HPE Proliant DL360 G10 4-Bay 3.5"
Configure Your System:
1 Processor Required
Step 1: Choose a generation and tier
The DL360 Gen10 takes both waves of Intel's Xeon Scalable family. 1st Gen (Skylake) is the value entry: mature, plentiful, and the lowest cost into this platform. 2nd Gen (Cascade Lake) is the same socket refined: better clocks per watt and faster memory support, and our default recommendation when the price gap is modest.
Within each generation, the tiers are the same story: Silver for value compute, Gold for the mainstream where nearly every serious build lands, and Platinum for dense consolidation at the top of the range.
One connection worth knowing: your processor sets your memory speed. Higher tiers and the newer generation run the DIMMs faster, so a Silver chip quietly caps the memory bus you paid for. It is one of the honest arguments for Gold.
Whichever you pick, populate both sockets; half the memory channels and PCIe lanes route through the second CPU, and on a dense 1U those lanes are exactly what you are paying for.
Step 2: Choose your CPU
The DL360 Gen10 is the dense virtualization node of its generation, so core count usually wins here.
Running Windows Server? Two 8-core CPUs land exactly on the 16-core base license. Our picks are the Gold 6134 (8 cores, high clocks) in 1st Gen and the Gold 6234 in 2nd Gen: top per-core performance with nothing wasted on the license.
Virtualizing on vSphere? VMware licenses a 16-core minimum per socket, so the 8-core strategy buys you nothing there; take 16-core parts and use every core you are paying to license.
General consolidation lands in the middle Golds, and the high-core Golds and Platinums are how one DL360 replaces a shelf of older servers.
Not sure where your workload lands? We configure these daily; call 1-800-778-1545.
2 Heat Sink Optional
What still matters in a 1U chassis is airflow discipline, because there is no spare vertical space to forgive mistakes. Keep every drive bay blank and internal baffle installed; the DL360 cools front to back through small high-speed fans, and an open path lets air skip the components that need it. Scalable silicon at the top of the range runs warm under load, and the platform manages it well exactly as long as the airflow path stays intact.
Also set expectations on noise: a 1U server under load sounds like a 1U server under load. It will run fine in an office closet, but if the rack shares a wall with a desk, a 2U chassis is the kinder choice.
3 Memory (RAM) 24 DIMM slots, modules added in sets of 2 Required
Twelve matched DIMMs, six per socket, engages every channel once at full speed, and that is our default for this chassis. Memory bandwidth is exactly what a virtualization host feels, and twelve channels of it is the Gen10's quiet advantage over its predecessor.
Twenty-four DIMMs doubles capacity at two per channel with no speed penalty on this platform, and it is the natural full build when RAM is the constraint.
Your processor sets the speed: the newer generation and higher tiers run the DIMMs faster, which is part of what you buy when you step up in the processor step. The configurator pairs the right DIMMs with your chip.
In between, populate in multiples of six and keep both sockets even; a lopsided population starves channels you paid for.
Whichever count you choose, buy it as one matched set, now. Hunting for matching DIMMs a year into production means a maintenance window and rank-matching roulette, and a mismatch clocks the whole bank down.
Common landing spots: 96 GB (12x 8 GB) for general duty, 192 GB (12x 16 GB) is our default virtualization host, and 384 GB (12x 32 GB or 24x 16 GB) for dense consolidation.
4 RAID Controllers Optional
What it gives you: full hardware RAID across the backplane with a battery-protected write cache, which is what keeps parity arrays performing under real write load, plus the modern Smart Array feature set.
The part worth knowing: the P408i also runs in HBA mode, passing drives straight through to the operating system. That matters because it makes this one controller correct for both storage philosophies, traditional hardware RAID for Windows and general virtualization duty, and direct drive access for vSAN, Storage Spaces Direct, Ceph, and ZFS builds; a dense Gen10 1U is a textbook software-defined storage node. If your build is software-defined, tell us at quote time and we will ship it configured the right way.
Array guidance for the hardware RAID path: RAID 10 where write latency matters, RAID 6 over RAID 5 on anything large and spinning, and a hot spare on any array whose rebuild you would rather not race.
