The HP ProLiant Microserver has been a category killer for quite some time now. We have been eagerly awaiting the release of a new HP ProLiant Microserver Gen8 for some time. The HP ProLiant Gen7 Microserver was an instant hit with the home and small business community as it provided a very mod friendly platform. Many users managed to put extra network controllers, SAS controllers, hot swap SAS/ SATA backplanes on the back of the HP ProLiant Microserver G7 N54L, N40L and N36L platforms. With that excitement aside, the AMD Turion processors powering the previous HP microservers is showing its age. For this generation HP is rumored to be moving to the dual core Intel Pentium and Celeron lineup.

Note: The CPUs changed in the final version. For final CPU and pricing see HP Microserver Gen8 specs and pricing here.

Leaked HP ProLiant Microserver Gen8 Specs

Discussion

Look and feel is said to be the new HP Gen8 server silver look instead of the older Gen7 black look. We have also heard that the front vents may go from a uniform set of holes to a more styleized version as can be seen on HP’s newer Generation 8 servers such as the HP DL380 Gen8 pictured here.

We first saw the Gen8 Microserver references pop up on the HP parts site. Sometimes large companies have this happen when they do not optimize their new product introduction processes for secrecy. Here we saw clear pointers to a LGA1155 platform with a 150w power supply. Here are the HP parts and supplies search screenshots for the Intel Celeron G530T version:

…and the Intel Pentium G630T version:

The Intel C204 PCH, onboard Matrox G200 video and iLO management suggest that this is going to achieve much greater parity with some UP Intel LGA1155 servers. It also suggests that Intel Core i3-2100, Core i3-3200 series processors, Pentium G2000 series as well as Intel Xeon E3-1200 v1 and v2 processors could be potential upgrade candidates in the platform. The current Intel Celeron G530T and Pentium G630T although 32nm Sandy Bridge generation parts do not support Hyper-Threading, VT-d, nor AES-NI, so there are certainly some limitations. Here is a quick Intel ARK comparison of the two rumored CPUs.

For those wondering, the 35w TDP Celeron G530T and Pentium G630T do both have onboard Intel graphics. The Intel C206 or C216 chipsets would have allowed HP to use the onboard graphics but the Matrox graphics indicate baseboard management controller graphics in use. Generally we see the C206 used as an Intel vPro platform. Matrox G200 graphics on C202 and C204 Cougar Point motherboards generally indicate an ASPEED BMC or similar is in use where basic video is included on the motherboard. HP’s choice of the Intel C204 platform gives HP access to both two 6.0gbps SATA III ports from the PCH, unlike the C202 PCH. This is certainly an area where HP spent a little extra in the new microserver. We are still awaiting word on whether the B120i (specs here) will have the 512MB flash backed write cache (FBWC) option with RAID 5 or if it will only have RAID 0, 1 and 10 available.

HP ProLiant Microserver Gen8 Release Date

Expect that we will see the HP ProLiant Microserver Gen8 arrive somewhere in the last three weeks of June 2013. We did not get a firm confirmation on this yet. Of course, the specs and dates could change a bit between now and then but this is the latest that have been confirmed. It does at least sound plausible given other releases in June. For those looking the repair videos are up here: http://h20464.www2.hp.com/index.html so we know they are coming soon.

Bottom line: we can’t wait to get one! One thing is for sure, I already have my N54L ebay search ready looking for deals on older units and a LSI 9202-16e ready for external drive expansion. We already started a thread in the forums to discuss the HP Proliant Microserver Gen8.