HPE ProLiant DL365 Gen10 Plus review: An EPYC power plant

Businesses looking for a high-density rack server that can handle very demanding workloads will find HPE's ProLiant DL365 Gen10 Plus could be just the ticket. Supporting AMD's EPYC Gen3 CPUs, this dual-socket server teams up a high core count with a huge memory capacity and packs an impressive range of features into its slim-line 1U chassis.

Support for AMD's EPYC 7763 and 7713 CPUs means the DL365 Gen10 Plus can present 128 physical cores and businesses with (very) deep pockets can specify HPE's 256GB LRDIMMs which allow memory to be pushed to an enormous 8TB. Those on tighter budgets can choose from a wide range of lower-spec EPYC Gen3 CPUs and still go up to 2TB of memory using cheaper 64GB RDIMMs.

Naturally, the 1U high chassis limits storage potential but all base units start with eight SFF hot-swap drive bays which can be boosted to ten by replacing the front media bay with an extra dual-drive cage. There's a storage option for every workload scenario too, as the server supports U.2 or U.3 NVMe SSDs along with standard SAS3 and SATA HDDs and SSDs.

HPE ProLiant DL365 Gen10 Plus review: Security and management

Platform and supply chain security is assured as the server's iLO5 ASIC uses HPE's Silicon Root of Trust fingerprinting for firmware validation and will stop the server booting if any tampering is detected. The Automatic Secure Recovery feature validates the iLO firmware and if the test fails, it automatically flashes it with the resident recovery image and also provides facilities for swapping between the active and redundant ROM and scheduling firmware scan and repair processes.

The iLO5 controller provides a dedicated Gigabit port and offers a smart web console that's crammed with valuable information about the server's status. Along with direct links to HPE support, it allows you to keep a close eye on all critical components and provides extensive fault alerting services with an iLO Advanced licence enabling power metering, virtual media services and full OS remote control.

HPE's OneView app is free if you're only using it to monitor your servers, storage and network environments and we had no problems adding the review server's iLO details to the lab's Hyper-V virtualised 7.2 instance. We found it provides plenty of information about the CPUs, power, and temperatures with tools available for firmware updates, power controls, and remote control sessions.

Enterprises and MSPs will like HPE's free iLO Amplifier Pack which presents a dedicated web management console for discovery and inventory of up to 10,000 Gen8, Gen9, and Gen10 servers and also links up with HPE's InfoSight for iLO4 and iLO5 performance monitoring and predictive fault analysis. And then there's HPE's GreenLake Compute Ops Management cloud service which provides a central web portal for managing geographically distributed IT infrastructures, although bear in mind that any servers added to it cannot also be managed by OneView.

HPE ProLiant DL365 Gen10 Plus review: Build and design

HPE has done a fine job with internal design as for such a well-specified server, it's all remarkably tidy inside with easy access afforded to all areas. The two 16-core 3GHz AMD EPYC 7313 CPUs in our system are topped off with solid passive heatsinks with each socket flanked by 16 DIMM slots and HPE supplied the server with 256GB of DDR4 RDIMM memory spread over sixteen modules.

All cooling is handled efficiently by a bank of seven hot-plug cooling fans lined up between the motherboard and drive backplane. For CPU's up to a 155W TDP, you can use standard fan modules while higher power CPUs, NVMe storage, and 100/200Gb network cards require a full house of performance fans.

There's plenty of room to expand as the server has three risers at the back offering a total of three PCI-E Gen 4 slots. The server doesn't have embedded network ports but you won't need to use any PCI-E slots as the rear OCP 3.0 edge connector supports a big choice of mezzanine cards including quad Gigabit, dual 10/25GbE, single 100GbE, and 200Gb Infiniband.

HPE ProLiant DL365 Gen10 Plus review: Storage

All ProLiant Gen10 server models include HPE's SR100i Gen10 embedded controller chip which for the DL365, supports eight SATA drives and up to two NVMe devices. This is an entry-level solution that provides software-managed RAID0, 1, and 5 for SATA devices and RAID0 and 1 for NVMe SSDs but only for Windows Server operating systems.

Our server was supplied with HPE's Smart Array P408i-p SR Gen10 RAID controller which supports all the usual RAID suspects including RAID6 and comes with 2GB of onboard cache and the optional smart storage energy pack. This model uses a PCI-E slot with its two mini-SAS ports neatly cabled through to our 8-bay backplane - you can save a PCI-E slot by specifying the P408i-a version which snaps into a dedicated slot behind the OCP connector.

You're spoilt for choice with storage devices as you can use SATA and SAS3 HDDs and SSDs or go for a full house of NVMe SSDs. The server supports HPE's Tri-Mode RAID cards which allow you to mix and match NVMe 4, SAS3, and SATA devices but note that you cannot mix U.2 and U.3 NVMe SSDs and must choose the appropriate backplane.

If you want to keep all your front drive bays free for data storage, we suggest HPE's M.2 enablement kit. Costing around £100, it slots into a PCI-E slot, connects to two of the motherboard's embedded SATA ports, and provides two M.2 SSD slots for running your OS.

HPE ProLiant DL365 Gen10 Plus review: Verdict

The ProLiant DL365 Gen10 Plus packs a lot of power into its 1U chassis making it a great choice for rack-dense applications requiring a high core density and a big memory footprint. It's extremely well built and designed with great expansion potential, storage features are extensive and HPE offers a remote management service for every occasion.

HPE ProLiant DL365 Gen10 Plus specifications (as reviewed)