At first blush, our performance charts may not seem to support this pick: The ML330 had the worst write-test numbers while maintaining the highest CPU utilization. Although it fared better in the read test, it still had the highest utilization. And it didn't distinguish itself in either the "Maximum I/O Rate Test" (or the "NWC Generalized Custom Test".
The reality is that the ML330 struggles in write tests because the write caching is turned off and it has IDE disks. Reactivate write caching on the ATA RAID controller, as we did during testing, and it beats most of the machines in the test. Performance is also related to the processor, and the Xeon will outperform all the Pentium 4s in the other machines. Processor selection and expandability were key criteria, outweighing performance.
All prices are as configured for this test; in many cases you can acquire the units for less money sans some bells and whistles.
We enjoyed our time with the ProLiant ML330. This small midtower server, which incorporates an Intel Xeon processor at 2.4 GHz, is not just the only system in this review to use a Xeon processor; it is also the only dual-processor-capable machine, sporting the capacity to add a second Xeon.
As configured for our tests, the ML330 included a
2.4-GHz Intel Xeon processor, 256 MB of RAM and a prodigious 160 GB of storage. The storage was set up as a RAID 0 array, which isn't the optimal configuration for a server. In a RAID 0 environment, if either 80-GB ATA hard disk fails, the entire array will be lost. The preferred configuration here would be to use RAID 1 mirroring to ensure that the loss of either drive won't cause us to lose data. That would give the system a capacity of 80 GB, which should be plenty for most small-office environments.
The ML330 uses the ServerWorks Grand Champion SL chipset for motherboard logic. It also has incorporated on the motherboard an ATA RAID controller, the LSI (Large-Scale Integration) MegaRAID IDEal. This RAID controller allows for ATA RAID Level 0 or Level 1. On the back, we found the normal complement of PS/2 connectors and VGA output. This machine also sports two USB 1.1 ports and a copper Gigabit Ethernet interface, all integrated into the motherboard. There are four 64-bit 33-MHz PCI slots, and we could expand memory up to 4 GB.
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