Upgrade Your HPE ProLiant Gen10 & Gen11 Servers with the Right Storage, Memory & RAID Components.

Why upgrade your HPE ProLiant servers?

Many environments are still running solid HPE ProLiant Gen10 and early Gen11 servers. The hardware is proven, but workloads have changed: virtualization density is higher, databases are larger, and AI or analytics jobs sneak onto general-purpose clusters. Instead of replacing entire servers, a targeted HPE ProLiant upgrade can extend the life of your investment.

By adding more memory, higher-performance SAS drives, and a modern Smart Array RAID controller, you can:

• Improve application and database performance without a full refresh
• Increase capacity for VMs and containers
• Harden availability with better RAID protection and enterprise drives
• Align older systems with new projects, like test/dev for Gen11 or future Gen12 designs

This guide focuses on practical, component-level upgrades you can buy today from Catalyst and drop into common ProLiant models such as the DL360 Gen10.

The three building blocks: storage, memory & RAID

Almost every ProLiant upgrade falls into three areas:

• RAID controller – how you protect and present storage
• SAS drives – where your data actually lives
• SmartMemory – how much working set your workloads can keep in RAM

When these three are balanced, you get smoother performance and easier capacity planning. For example, there’s little value in building a carefully tuned hpe proliant dl360 gen10 raid configuration if the underlying drives are too small or the server is starved for memory.

In the sections that follow, we’ll map each of these building blocks to the specific HPE SKUs you’re listing in your e-commerce catalog and explain where they fit in an overall design.

Choosing the right base: HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen10

Many deployments start with a flexible, 1U workhorse such as the HPE 867959-B21 ProLiant DL360 Gen10 Server . This CTO chassis gives you 8 SFF bays, Intel® Xeon® Scalable CPU support, and up to 3.0 TB of HPE DDR4 SmartMemory, making it a rock-solid base for both production and lab workloads. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}

Because the DL360 Gen10 is so configurable, it’s an ideal anchor for a pillar blog like this. The same upgrade logic also applies to similar 1U and 2U ProLiant models, and even to smaller systems like the MicroServer Gen10 if you’re planning an hpe proliant microserver gen10 ram upgrade.

Next, let’s look at how the RAID layer shapes everything above it.

Upgrading RAID: HPE Smart Array P408i-a SR controller

The RAID controller is the “traffic cop” between your drives and your workloads. For Gen10 servers, the HPE Smart Array P408i-a SR Gen10 is a popular choice. You can source it as either:

• New HPE Smart Array P408i-a SR Gen10 | 12G SAS RAID Controller – listed around $295 at Catalyst.
• Refurbished HPE 804331-B21 Smart Array P408i-a SR Gen10 – typically closer to $155 while offering the same core feature set.

Both options support 12G SAS, hardware RAID levels (0/1/5/6/10 and others), and can operate in mixed mode so you can blend RAID volumes with HBA/JBOD for software-defined storage.

Why this controller matters?

A capable controller:

• Delivers consistent performance for transactional databases and VM workloads
• Enables flexible hpe proliant dl360 gen10 raid configuration options (RAID 1 for OS, RAID 5/6/10 for data)
• Integrates cleanly with HPE tools like iLO and Smart Storage Administrator

For DL360 Gen11 and beyond, you’ll often see similar Smart Array controllers plus a storage controller enablement cable kit mentioned in HPE documentation. That kit ensures the controller can connect to the backplane correctly; it’s worth verifying during any Gen11 upgrade planning.

Selecting SAS drives for performance & capacity

Once the RAID layer is sorted, the next decision is which SAS drives to drop into your bays. Catalyst carries several enterprise options that pair nicely with DL360 Gen10 and similar servers.

1.2 TB 10K SAS drives for balanced performance

For balanced capacity and performance, the HPE 872479-B21 1.2 TB SAS 12G 10K SFF drive is a strong choice. You can pick it up:

• New HPE 872479-B21 | 1.2 TB SAS 12G/s Enterprise Hard Drive – typically around $265
• Refurbished HPE 872479-B21 | 1.2 TB SAS 12G/s Enterprise Hard Drive – closer to $110, ideal when budget is tight but enterprise SAS is required

Both options run at 10,000 RPM with a 12G SAS interface, giving you good throughput and latency for mixed workloads such as virtualization clusters, file servers, and mid-tier databases.

2.4 TB SAS drives for higher density

If you’d rather maximize capacity per bay, the HPE 881457-B21 | 2.4 TB SAS 12G Mission Critical Enterprise HDD gives you roughly double the capacity in the same 2.5″ footprint, with pricing around $350. It’s a great fit for log-heavy workloads, backup nodes, and scale-out storage clusters.

Memory planning & DL360 Gen10 memory configuration basics

Storage is important, but memory is where performance often shows up first. A thoughtful HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen10 memory configuration ensures that CPUs stay fed and that your VMs or containers don’t fight over RAM.

HPE generally recommends populating memory in matched sets across channels. In practice, that means:

• Using identical DIMM sizes and speeds per memory channel
• Balancing DIMMs across both processors in dual-socket systems
• Avoiding partial or asymmetric configurations when possible

The good news is that HPE SmartMemory takes a lot of guesswork out of compatibility; these modules are validated specifically for ProLiant platforms and unlock performance features that generic DIMMs don’t.

32 GB vs 64 GB SmartMemory: which should you choose?

Catalyst lists two especially useful SmartMemory options for Gen10 servers:

• HPE P00924-B21 | 32 GB DDR4-2933 ECC Registered SmartMemory – around $220 per module.
• HPE P00930-B21 | 64 GB DDR4 ECC Registered Smart Memory Kit – typically about $320 per module.

When 32 GB modules make sense?

32 GB RDIMMs are ideal when you want:

• Moderate density at a lower cost per server
• Plenty of channels populated (for bandwidth) without huge total capacity
• General-purpose virtualization or application servers

When to step up to 64 GB?

64 GB modules shine in memory-hungry environments:

• Heavily consolidated hypervisor hosts
• In-memory databases and analytics workloads
• AI or big data pipelines that cache large working sets

Even if you’re still on Gen10 today, planning with larger DIMMs can make it easier to mirror patterns later in Gen11 or Gen12 systems.

Example DL360 Gen10 RAID & upgrade configurations

To pull everything together, here are a few sample upgrade patterns that map directly to the components above. Treat these as starting points; Catalyst can always tweak them based on your workload and budget.

These builds give you a practical starting point for an HPE ProLiant upgrade conversation. From there, you can factor in specifics like backup windows, SLA requirements, and licensing constraints.

Frequently asked questions