All HP ProLiant c-Class server blades share the same enterprise-class features and design standards of traditional HP ProLiant servers. Each one supports hot-plug hard-drives, multiple I/O cards, multi-function network interconnects and Integrated Lights Out. Also both the ProLiant BL460c and BL480c offer more than double the memory and I/O expansion of most competitors' server blades.

HP's newest c-Class blade chassis 16-blade system has brought energy efficiency design to a whole new level in server infrastructure.  The unique design allows the system to shut down up to 5 of the 6 2250 watt power supplies to maintain a peak load on the remaining power supply which translates to more than 90% power supply efficiency.  If power supply redundancy is needed and configured on the chassis, it will leave 2 of the power supplies on in case one of them should fail.  This would translate to less than 140 watts of average power consumption for each of the 16 2-socket Intel or AMD based servers while they are operating at lower utilization levels.

One other interesting energy saving aspect of the c-Class blade system is the cooling system.  10 miniature jet engines fans are used in place of many more smaller fans which results in even more energy savings.  A 1 U server for example might use 4 or more fans and if we multiply that by 16 servers, we're talking 64 fans versus 10 powerful miniature jets.  The 10 jet fans are also easily hot-swappable from the back.

The rack density of this blade server system also doubles compared to 1U servers.  To easy the migration from 1 or 2 U rack-mount servers, the blades are image compatible which means you can deploy the same server images and Evaluate the new c-class Blade need to recreate or recertify a whole new hardware standard. .

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