HP 9000 A400, A500 (rp2400)
Quick Facts | |
---|---|
Introduced | 2000, 2002 |
Period | Maturity (III) |
Series | Lettered/rp |
CPU | 1-2 PA-8500 64-bit PA-8600 64-bit PA-8700 63-bit 440-750 MHz |
Cache | 1.5-2.25 MB |
RAM | 2-8 GB |
Design | Astro |
Drives | 2 SCSI |
Expansion | 2-4 PCI |
I/O | Fast Ethernet 2 SCSI 1→3 serial 10E console |
HP 9000 A400 and A500 servers are 64-bit rack servers, released in the early 2000s. They are successors of the popular HP 9000 A180 servers. A400 were single-processor, A500 were two-way multiprocessor-capable with better expandability.

A400 and A500 were HP 9000 servers that were later renamed rp series and also had rp24xx product names, confusingly.
System design is based on 64-bit PA-RISC CPUs with large on-chip L1 caches, HP Astro memory/CPU controller and Elroy PCI bridges for expansion and I/O, a design similar to 64-bit HP Visualize C3000 workstations.
HP A400 were marketed in the early 2000s with Screaming Performance
at a Killer Price
with Tight Internet Design
.
Being Street Smart
, A400 packed dotcom-era features for Internet-edge Solutions
from WAP (phone browsers over GSM!) to e-commerce.
Your business is more aggressive than ever, so your server should be, too.
- HP 9000 A400 rp2400 (A6109A, A6109B) were introduced in 2000 for $4,600
- HP 9000 A400 rp2430 (A6889A) were introduced in 2000
- HP 9000 A400 rp2405 (A7121A) were introduced in 2002 for $4,795
- HP 9000 A500 rp2450 (A5570A, A5570B) were introduced in 2000 for $9,200
- HP 9000 A500 rp2470 (A6890A) were introduced in 2000
- HP 9000 A500 rp2405 (A7122A) were introduced in 2002
Notably, HP A400 and A500 were much cheaper than HP 9000 A180 which shipped just two years earlier, with 32-bit PA-RISC no less.
Architecture
Processors
HP A400 and A500 processors were designated by a [-44, -5X … -9X] suffix.
System | CPU | Speed | L1 Cache | |
---|---|---|---|---|
HP 9000 A400/rp2400 | -44 -5X |
PA-8500 PA-RISC 64-bit PA-8600 PA-RISC 64-bit |
440 MHz 550 MHz |
512/1024 KB on-chip 512/1024 KB on-chip |
HP 9000 A400/rp2430 | -6X | PA-8700 PA-RISC 64-bit | 650 MHz | 768/1536 KB on-chip |
HP 9000 rp2405 | -6X | PA-8700 PA-RISC 64-bit | 650 MHz | 768/1536 KB on-chip |
HP 9000 A500/rp2450 | -44 -5X |
1-2 PA-8500 PA-RISC 64-bit 1-2 PA-8600 PA-RISC 64-bit |
440 MHz 550 MHz |
512/1024 KB on-chip 512/1024 KB on-chip |
HP 9000 A500/rp2470 | -6X -7X |
1-2 PA-8700 PA-RISC 64-bit 1-2 PA-8700 PA-RISC 64-bit |
650 MHz 750 MHz |
768/1536 KB on-chip 768/1536 KB on-chip |
Possibly upgradeable to, unsure if shipped: | ||||
-8X -9X |
PA-8700 PA-RISC 64-bit PA-8800 PA-RISC 64-bit dual-core |
875 MHz 1.0 GHz |
768/1536 KB on-chip 1.5/1.5 MB on-chip 32 MB off-chip L2 |
Chipset
- HP Astro chipset memory controller, connects to system/processor bus (1-2 CPUs), memory bus and to I/O systems via five (A400) or seven (A500) I/O links
- A400 Three HP Elroy PCI bridges convert five I/O links into three PCI buses
- A500 Four HP Elroy PCI bridges convert seven I/O links into four PCI buses
- Two HP Diva Serial [GSP] Multiport UARTs
- DEC 21142/43 Fast Ethernet controller (Tulip)
- Symbios Logic 53C876 SCSI controller (two Symbios Logic 53C875 cores with each one Ultra-Wide SCSI-2 bus)
- Symbios Logic 53C896 Ultra2-Wide SCSI-3 controller
System buses
- Runway CPU/memory bus, 120 MHz
1.9 GB/s system bus and 1.9 GB/s memory bandwidth - SCSI-2 Ultra-Narrow single-ended bus
- Two SCSI-3 Ultra2-Wide LVD buses
- A400 Three independent PCI-64/66 I/O buses on five 250 MB/s I/O links
- A500 Four independent PCI-64/66 I/O buses on seven 250 MB/s I/O links
Expansion
Memory
- ECC SDRAM DIMMs, 256/512 MB or 1 GB modules
- A400 four slots for 2 GB maximum RAM
- A500 eight slots for 8 GB maximum RAM
I/O slots
- A400 Two PCI 64-bit/66 MHz, 5 V slots
- A500 Four PCI 64-bit/66 MHz, 5 V slots
Storage
- Two trays for each one 3.5″ Ultra2-Wide LVD SCSI hard drives with 80-pin SCA connector which require a special spud to be plugged into the system.
