ProLiant BL20p. Hewlett-Packard Co., (800) 888-9909, (650) 857-1501. www.hp.com
HP BL40p
For shops that require more horsepower for their servers, the BL40p is up to the task. It features a quad processor Xeon MP box with five (yes, five!) 10/100/1000 network adapters. For storage, the BL40p has four hot-swappable hard drives, making RAID
Level 5 an option. It also supports a Fibre Channel connection via the proper interconnect module. For SAN connectivity, the BL40p has two PCI slots available, providing a redundant connection to your SAN hardware. The downside to the BL40p is its size: only two blades per each 6U chassis, a total of 12 blades per 42U rack (two power modules are required per rack, taking up a total of 6U). But these blades do allow more servers per rack when compared with HP's 4U, 5U or 7U rack-mount servers. The BL40p also sports a hefty price tag compared with the BL20p models.
Why would anyone want to invest in the BL40p versus a traditional quad-processor, rack-mount unit? First, with the RDP management software, you get rip-and-replace functionality that you can't get with a stand-alone system. Also, the potential for less cabling in the rack is there. In the end, though, it depends on the interconnect options put into the blade chassis--for example, if the switch module is purchased instead of the patch panel.
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