5 Storage Drives Select up to 4 drives (0/4 Slots Used) Optional
The 3.5" DL360 Gen10 is the compact capacity play. Large NL-SAS and SATA spinning drives deliver cost per terabyte no SSD matches, and four of them make a serious backup target, file server, or archive node in 1U, with Gen10 compute in front of it. 2.5" drives fit these bays in adapters where a fast volume is needed, and a mixed build, an SSD pair and a spinning pair, covers a lot of real workloads.
Buy new. We steer you away from refurbished on drives specifically, and we say that as a company that sells refurbished servers all day. Rebuilds on large drives run long, and a rebuild is exactly when you do not want a second drive with unknown hours in the array.
With four bays, the sensible layouts are short: RAID 10 across all four for performance with redundancy, RAID 6 across all four for capacity that survives two failures, or two mirrored pairs. On big drives, skip RAID 5; it does not survive a rebuild failure, and big drives make rebuilds long.
Plan the boot volume deliberately: a RAID 1 pair (2.5" SSDs in adapters) is the standard pattern, or give the OS a mirrored slice and accept the shared fate; two bays given to boot is usually the honest answer.
6 Remote Access Required
Every unit includes the integrated iLO controller with the standard feature set: health monitoring, remote power control, and basic management through a clean modern interface. The dividing line is the Advanced license, which unlocks the full remote console and virtual media, meaning you can reach the server's screen, mount an ISO, and rebuild an OS from anywhere, even when the operating system is down. Without it, any problem below the OS level means walking to the rack.
Our pick is the Advanced license, and on a production host the math is short: the license costs a fraction of one emergency site visit, and the first bad firmware day pays for it. iLO 5 also brings HPE's silicon root of trust and firmware protection machinery, and the Advanced tier is where its best capabilities live.
Standard iLO is the right call only when the server sits down the hall and someone can physically reach it without ceremony, and even then, think about whether that stays true for the machine's whole life.
If you are deploying 5 or more units, take the Advanced license on all of them. Fleet management without remote console access does not work in practice.
7 Power Supply 2x included in build Required
2x 800W is the configurator default on this chassis, and it is an honest default: Scalable silicon runs hungrier at the top of the range than its predecessors, and the 800W pair holds the 50 percent load target, where a PSU runs at peak efficiency, runs cooler, and lasts longer than one working near its limit, across nearly any build this 1U can hold.
2x 500W is the value option for restrained builds: Silver or mid-Gold processors, a sensible memory load, and a bay of SSDs land inside it, and HPE's Gen10 supplies are excellent at partial load. If the budget is tight and the build is modest, it is a legitimate saving.
Watch the estimated TDP counter at the bottom of the page as you add components to see where your build lands, and when it sits between the two, take the 800W pair; the price difference is a rounding error against the efficiency and headroom you get back.
8 Network Cards Required
Quad 1 GbE covers file, print, and light application duty, and it is the honest budget answer when the clients are desktops on gigabit switching.
10 Gb is the practical floor for the virtualization work a Gen10 1U gets bought for; a modern hypervisor on gigabit networking is bottlenecked at the card, not the CPUs. The dual 10 Gb options are the sweet spot: production on the fast pair, management on the embedded ports.
Then port type, and this is the one that catches people. SFP+ ports take fiber or DAC cables and talk to datacenter-grade switches. BASE-T ports are 10 Gb copper on ordinary RJ45. Neither is better; they must simply match your switch. Order SFP+ against a copper-only switch and the server racks up with nothing to plug into.
Need more ports, or separate links for storage and VM traffic? PCIe network cards stack on top of whatever you choose here. Call 1-800-778-1545 and we will spec the whole path, switch ports included.
9 Operating System Required
The good news on this platform: the Gen10's Xeon Scalable processors are fully supported by every modern OS, so the choice is about your environment, not compatibility.
Windows Server 2022 is the mainstream pick, and Windows Server 2025 is fully supported if you want the newest platform. Licensing is per core with a 16-core base, which is why our processor guidance steers Windows buyers to two 8-core CPUs: the 16-Core license covers that build exactly. Past 16 total cores, you need the larger tiers, and heavy VM density is where Datacenter edition with unlimited virtualization rights earns its keep. On CALs, count your users and round up.
