HP Proliant ML115 G5 Quad Core Discount Deal for TechHead Readers.

*** UPDATE – 21st April 2009 ***

Prices on the HP ML115 G5’s are once again creeping back up and there is once again very little difference in pricing between suppliers.

ServersPlus are still offering TechHead readers free delivery on all HP Proliant ML110 and ML115 G5 servers. To get this deal you will have to call them – as opposed to order the server(s) online.

Also, check out the new TechHead ‘Hot Deals’ section at the top of the page for the latest deals on servers and other IT components I come across.

Let me know if you come across any good pricing or deals on either the HP ML110, ML115 and associated memory, etc and I will post it to let others know.

Thanks,

~~*** UPDATE – 26th March 2009 ***~~

~~ServersPlus~~ ~~are offering this HP Proliant ML115 G5 Quad Core server for £149.99 ex VAT. If you call them mention TechHead and you will receive free delivery, saving you a few more £££ !~~

I should point out that although that this release of the server only comes with a 1 year warranty and a 160GB hard disk, as opposed to a 3 year warranty and a 250GB hard disk. For many of us using these servers for our home or work labs this won’t be too much of an issue.

~~*** UPDATE – 16th January 2009 ***~~

~~The prices has been fluctuating in recent weeks and have increased now to £249.97 + VAT.~~

~~Despite the price increase this is still a great little server for the money.~~

~~I believe the ILO 100 cash-back deal runs until the end of Jan 09 – though double check this before ordering.~~

********************************

~~*** UPDATE – 11TH DECEMBER 2008 ***~~

The price has dropped again and is now £139.97 ex VAT – just a reminder quote ‘TechHead’ and get free delivery!

Also, don’t forget to buy an ILO 100 card and claim back the cost from HP – thereby making it free..

******************************************************

~~*** UPDATE – 01/12/08 ***~~

~~The price has now dropped to £179.97+VAT~~

~~***********************~~

~~*** UPDATE – 20/11/08 ***~~

Servers Direct have now dropped the price of these servers to £199.97 ex VAT so unfortunately the discount no longer applies. What they are generously offering to TechHead readers is free 7 day delivery. To obtain this free delivery mention TechHead.co.uk and free delivery to the person taking your order or via the online ordering process. It may be best to phone up to order to ensure you get this free delivery offer.

~~***********************~~

I will be testing this model of ML115 G5 with VMware ESX within the next week and will write up a full article on its compatibility with VMware ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5.

This model of the ML115 G5 sports the Third-Generation Opteron processor and is the new Quad Core model – not to be confused with the Dual Core models we saw for about £100 a few months ago. Below are the specifications on it:

HP ProLiant ML115 G5 – Third-Generation Opteron 1352 2.1 GHz
Type – Server
Form Factor – Micro tower
Dimensions (WxDxH) – 17.5 cm x 42.6 cm x 36.7 cm
Weight – 11.7 kg
Server Scalability – 1-way
Processor – 1 Third-Generation Opteron 1352 / 2.1 GHz ( Quad-Core )
Cache Memory – 2 MB L2 Cache
Cache Per Processor – 2 MB
RAM – 512 MB (installed) / 8 GB (max) – DDR2 SDRAM – Advanced ECC – 800 MHz – PC2-6400
Storage Controller – Serial ATA
Hard Drive – 1 x 250 GB – standard – Serial ATA-150
Optical Storage – DVD-RW
Monitor – None.
Graphics Controller – - 32 MB
Networking – Network adapter – PCI Express x1 – Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet
Power – AC 120/230 V ( 50/60 Hz )
Manufacturer Warranty – 3 years warranty ( on-site )

So if you’re looking for a good little workhorse of a server for your SMB business, work or home VMware ESX or Hyper-V test lab then look no further.

If you purchase one of these servers could you, if possible, please let the folks at Servers Direct know that you saw this offer on TechHead.co.uk as if they receive a healthy number of referrals from here then there is the chance of future offers that will be passed onto my readers.

The Important Details:

~~After selecting to purchase the server and when going to checkout enter in the following discount code to receive your £50 discount.~~

*Note: this code only applies to the ML115 G5 Quad Core, Model Number: 480570-035

I hope you enjoy the savings !

