The SmallBizWindows Blade Server of the Year 2015: HP Proliant BL460c Gen9

February 18, 2015 John Obeto

The HP Proliant BL460c is, without a doubt, the best selling blade server on Planet Earth, and arguably the best performing in that same category.

For the Gen9 iteration of the BL460c, HP outfits the device with the new Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 CPU that should have users experience up to a 70% gain in performance over Bl460c Gen8. It has a 20Gb FlexibleLOM NIC, and USB 3.0. DDR4 DIMMs are standard over 16 slots, and if 64GB DIMMs are used, maximum memory for this server is 1TB. Not a misprint: one terabyte! Storage is available for 2 SFF (small form factor) drives.

While being a Proliant is the most obvious reason why this server sits atop the pantheon of blade servers, there are a plethora of other reasons why.

Blade serves cannot be talked about without their management framework brought in.

Here, HP’s OneView platform coupled with iLO 4.0, iLO Federation, SmartArray storage controllers, exposed RESTful APIs, Insight Online, and Smart Update Manager extend the value proposition of Proliant BL460c.

Consequently, the HP Proliant BL460c Gen9 is the SmallBizWindows Blade Server of the Year 2015.

Pending our upgrade to the latest HP Proliant c3000 blade chassis, we hope to bring you a detailed review of this product in the April 2015 timeframe.

Our sincere thanks to HP, and especially Kenn D. for making this review happen.

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