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.
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.
- 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
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
- 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 bandwidth
- 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
Memory
- ECC SDRAM DIMMs, 256 MB/512 MB/1 GB modules
- Eight slots, A400 uses only four
- A400 2 GB maximum
- A500 8 GB maximum
Expansion 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.
External 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 11.00 and HP-UX 11i v1, 64-bit
- 11i v2, 64-bit
- PA-RISC Linux, main Linux port to PA-RISC, supported by HP in the 2000s
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
- hp server rp2400 series whitepaper (URL gone)
- hp server rp2405 series whitepaper (URL gone)
- rp24xx Hardware Manual (URL gone)
Websites
- Doug’s HP 9000 - GSP Notes Page with a detailed description of the available GSP commands.
- A-Class Product Overview archive.org, Hewlett-Packard Company (2000: mirror accessed January 2024)
- A-Class Street Talk archive.org, Hewlett-Packard Company (2000: mirror accessed January 2024)