Fair warning on Evaluation Editions: free and fully functional for 180 days, then they expire. Right for labs and proof-of-concept, wrong for production.
VMware ESXi is fully supported on this platform for shops standing on vSphere; we will install the version your cluster runs.
Proxmox VE is our quiet favorite for new virtualization deployments: open-source KVM with clustering and live migration, no per-core license math, and a pair of Gen10 DL360s running it is a seriously capable cluster for the money.
Ubuntu Server LTS covers Linux application duty with five years of free updates, and No OS is there for teams imaging from their own deployment infrastructure.
Not sure which fits? Tell us the workload at quote time, or call 1-800-778-1545.
WServer Warranty
HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen10 4-Bay 3.5" Drives [Gen10] Detailed Review
The HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen10 4-Bay 3.5" is the only 1U LFF configuration in the Gen10 lineup - four large-format 3.5" hot-swap bays in the same compact 1U chassis as the SFF DL360 variants, with full dual-socket Xeon Scalable compute. This is the platform for edge computing nodes, branch office servers, and remote site deployments that need bulk local storage capacity without stepping to 2U. Four 20 TB NL-SAS drives delivers 80 TB raw in a 1U footprint, which is meaningful capacity for edge and branch deployments where rack space is constrained and bulk local storage is a real requirement.
This is a sibling page to the DL360 Gen10 10-Bay 2.5" canonical. The full platform vocabulary - Purley socket support, memory architecture, controller comparisons, iLO 5 with Silicon Root of Trust, FlexibleLOM networking, generational positioning - lives on that page and applies identically here. This page focuses on what's specific to the 4-Bay 3.5" configuration: when 1U LFF is the right call, how 4 large-format bays map to common edge and branch workloads, and the cost-versus-flexibility decision against the 2U DL380 Gen10 12-Bay LFF.
To configure a build, call 1-800-778-1545 or use the quote form below. Every refurbished unit ships under our 180-day warranty with 12+ hour burn-in testing, and volume pricing starts at 5 units.
When 1U LFF Is the Right Configuration
The DL360 Gen10 4-Bay 3.5" fills a specific niche: you need LFF bulk storage capacity, and 1U is a hard requirement. The only other path to LFF drives in 1U from HPE is the DL160 Gen10 (also 4-Bay LFF, but lower-spec compute - single-CPU or limited dual-CPU, fewer DIMM slots, more entry-tier overall). If 2U is acceptable, the DL380 Gen10 12-Bay 3.5" delivers three times the LFF bays with the same compute platform and meaningful per-bay cost savings - that's almost always the better answer when 2U fits.
The DL360 4-Bay 3.5" is the right call specifically when:
- Edge computing nodes. Full DL360 enterprise compute (dual-socket Xeon Scalable, 24 DIMM slots, iLO 5 management) alongside 4 LFF drives for local bulk storage, in a 1U footprint that fits constrained edge racks. For retail back-of-store deployments, manufacturing floor compute, or cell tower edge sites, the combination of real server-class compute and meaningful local storage in 1U is genuinely useful.
- Branch office file servers. 4x 12 TB or 4x 16 TB NL-SAS in RAID 6 gives 24-32 TB usable for branch NAS, file server, or Active Directory integrated storage at remote sites. The 1U footprint matters at branch sites where rack space is at a premium and shipping a 2U server to every branch isn't worth the cost.
- Remote backup targets. Veeam-style remote backup repositories or Active Directory-replicated DFS shares at remote sites. 4 large-capacity NL-SAS drives, 12+ hour burn-in tested, with iLO 5 for remote troubleshooting when there's no on-site IT staff. The reliability profile and remote management matter as much as the capacity here.
- Distributed Ceph capacity-tier nodes. If you're running a Ceph cluster across many small edge sites and need 4 large NL-SAS OSDs per site in 1U, this is the platform. Per-site compute headroom is full DL360 dual-socket capacity, which is plenty for the OSD daemon load.
