HPE ProLiant Compute ML350 Gen12 review: HPE delivers a mighty Xeon 6 tower of power

Fast-growing businesses seeking a tower server that can keep up with them will find HPE's ProLiant Compute ML350 Gen12 a worthy partner. Stepping up as HPE's most powerful tower yet, it supports dual Xeon 6 P-Core CPUs up to 86 cores plus a massive 8TB of DDR5 memory and presents a wealth of storage permutations.

The ML350 Gen12 looks capable of turning its hand to a multitude of tasks as its modular chassis offers an expansion potential that defies belief. Along with SMBs, HPE is targeting this server at a range of other scenarios, including ROBOs, edge deployments, and retail outlets, along with enterprise workloads such as IT infrastructure, data management, VDI, and ERP/CRM.

There's more, as it can handle up to eight single-width or four double-width Nvidia GPUs. These attributes make this server a fine choice for demanding AI, machine learning (ML), and database analytics tasks.

HPE ProLiant Compute ML350 Gen12 review: Design and expansion

Make no mistake, this server is big with the chassis measuring 46.2cms high, 71.2cms deep and 17.4cms wide, which equates to an internal volume of just over 57 litres. Build quality is impressively sturdy, with even the base model tipping the scales at a hefty 24kgs. HPE also offers a conversion kit that transforms it into a 4U rack server, which occupies 5U of rack height.

Slipping the lockable side panel off shows HPE had made excellent use of the server's voluminous interior. Behind the front storage bays is a full-height cooling fan array with base systems coming with three NHP (non-hot-pluggable) modules included.

The assembly has room for up to eight fans and the dual 2.5GHz Xeon 6730P CPUs in our system, and their 250W TDPs dictate that we need a full house of hot-plug modules. CPUs over 225W also require the high-performance heatsink kits, which extend large radiators into the fan array for maximum cooling and work extremely well, as our system was whisper-quiet.

Expansion potential is impressive as further back are two riser cages, each with up to four full-height, full-length PCIe Gen5 x16 slots. The quad-slot riser has on-board connectors providing backup power for HPE's storage controllers, while the dual-slot risers also have GPU sideband and auxiliary power connectors.

HPE's tool-free design comes into play as the two main riser cages can be easily released with just a flick of the wrist. The motherboard has two edge connectors for PCIe Gen5 OCP cards, and the standard PCIe slot count can be pushed to ten, as there's even space for a tertiary dual-slot riser in front of the upper PSU bays.

HPE ProLiant Compute ML350 Gen12 review: Storage features

As you'd expect, there's plenty of room at the front for storage, and the smart triple box design makes the server very flexible. Depending on your choice of backplane, each box supports four LFF SAS/SATA, eight SFF SAS/SATA/NVMe, or twelve EDSFF E3.S NVMe storage devices, and you can mix and match them as required.

The motherboard has Intel's Virtual RAID on CPU (VROC) for HPE ProLiant Servers Gen12 embedded, which is specifically for NVMe SSDs with direct to CPU connections and supports software-managed stripes, mirrors, and RAID5 arrays. For all other storage devices, there are HPE's Gen11 hardware RAID controllers with a choice of three OCP and three PCIe versions – we have the MR408i-o OCP card, which supports all the usual RAID array suspects and comes with 4GB of Flash-backed cache.

We also have HPE's NS204i-u V2 boot optimised storage device accessible at the rear and fitted with dual 480GB mirrored M.2 NVMe SSDs. If you want it hidden away from wandering fingers, you can have it front-mounted so it's behind the lockable bezel.

HPE ProLiant Compute ML350 Gen12 review: Remote management

The server comes with HPE's excellent iLO7 remote management controller, although, unlike most of the Gen12 rack servers, this is not implemented as an OCP-compliant DC-SCM (data center secure control module) board but embedded on the motherboard. No matter, as it provides all the same top-notch security features.

Platform security and supply chain integrity are assured, and the iLO7 silicon root of trust (RoT) digital firmware fingerprinting is future-proofed against next-generation quantum computing threats. It also includes HPE's patented Secure Enclave – a physically tamper-resistant security processor for storing sensitive data such as encryption keys, passwords, and security configurations.

The iLO7 web interface is designed around workflows, with the customisable home page dashboard presenting up to six cards for views of key areas such as host health and security issues. Colour-coded icons are provided on each card for at-a-glance status views, and you drill down into each one for more detailed information.

We run HPE's OneView in the lab on a Hyper-V host and had no problems importing the ML350 Gen12. The free OneView Standard licence supports server inventory and monitoring, with the Advanced licence offering OS deployment tools plus server, firmware, and power management services.

Enterprises will love HPE's GreenLake Compute Ops Management (COM) cloud service as it connects directly to the iLO7 controller and, unlike Dell's AIOps, doesn't require an intermediary app running on the local network. COM presents a complete overview of your server estate and provides tools for server deployment and management, automated system lifecycle compliance, and AI-powered insights.

HPE ProLiant Compute ML350 Gen12 review: Is it worth it?

Yes, very much so. We can see from HPE's One Config Simple portal that prices for base systems start at around £6,800, which gets you a 12-core Xeon 6505P CPU, 32GB of DDR5 Smart Memory, a four LFF drive box with two 8TB SATA drives, an MR408i-o OCP RAID card, and dual 800W PSUs.

The ProLiant Compute ML350 Gen12 offers a lot of tower server for your money and delivers an expansion potential that makes it incredibly versatile. Clearly capable of handling a diverse range of workloads, it's an ideal choice for businesses that want a high expansion and plenty of growth potential.

HPE ProLiant Compute ML350 Gen12 specifications