options to choose from: 8 Bay SFF, 16 Bay SFF, 24 Bay SFF, 12 Bay LFF.

8 Bay SFF

There are many different ways to configure the DL380 Gen9's 8 Bay SFF chassis. The base 8 Bay SFF chassis accepts up to eight 2.5" SAS/SATA hard drives and/or solid-state drives. An optional universal media bay can be installed into Bay1. You can also install optional six NVMe drive bays into Bay2. These NVMe drive bays accept 2.5" NVMe SSDs. Drive bays for this chassis are hot swap. The rear of the 8 Bay SFF chassis includes two type A USB 3.0 ports, four embedded 1GbE RJ45 LAN ports, a dedicated iLO port, a VGA port, a serial connector, a FlexibleLOM (FLOM) card slot, six full-height PCIe slots, and two hot-swap power supply bays.

16 Bay SFF

The 16 Bay SFF chassis for the DL380 Gen9 accepts up to sixteen 2.5" SAS/SATA hard drives and/or solid-state drives. Drive bays for the 16 Bay SFF chassis are hot swap. The rear of the chassis includes two type A USB 3.0 ports, four embedded 1GbE RJ45 LAN ports, a dedicated iLO port, a VGA port, a serial connector, a FlexibleLOM (FLOM) card slot, six full-height PCIe slots, and two hot-swap power supply bays.

24 Bay SFF

The 10 Bay SFF chassis for the DL380 Gen9 supports up to twenty-four 2.5" SAS/SATA hard disk drives and/or solid-state drives. There is an option to add an addition two 2.5" drive bays into the rear of this chassis. The two rear drive bays support 2.5" SAS/SATA drives. The rear of the 24 Bay SFF chassis includes two type A USB 3.0 ports, four embedded 1GbE RJ45 LAN ports, a dedicated iLO port, a VGA port, a serial connector, a FlexibleLOM (FLOM) card slot, six full-height PCIe slots, and two hot-swap power supply bays. If the rear drive kit is installed, there will be two 2.5" drive bays on the rear of the chassis.

12 Bay LFF

The final chassis for the HPE DL380 Gen9 is the 12 Bay LFF. This is the only DL380 Gen9 chassis the accepts 3.5" drives. The 12 Bay LFF chassis can accept up to twelve 3.5" SAS/SATA drives. 2.5" drives can be installed via a 2.5" to 3.5" drive converter. The 12 Bay LFF chassis has the option to install optional 3.5" drive bays. This allows you to add in a total of three 3.5" drives into the rear of the DL380 Gen9's chassis. Drive bays for this chassis are hot swap. The rear of the 10 Bay SFF chassis includes two type A USB 3.0, a VGA port, a serial connector, an iLO 4 port, four 1GbE RJ45 Ethernet ports, one FLOM bay, one full-height PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, one low-profile PCIe 3.0 x8 slot, one low-profile PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, and two hot-swap power supply bays. If the rear drive kit is installed, there will be an additional three 3.5" drive bays on the rear of the chassis.

The HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 server supports up to two Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 or E5-2600 v4 processors. Both CPU sockets are LGA2011-3 sockets. This server has an Intel C600 chipset. Up to 22 cores per processor are supported. That means that this system supports a max of 44 CPU cores. Intel Xeon 2600 v3 and v4 processor series have support for virtualization. To use a v4 processor, you may need to update your BIOS.

DIMM slots & Memory Channels

The HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 server is a DDR4 based machine with 24 DIMM slots and 8 memory channels. Each channel consists of 3 DIMM slots.

Supported Memory Types

The DL380 Gen9 accepts both ECC Registered (RDIMM) and Load Reduced (LRDIMM) memory. It is important to not mix together memory types. For example, if you are installing LRDIMMs into your server, do not install any RDIMMs. If you are installing RDIMMs, do not install any LRDIMMs. Mixing memory types can lead to issues such as boot failure.

Supported Memory Capacities

Modules capacities of 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB. One thing to note is that 64GB and 128GB modules are only available as LRDIMMs. With LRDIMMs, you can achieve an overall greater RAM capacity when compared to RDIMMs.

Max Configurations

With ECC Registered, the max RAM you can achieve is 768GB via 24 x 32GB DDR4 modules. With Load Reduced memory, 3072GB (3TB) can be reach via a configuration of 24 x 128GB DDR4 modules.

Supported Memory Speeds

The HPE DL380 G9 supports module speeds of 2133MT/s and 2400MT/s. 2666MT/s modules can be installed as well, but it will clock down to the fastest speed of the system. The fastest speed that memory modules will run at depends on the processor that is installed. If you install a module with a speed that is faster than the maximum supported speed of the processor, that module will clock down to the max speed. For example, if the installed processor supports a max speed of 2133MT/s and you install a 2400MT/s module, the module will operate at 2133MT/s. It is also not recommended to mix together modules with different speeds. With mixing module speeds, the system will still function properly, but all modules will clock down to the speed of the slowest module.

The DL380 G9 chassis that you have will determine what form factor and number of drives you can install. With the 8 Bay SFF chassis, you can install up to eight 2.5" SAS/SATA hard drives. With the 8 Bay SFF chassis, you can install an optional Universal Media Bay kit, additional eight 2.5" drive bays, and/or six NVMe drive bays. The six NVme drive bays will allow you to use NVMe SSDs. Next, the 16 Bay SFF chassis can accept up to sixteen 2.5" SAS/SATA hard drives and/or solid-state drives. The 24 Bay SFF chassis can accept up to twenty-four 2.5" hard drives or solid-state drives. Two additional 2.5" drives can be installed if there is a rear drive kit installed. Lastly, the 12 Bay LFF chassis accepts up to twelve 3.5 SAS/SATA drives. 2.5" HDDs and/or SSDs can be installed via a 2.5" to 3.5" drive converter. The 12 Bay LFF chassis also has the option to install an additional three 3.5" drive bays into the rear of the chassis. All four chassis for the DL380 Gen9 are hot swap, meaning the drives can be added or removed while the server is powered on.

Power Supplies Overview

There are power supply options for the DL380 Gen9: 500W Platinum, 800W Platinum, 800W Titanium, 800W Universal, 800W -48VDC, and 1400 Platinum. Each power supply option is hot swap, which means that PSUs can be added or removed from the server while it is running, as long as one power supply remains plugged in. There two power supply bays on the rear of each chassis option. If you install two power supplies, the wattages and voltages of the units must be matching. All power supply options for the DL380 Gen9 are great options, but the one that is best for you depends on your application. For low end applications, 500W power supplies are a great option. For higher end applications, 800W or 1400W will work just fine.

The HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 supports two types of RAID Controllers and Host Bus Adapters. The first type of controller/adapter plugged into a dedicated spot on the motherboard. The second type is a PCIe card, that plugs into one of the system's PCIe slots. We recommend using a card that connects directly to the motherboard, because it will not take up a PCIe slot that you can use for something else.

The HPE DL380 Gen9 server has four 1GbE RJ45 port integrated into the motherboard. There is also a dedicated FlexibleLom (FLOM) slot in the rear of the system. This FLOM slot allow you to install cards with up to four ports. If you want additional networking capabilities in addition to the built in network ports and an FLOM card, you can also install PCIe network cards. FLOM and PCIe network cards are available with a variety of different speeds and port types. There are cards with port interfaces of RJ45, SFP, SFP+, SFP28, QSFP, and QSFP28. There are also speed options of 1GbE, 10GbE, 25GbE, 40GbE, and 100GbE. The number of ports, network speeds, and port interfaces that are best for you are entirely based on you applications.