Technorati Tags: HP,Proliant,ML115,G5,Quad,Core,Discount,Deal,Cheap,Saving,VMware,ESX,lab

James on January 7th, 2009

Hi Hunyadi,

Was this bought from ourselves (serversdirect) ? If so I’ll get this sorted for you. Just give us a call with your order details and we’ll contact HP on your behalf.
The refunds are handled by an outsourced call centre and sometimes they can get a bit confused…always recified in the end though

[Reply]
Hunyadi on January 7th, 2009

Was indeed James

What’s the best way to get in touch? Will the emessage system on the website get to you?

[Reply]
James on January 7th, 2009

Hunyadi-Pls call 0870 160 8366

[Reply]
Hunyadi on January 8th, 2009

By way of an update it’s clear this was a mistake by one of the agents employed by HP’s chosen marketing partner.

James at Serversdirect has chased and sorted this out on my behalf this morning – many thanks James!

[Reply]
James on January 8th, 2009

No problem-if anyone else experiences any issues…you know where I am..

[Reply]
hunyadi on January 8th, 2009

I’ve just this minute received an email from Outbound advising that they are now aware of the new costings for the deal – so whoever James spoke to got the message and hopefully no-one else will face the same problem

[Reply]
Alan on January 9th, 2009

Hi Guys,

I have two spare 512mb HP Dimms for a ML115 here as I have fully populated mine with 2GB dimms if anyone is interested for £10 inc P&P.

Cheers

[Reply]
Jabbar Azam on January 10th, 2009

Hello all,

Anybody got a perc 5/i controller working with HP ML 115 G5?

I’m still waiting for a decent RAID controller at ~£150 before I start using my my G5 with ESXi.

Are people using the supplied seagate hard drives or are they using something else? I want to use raid 5 with 4 hard drives and was going to buy two more seagate 250GB drives.

Thanks

[Reply]
Simon on January 10th, 2009

Why would you bother with the cost of RAID ? Is this for performance or reliability ? Just get the largest disk you can and use that ? Its fairly trivial to setup some scripts to backup any ‘really’ important virtual machines to an NFS share …..

[Reply]
Jabbar Azam on January 10th, 2009

Simon,

I want reliability and some performance. Some of my Vm’s will have Oracle 10g on and some performance would be an advantage.

[Reply]
Simon on January 10th, 2009

I’m a bit confused, 10g will run just fine in a Virtual Machine, I’m willing to bet that you definetly wont be I/O bound, more than likely cpu or memory will be your issue (if anything).

Dont waste your money on trying to speed up disk i/o, use that money to buy more memory and/or another server.

Just my 2p

[Reply]
James on January 16th, 2009

Afternoon guys,

Just to let you know that, at last, the iLO cards are back in stock and will be depatched to anyone who is still waiting tonight.

Apologies for the delay.

Thanks

James.

[Reply]
Jabbar Azam on January 16th, 2009

Fantastic )))

I was thinking of cancelling my order. Good job I didn’t

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on January 16th, 2009

Hi all,

Does anyone have an iLO 100C card that they are wanting to sell?

Cheers,

Si

[Reply]
Alex on January 16th, 2009

Hi,

I have one i’m not using ping me with an offer, i was just going to ebay it

Cheers

Alex

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on January 16th, 2009

Hi Alex,

Sounds good – what’s a good email address to get you on else can you drop me an email (address at the top of the page).

Thanks,

Si

[Reply]
Ian on January 17th, 2009

Planning to get one of these servers for testing with Windows Server 2008 64bit and to use Hyper V. Anyone had any issues doing this?

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on January 17th, 2009

Hi Ian,

I’ve only used them so far to run VMware ESX (which they do just fine). I am planning to install Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta sometime soon – real keen to try it out. Will probably blog a post about it.

If you end up getting one, let us know how you get on.

Cheers,

Si

[Reply]
me on January 20th, 2009

It’s back @ £165inc vat here: http://store.cbccomputers.com/products.asp?partno=480570-035

20 in stock.

YMMV.

[Reply]
me on January 20th, 2009

p.s they have the management card in stock too: http://store.cbccomputers.com/products.asp?partno=445513-B21

27 currently.

[Reply]
Ian on January 23rd, 2009

Hi Ian,
I’ve only used them so far to run VMware ESX (which they do just fine). I am planning to install Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta sometime soon – real keen to try it out. Will probably blog a post about it.
If you end up getting one, let us know how you get on.
Cheers,
Si

Hi Ian,
I’ve only used them so far to run VMware ESX (which they do just fine). I am planning to install Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta sometime soon – real keen to try it out. Will probably blog a post about it.
If you end up getting one, let us know how you get on.
Cheers,
Si

Tried installing ESXi today, but failed at the first hurdle with…

“…unable to find supported device to write the Vmware ESX Server to…”

I’ve had a read of your posting dated Nov 20th – but don’t quite follow it? Are you suggesting running the ESXi setup from USB? I burnt the downloaded iso to CD and tried from that. Perhaps you mean actually installing onto the USB pen, sorry for being a bit thick!

