#HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 vs. Gen10

The transition from the HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 to the Gen10 marked a pivotal shift in enterprise hardware, driven by Intel’s move from the “Core” based Xeon E5 architecture to the mesh-based Xeon Scalable architecture. While the Gen9 remains a staple in homelabs and budget-constrained test environments, the Gen10 introduced critical security architecture (specifically the Silicon Root of Trust) that defines modern compliance standards.

This guide details the physical, architectural, and management differences between these two generations to assist in upgrade planning and secondary market evaluation.

#Processor Architecture: Grantley vs. Purley

The most significant difference is the processor platform. The Gen9 and Gen10 sockets are physically incompatible.

#Gen9: Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 / v4

• Platform: Grantley.
• Socket: LGA 2011-3.
• Max Cores: 22 Cores (E5-2699 v4).
• Memory Controller: 4 Channels per CPU.
• Design: Traditional Ring Bus architecture. Latency increases as core counts rise, as data must traverse the ring to access memory or cache.

#Gen10: Intel Xeon Scalable (Skylake-SP / Cascade Lake-SP)

• Platform: Purley.
• Socket: LGA 3647.
• Max Cores: 28 Cores (Platinum 8280).
• Memory Controller: 6 Channels per CPU.
• Design: Mesh Architecture. This design reduces latency between cores and the memory controller in high-core-count processors, significantly improving bandwidth for virtualization and database workloads.

#Security: The Silicon Root of Trust

The Gen10 is marketed heavily on its security features, specifically the Silicon Root of Trust. This is not a software feature but a physical link between the custom HPE silicon and the iLO firmware.

• Gen9 (Software Security): Relies on signed firmware and OS-level security. If malware infects the firmware level (BIOS/UEFI), the Gen9 has limited hardware-level ability to detect it at boot.
• Gen10 (Hardware Security): The iLO 5 management chip has an immutable digital fingerprint etched into the silicon. The server will physically refuse to boot if the firmware does not match this fingerprint. This provides “Firmware Runtime Verification” and automated recovery to a known good state, a requirement for many modern HIPAA, FedRAMP, and NIST compliant environments.

#Storage and NVMe Support

While both generations support NVMe, the implementation differs drastically in usability and scalability.

#Gen9 NVMe (Restricted)

• Implementation: NVMe support in Gen9 was an emerging technology. It typically requires specific “Express Bay” drive cages and PCIe riser cards that replace standard PCIe expansion slots.
• Scalability: Generally limited to 6 x NVMe drives max, and acquiring the necessary enablement kits on the secondary market is difficult and expensive.

#Gen10 NVMe (Native)

• Implementation: The Gen10 motherboard and chassis were designed with NVMe in mind. It supports up to 20 x NVMe drives using standard backplanes.
• Mixed Mode: Gen10 introduced the “Mixed Mode” RAID controllers (e.g., P408i-a). These controllers can present some drives as raw HBA (for ZFS/vSAN) and others as hardware RAID volumes simultaneously. Gen9 controllers (P440ar) generally require switching the entire card to either HBA mode or RAID mode.

#Memory Bandwidth

The architectural shift to Intel Scalable Processors increased the available memory bandwidth by 50% purely through channel width.

• Gen9: 4 Memory Channels per CPU. To maximize bandwidth, you install 4 or 8 DIMMs per CPU.
• Gen10: 6 Memory Channels per CPU. To maximize bandwidth, you install 6 or 12 DIMMs per CPU.
  • Note: Installing 8 DIMMs in a Gen10 (a common Gen9 practice) will actually unbalanced the memory channels and reduce performance.

#FAQs - Gen9 vs. Gen10