I/O ports
- SCSI-2 50-pin Ultra-Narrow single-ended
- SCSI-3 68-pin Ultra2-Wide LVD
- DB25 RS232C serial for console/UPS (break-out converts to three DB9 plugs)
- Fast Ethernet RJ45
- Ethernet RJ45 for Secure Web Console/GSP
Operating systems
- HP-UX, the original HP Unix shipped with it
- HP-UX 11i v2 in 64-bit mode
- HP-UX 11i v1 in 64-bit mode, in EOE, FOE, MCOE versions (December 2000 December 2006)
- HP-UX 11.00 in 64-bit mode
- PA-RISC Linux, main Linux port to PA-RISC
Benchmarks
System | Processor | SPEC2000 int |
SPEC2000 fp |
SPEC2000 rate int |
SPEC2000 rate fp |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
A500-5X (rp2450) | 1 PA-8600 550 MHz | 422 | 414 | ||
A500-5X (rp2450) | 2 PA-8600 550 MHz | 9.3 | 7.6 | ||
A500-7X (rp2470) | 1 PA-8700 750 MHz | 581 | 6.7 | ||
A500-7X (rp2470) | 2 PA-8700 750 MHz | 12.9 |
HP Visualize A400 and A500 with 64-bit PA-RISC processors were fast Unix servers in the early century. They were often faster than higher-clocked MIPS, Alpha, UltraSPARC and Intel computers from the same time.
System | Processor | SPEC2000 int |
SPEC2000 fp |
---|---|---|---|
HP AlphaServer ES80 | Alpha 21364 1GHz | 689 | 975 |
IBM POWER 275 | IBM POWER4+ 1GHz | 617 | 862 |
Sun Fire 280R | UltraSPARC III Cu 1GHz | 511 | 688 |
SGI Origin 3200 | MIPS R14000 600MHz | 483 | 499 |
DELL Power Edge 4400 | Pentium III Xeon 1 GHz | 437 | 302 |
IBM RS/6000 M80 | IBM RS64 IV 750MHz | 409 | 359 |
Dimensions
System | Height | Width | Depth | Weight |
---|---|---|---|---|
95mm | 482mm | 635mm | 23kg | |
Rack-mounted | 2U | 482mm | 774mm | 23kg |
Documentation
Manuals
- Blazing Performance and Tight Internet Design, Product Brief, Hewlett-Packard Company (2000: 5968-9869EUC) archive.org
- Models of efficiency - hp servers running hp-ux , Brochure, Hewlett-Packard Company (2003: 5980-9959EN) archive.org
- hp servers rp2430 and rp2470 data sheet, Hewlett-Packard Company (2002: 5981-0170EN) archive.org
- hp server rp2400 series whitepaper, Hewlett-Packard Company (2002: 5981-0175EN) archive.org
- System Architecture and Design Guide A-Class Servers, Hewlett-Packard Company (1999/2000) hpe
- hp server rp2400 series whitepaper (URL gone)
- hp server rp2405 series whitepaper (URL gone)
- rp24xx Hardware Manual (URL gone)
Websites
- A-Class Product Overview Hewlett-Packard Company (2000: mirror accessed January 2024) archive.org
- A-Class Product Family Brochure Hewlett-Packard Company (2000: mirror accessed 2024) archive.org
- A-Class Street Talk Hewlett-Packard Company (2000: mirror accessed January 2024) archive.org
- Doug’s HP 9000 - GSP Notes Page with a detailed description of the available GSP commands.
- Blazing Performance and Tight Internet Design Hewlett-Packard Company (2000: mirror accessed 2024) archive.org
- HP’s Answer for Building World-Class Internet Infrastructure Hewlett-Packard Company (2000: mirror accessed 2024) archive.org
- A-Class Solution Ideal for E-commerce Deployment Hewlett-Packard Company (2000: mirror accessed 2024) archive.org
- HP’s Answer for Carrier-Grade Next-Generation Network Deployments Hewlett-Packard Company (2000: mirror accessed 2024) archive.org
- System Firmware for HP-UX 11.00/11.11 archive.org, Hewlett-Packard Company (2004: mirror accessed 2025)