HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen11 Server Specifications

A unique feature of the ML350 Gen11 is that no two towers are trulalike. HPE removed the ‘default’ setting option that customers could click and order. Instead, HPE asks everyone who intends to purchase these beasts to come to the table with their needs and specifications in mind to customize a machine that precisely fits the workload it will be handling.

The potential range of specifications of the ML350 Gen11 include:

HPE ML350 Gen 11 Build and Design

At first glance, the unique redesign of HPE’s latest Gen11 Tower Server looks like something you might encounter in the Chicago skyline, towering in the morning fog rolling off the freezing Lake Michigan.

Like most tower servers, this one stands out in the server room. At 18 inches tall and over 2 feet deep, placement consideration for heat distribution and noise control will be necessary.

The dual-depth fan array is a standout feature for HPE regarding heat distribution. It’s an impressive cooling fan system that our team immediately noticed and was impressed by when we opened up the server’s side panel.

HPE ships the ML350 with three fans in base configurations where it is a non-hot swap and tops out at eight hot-swap fans in our server’s dual-processor configuration.

The HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen11 offers multiple backplane configurations for storage, including SFF, LFF, and Gen5 E3.S SSD support. Our test machine was populated with a backplane capacity for HPE MR408i-o Gen11 x8 Lanes.

The front of the tower with the front cover swung open. Our model has 4 of the 8 bays populated with SATA drives.

Similarly customizable as the rest of the system, the rear of the tower provides 10x slots for PCIe add-in cards, such as HBAs, GPUs, and NICs, with options on the sidebar to configure for specific network interfaces and video outputs.

HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen11 Management – iLO 6

The ML350 Gen 11 features iLO 6, HPE’s latest version of its Lights-Out technology. iLO 6 brings a range of benefits (such as remote server setup, health monitoring, and power and thermal control) that enhance the manageability, security, and efficiency of the DL320 and simplify complex IT environments. While iLO isn’t new and is commonly found on most HPE servers, we note it here because it’s a tremendous value-add for those who may not be used to this depth of server management.

System Information

Through ILO, you can look at general information such as processor, memory, network, and storage configurations, as well as the status of each.

Next over from the processor tab in ILO, is the Memory tab. You can see the status and configuration of your DRAM, down to the slot level as well as what frequency each dimm is running at.

At the end of the System Information section is the Storage tab. Here you can see the status of your storage controller(s) and the drives attached to them. This information can help trace out bad drives in your configuration should one fail.

Power and Thermals

In the Power and Thermal tab, we can see the power reading and power status on the server configuration. The more detailed power information is under the power meter tab, but that requires a paid ILO license not included with this system for us to try out.

ILO contains a temperature information tab under power and thermal. This information shows you based on each temperature sensor on a 3D graph, where your hotspots are in the system. Temperature data is important to keep an eye on to ensure the stability and lifespan of your hardware.

Firmware and OS Software

A Huge benefit of ILO is being able to remotely install Operating Systems and Firmware to the device without having to lay hands on it. These integrations to remote management are a huge time saver since you don’t need to worry about video and peripheral input directly to the device.

HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen 11 Performance

Review Configuration

• 2 x Intel Xeon 8480+
• 256GB DDR5 Memory
• Windows Server 2022

Blackmagic RAW Speed Test

We have started running Blackmagic’s RAW speed test, which tests video playback. This is more of a hybrid test that includes CPU and GPU performance for real-world RAW decoding. While there aren’t other HPE machines to show a direct comparison here, to give you an idea of where this one stacks up, other servers generally only output within 50-60fps.

Cinebench R23

Maxon’s Cinebench R23 is a CPU rendering benchmark that utilizes all CPU cores and threads. We ran it for both multi- and single-core tests. Higher scores are better.

Cinebench 2024

Maxon’s Cinebench 2024 is a CPU and GPU rendering benchmark that utilizes all CPU cores and threads. We ran it for both multi- and single-core tests. Since this configuration does not have a GPU we do not have those numbers. Higher scores are better.

Geekbench CPU Benchmark

Geekbench 6 is a cross-platform benchmark that measures overall system performance. However, looking at the single-core vs. multi-core and the OpenCL benchmark would be interesting. Higher scores are better. Again, we only looked at the CPU results, as no GPU is installed inside this server.

You can find comparisons to any system you want in the Geekbench Browser.

y-cruncher

y-cruncher is a multi-threaded and scalable program that can compute Pi and other mathematical constants to trillions of digits. Since its launch in 2009, it has become a popular benchmarking and stress-testing application for overclockers and hardware enthusiasts.

7-Zip Compression

The popular 7-Zip utility has a built-in memory benchmark, that demonstrates the CPU performance very well. In this test, we run it at a 128MB dictionary size when possible.

UL Procyon AI Inference

UL’s Procyon AI Inference benchmark suite tests how various AI inference engines perform using state-of-the-art neural networks. We ran these tests on the CPU only. Each number here is an average inference time, where lower is better, and the last row is an overall score where higher is better.

Conclusion

Overall, the HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen11 comes roaring into the market with a slew of customization options that will appeal to any company looking to upgrade its server capabilities without sacrificing ample physical space that would usually be required for a rack-mounted system. When we started the review, this system supported Intel 4th Gen Xeon Scalable, but during the process they’ve picked up the 5th Gen chips as well, bringing even more power to this platform.

Additionally, this server has room to fit more than two dozen hot-plug NVMe SSDs for a capacity of up to 368TB, 32 DIMM slots capable of running up to 8TB of DDR5 RAM, a ton PCIe expansion, and an impressive fan system to keep everything cool and operating efficiently. Tower servers often get overlooked as being designed “just for SMBs.” The HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen11 is yet another great reminder that towers can be much more; they’re some of the most diverse and customizable systems available to suit today’s increasingly diverse set of use cases.

HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen11