PA-RISC information - since 1999

HP A400, A500 (rp2400)

Quick Facts
Introduced 2000, 2002
Period Maturity (III)
Series Lettered/Integrity
CPU 1-2
PA-8500
PA-8600
PA-8700
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 A-Class A400 and A500 servers from the early 2000s are 64-bit successors of the popular HP 9000/A180 rack servers. A400 was single-processor PA-RISC released in 2000, A500 up to two way multiprocessor-capable with better expandability.

HP A400
© Hewlett Packard 2000

A400 and A500 were part of the HP 9000 800 server series that was later renamed rp and marketed as rp2400/rp2430/rp2405 (A400) and rp2450/rp2470/rp2405 (A500).

System design is based on 64-bit PA-RISC CPUs with large on-chip L1 caches, Astro memory/CPU controller and Elroy PCI bridges for expansion and I/O, a design similar to the HP Visualize C3000 line of workstations.

HP experimented with marketing of Unix servers in the 2000s – A400 were marketed as having 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.

rp2405 were low-cost pre-configured servers released in 2002.

System architecture

Processors

Processors were designated by the [-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 Integrity rp2405 -6X PA-8700 PA-RISC 64-bit 650 MHz 768/1536 KB on-chip
HP 9000 A500/rp2450 -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 A500/rp2470 -6X
-7X
PA-8700 PA-RISC 64-bit
PA-8700 PA-RISC 64-bit
650 MHz
750 MHz
768/1536 KB on-chip
768/1536 KB on-chip
HP Integrity rp2405 -6X 1-2 PA-8700 PA-RISC 64-bit 650 MHz 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

System buses

Memory

Expansion slots

Storage

External ports

Operating systems

Benchmarks

System SPEC2000 int SPEC2000 fp SPEC2000
rate int
SPEC2000
rate fp
A500-5X
(rp2450)
422 414 2-CPU: 9.3 2-CPU: 7.6
A500-7X
(rp2470)
581 6.74
2-CPU: 12.9

Dimensions

System Height Width Depth Weight
95mm 482mm 635mm 23kg
Rack-mounted 2U 482mm 774mm 23kg

Documentation

Manuals

Websites

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