Storage - 4 LFF Bays
Four 3.5" SAS/SATA hot-swap bays. Drive options span the full LFF portfolio:
- NL-SAS HDDs for bulk capacity. The mainstream pick. 4 TB, 8 TB, 12 TB, 16 TB, and 20 TB capacities. NL-SAS gives you full SAS protocol on bulk drives - end-to-end checksums, dual-port active-active capability, and queue depth advantages over SATA NL drives.
- SAS HDDs at 10K and 15K RPM. Moderate-IOPS workloads where you want some performance alongside capacity. 10K SAS at 1.2-1.8 TB or 15K SAS at 600 GB-1.2 TB. The economics rarely justify these in LFF over SAS SSDs for performance, but the option exists for shops standardized on 10K LFF SAS.
- SAS or SATA SSDs in LFF carriers. For workloads needing flash performance in LFF form factor. Possible but usually not the right answer - if you need SSDs, the SFF variants (8-Bay or 10-Bay 2.5") deliver better drive density per chassis and lower per-GB cost for SSD storage.
RAID at 4 Drives
RAID at low drive counts is its own conversation, and the 4-Bay configuration is the rare case where it's actually worth thinking carefully:
- RAID 6 (2 drives parity). 2 drives usable from 4 - 50% of raw. Two-drive fault tolerance, which matters at 16+ TB drive sizes because rebuild times after a failure are long and the probability of a second failure during rebuild is non-trivial. The capacity penalty is significant but the reliability is worth it for production data on large drives.
- RAID 10 (mirroring + striping). 2 drives usable from 4 - 50% of raw. Better write performance than RAID 6, faster rebuilds (single-drive copy versus parity reconstruction), still one-drive fault tolerance per mirror pair. Often the right choice when write performance matters and the capacity is sufficient.
- RAID 5 (1 drive parity). 3 drives usable from 4 - 75% of raw. Single-drive fault tolerance, which is the controversial part: industry consensus has moved away from RAID 5 on large drives because rebuild times leave the array vulnerable to a second failure for too long. At 12+ TB drive sizes specifically, RAID 5 is genuinely risky. At smaller drives (4-8 TB) and for less-critical data with off-site backup, it's defensible.
For most 4-bay deployments with large NL-SAS drives, we recommend RAID 6 even with the 50% capacity penalty. The reliability margin is worth the storage. RAID 10 is the right call when write performance is the dominant requirement. RAID 5 is a discussion to have at quote time only - we'll walk through your specific risk tolerance and capacity needs.
Boot Drives
Strongly recommend the HPE M.2 enablement kit for boot, freeing all 4 LFF bays for data. At 4 bays, consuming 2 of them for a RAID 1 OS mirror is a real capacity hit (50% of raw lost to OS alone before any data RAID overhead). The M.2 kit mounts in a PCIe slot, takes a SATA M.2 drive at 480 GB or larger, and leaves the 4 LFF bays entirely available for the workload's data tier.
Storage Controllers
Same options as the rest of the DL360 Gen10 family. The 10-Bay canonical covers the full Smart Array Gen10 portfolio in detail. For 4-Bay LFF NL-SAS workloads specifically:
- Smart Array P408i-a SR (2 GB FBWC): The right pick for NL-SAS RAID 6 production data. The 2 GB cache is appropriately sized for the write patterns 4 NL-SAS drives produce. FBWC battery is a wear item with roughly 5-year service life - disclosed on every build.
- Smart Array E208i-a SR (HBA mode): For Ceph OSD nodes at the edge, ZFS-based appliances, or any software-defined storage layer where you want direct drive visibility.
- S100i SR (software RAID): Boot drive only, not appropriate for production data.
P816i-a is overkill at 4 drives - its 4 GB cache and tri-mode capabilities address bottlenecks that don't exist at this drive count. P408i-a is the right answer.