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on January 23rd, 2009

Hi Ian,

In that particular posting I installed ESXi U3 onto a USB key. I have found this to work fine. The only time I had an issue was when I was running quite a few VMs and the available memory was quite low and I then received a PSOD (Purple Screen of Death). This may however just have been a one-off.

Follow the instructions for installing ESXi onto a USB key – the link to a good step by step guide is on the posting.

You can perform a tweak to the install which will allow the server to run from disk though this involves a bit of hackery. Depends how keen you are feeling.

Hope the helps,

Si

[Reply]
Ian on January 24th, 2009

Thanks for the extra info, I’ll give it a go next week. Do you have a link to your suggested tweak to get it get it to run from the hard drive? I found this about the USB pen install…

http://tinyurl.com/664lj6

[Reply]
Ian on January 24th, 2009

Just found your full article about running ESXi from USB, nice one thanks…

http://tinyurl.com/64p3yx

[Reply]
Mick on January 28th, 2009

Hi, looking for an HP ProLiant ML115 G5 Quad-Core, who has stock? and where’s cheapest? I missed them at £170 delivered a week ago… thanks

[Reply]
James on January 28th, 2009

Hi Mick,

Give Ben a call on 0870 160 8366 (Servers Direct) and we’ll sort a deal for you…

Cheers,

James.

[Reply]
issie on February 5th, 2009

Guys…I just ordered the ML115 yesterday for £220.00 from CBC Computer.

[Reply]
hunyadi on February 9th, 2009

Well folks… as an update on my ML115 purchase… I didn’t receive the iLO refund as per the offer within 30 days as promised.

I chased it on Friday and was told today by the Promotions partner that they are waiting on funds from HP before they can send me a cheque.

No timescales suggested from their end.

No return business from mine

[Reply]
hunyadi on February 10th, 2009

just to be clear… this is no reflection on the folks at Servers Direct.

[Reply]
Ian on February 10th, 2009

Hi Ian,
I’ve only used them so far to run VMware ESX (which they do just fine). I am planning to install Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta sometime soon – real keen to try it out. Will probably blog a post about it.
If you end up getting one, let us know how you get on.
Cheers,
Si

Got ESXi working via the USB pen, thanks for the help. Currently got Server 2008 SP1 64-bit and Windows 7 beta 32-bit VMs setup for testing. Found a good article at…
http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_increase_vmware_performance.htm
about how to improve performance, but with both my VMs running they’re painfully slow?

Haven’t been able to install the VMware tools on Windows7, but even without, I’m surprised at how slugish the system is? I’ve got 4GB RAM installed on the host HP Server.

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on February 10th, 2009

Got ESXi working via the USB pen, thanks for the help. Currently got Server 2008 SP1 64-bit and Windows 7 beta 32-bit VMs setup for testing. Found a good article at…
http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_increase_vmware_performance.htm
about how to improve performance, but with both my VMs running they’re painfully slow?

Haven’t been able to install the VMware tools on Windows7, but even without, I’m surprised at how slugish the system is? I’ve got 4GB RAM installed on the host HP Server.

Hi Ian,

What disk configuration are you running in your ESXi server? You should be getting pretty decent performance with just the 2 VM’s (assuming they aren’t doing anything too intensive).

Cheers,

Si

[Reply]
Ian on February 10th, 2009

Just the 250GB drive that came with the server. I’ve only boosted the memory to 4GB, everything else is out of the box.

[Reply]
Ian on February 19th, 2009

No sure what I’ve done differently, but I’ve now been able to install VMware tools on Windows 7 and its working much better now. Haven’t had Server 2008 vm running at the same time though.

Also used the VMware converter to convert one of our physical servers to a vm and can run that under ESXi, which is pretty clever (not me, I mean the technology!).

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on February 19th, 2009

Hi Ian,

That’s good news! VMware Tools will almost always make a significant difference to performance of a VM. In fact (how’s this for good timing ) check out my new blog posting on reasons why to install VMware Tools on an ESX Guest OS.

http://www.techhead.co.uk/vmware-esx-why-you-should-install-vmware-tools

Virtualization is a great technology there are so many great reasons to implement it and very few not to.

All the best,

Si

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