Compute, Memory, Networking
Identical to the rest of the DL360 Gen10 family: dual-socket LGA 3647 Purley, Skylake-SP and Cascade Lake-SP supported, 24 DDR4 DIMM slots, up to 3 TB LRDIMM, HPE Smart Memory required for rated DDR4-2666 or DDR4-2933 operation. iLO 5 with Silicon Root of Trust standard, FlexibleLOM mezzanine for primary networking, 3 PCIe Gen3 slots. The 4-Bay 3.5" chassis doesn't change any of this - it's the bay configuration that's different, not the platform.
For edge deployments specifically, the iLO 5 remote management capability is the feature that earns its keep. Remote KVM, virtual media for OS installation, hardware health telemetry, and full power control over the dedicated iLO management network port means you can fully manage a branch-office server from headquarters without ever sending IT staff on-site. This is the operational lever that makes edge deployments practical at scale - and the reason the DL360 4-Bay 3.5" earns its place over consumer or workstation-class hardware at remote sites.
The 1U LFF vs. 2U LFF Decision
If 2U is acceptable, the DL380 Gen10 12-Bay 3.5" delivers three times the LFF bays in the same processor and memory platform. The economics almost always favor the DL380 12-Bay at sites where rack space accommodates 2U: more capacity, more RAID flexibility (RAID 6 at 12 drives is 10 drives usable - 83% of raw, versus the 4-Bay's 50%), and per-bay cost that's meaningfully lower at scale.
The DL360 4-Bay 3.5" wins specifically when 1U is the hard constraint - rack space at the edge or branch site is the design driver, and the 4-bay capacity ceiling is acceptable. If you're not constrained to 1U, the DL380 12-Bay is the better answer almost every time.
Workload Fit
| This server excels at | Consider alternatives for |
|---|---|
| ✅ Edge computing with LFF bulk storage in 1U | ❌ More than 4 LFF bays needed (use DL380 12-Bay) |
| ✅ Branch office NAS/file server in 1U racks | ❌ SFF SSD requirements (use DL360 8-Bay or 10-Bay) |
| ✅ Remote backup targets at branch sites | ❌ 2U acceptable (DL380 12-Bay more storage-flexible) |
| ✅ Distributed Ceph capacity-tier nodes at edge | ❌ Performance-tier storage needs SSDs in SFF |
| ✅ Remote DFS replication targets | ❌ Heavy compute alongside lots of storage (DL380) |
| ✅ Manufacturing/retail floor compute with local storage | ❌ GPU compute requirements (use DL380) |
Honest Limitations
Same generational caveats as the rest of the DL360 Gen10 family - PCIe Gen3, DDR4 memory speed ceilings, 1U thermal constraints on top-bin Platinum CPUs, FBWC battery as a wear item, iLO Advanced licensing typically separate on refurbished units. The 10-Bay canonical covers each in detail.
Plus one specific to the 4-Bay LFF configuration: the bay count itself is the binding constraint. Four bays at 50% RAID 6 capacity gives 2 drives usable - meaningful but limited. If your storage requirements grow beyond what 4 LFF bays at RAID 6 can serve, the path forward is replacing the chassis, not adding bays. Size the build with growth in mind, or accept that this is a fixed-capacity deployment.
Where to Look Instead
- 2U acceptable for more LFF bays? → DL380 Gen10 12-Bay 3.5" - 3x the bays, same compute platform
- SFF SSDs in 1U instead of LFF HDDs? → DL360 Gen10 10-Bay 2.5" (canonical)
- Need 8 SFF bays in 1U? → DL360 Gen10 8-Bay 2.5"
- Lower-spec compute alongside LFF storage? → DL160 Gen10 4-Bay 3.5" (entry-tier 1U LFF, lower CPU/memory ceiling)
Ready to Configure?
Tell us the workload, capacity target, CPU SKU preference, memory capacity, RAID preference at 4 drives, network topology and FlexibleLOM choice, and quantity. We respond within 24 hours, every refurbished unit ships with the Wholesale Servers 180-day warranty and 12+ hour burn-in, and volume pricing starts at 5 units. Call 1-800-778-1545 or use the quote form below.
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Click the Add to Quote button at the bottom of your screen to save your design as a draft order for future reference and to check for discounts, lead time, and availability. Most servers ship within 1-3 days.
