HP Unveils Mini Workstation

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=2364757

by manaskarekar • 10 years ago

228 230 10 years ago

www8.hp.com

Some more pictures: http://store.hp.com/us/en/ContentView?storeId=10151&catalogI...

JadeNB• 10 years ago

What is the etiquette on posting literal company press releases? I'm not asking snarkily, but mean it as a serious question. I don't want to see an HN that's dominated by ads for the latest gadgets, but I understand that this is something of interest to hackers, and perhaps that criterion dominates all others.

manaskarekar2• 10 years ago

Honestly, I felt a little dirty posting this, but I stumbled on it on some blog and thought of linking straight to the press release.

I just thought this was an interesting product. I am in no way affiliated with HP or have any financial incentive in sharing this link.

maxerickson• 10 years ago

Yeah, I think the same rules apply as for any other link.

(which the way I see it, as long as you aren't posting a torrent of boring HP links, it would even be fine if you worked at HP and posted the link, so long as it is interesting)

wvenable• 10 years ago

There are upvote/downvote buttons -- I'm unsure why any other criteria is needed.

theandrewbailey• 10 years ago

I was unaware that stories could be downvoted, or I lack the karma to do so.

Zikes• 10 years ago

Per the guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting." I think that rule should trump any other, regardless of source or topic.

ksk• 10 years ago

Well everytime Apple, MS, Google launch something, no matter how irrelevant, it ends up on the front page. As a point of principle, if that's OK with folks, why shouldn't it be OK here too. Heck I remember seeing a _font_ change, (by either Apple or Google), ending up on the front page.

iNate2000• 10 years ago

I was a little disappointed when I saw that it doesn't have a release date. Just a "Notify Me" link.

AnimalMuppet2• 10 years ago

I saw "December 2016" in there somewhere...

zeckalpha• 10 years ago

Wow. The Mac Mini used to have a quad core version.

spiderfarmer• 10 years ago

I loved that thing. I used it 24/7 for two years and then sold it for just 250 euro below the original price. Overpriced Macs do have their advantages.

josh64• 10 years ago

I still use the 2.3GHz quad core "server" version as my main system and I love it :) I took one of the 1TB disks out and put an SSD in to make a DIY fusion drive.

petepete• 10 years ago

So how much RAM could be stuffed in one of these?

Edit: The Z2 Mini supports Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors, in addition to Xeon E3 processors. It also supports up to 32GB of DDR4 SO-DIMM memory, and the unit can be equipped with Nvidia Quadro M620 graphics with 2GB of memory. (from http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hp-z2-mini-g3-workstation,3...)

detaro4• 10 years ago

and ECC RAM!

ChuckMcM5• 10 years ago

As someone who has purchased ECC SO-DIMM form factor RAM in the past, it is very much not cheap. (it was basically 4x the cost of ECC DIMM sticks)

Matthias2476• 10 years ago

Any idea to which consumer card the Quadro M620 correlates? If it's something halfway decent then it might be a also a much better ultraportable gaming solution for some people than e.g. a NUC. However that also depends on if the Quadro drivers are suitable for gaming or not.

PascLeRasc3• 10 years ago

Its desktop variant the K620 performs between a GTX 750 (non-Ti) [1] and a 730 [2], so it doesn't look exceptional. I'd guess around Intel Iris level.

[1] http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-Quadro-K620-vs-N... [2] http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-Quadro-K620-vs-N...

Splines• 10 years ago

Your best bet, other than building your own, is probably a Steam Machine. For around the same price as this workstation you can get one with a better video card.

pavlov• 10 years ago

Seems like this is what I always hoped the Mac Mini would be...

walshemj3• 10 years ago

and if it was my firm might actually buy some other wise the mini pc's that levano do look like our next desktop.

krylon• 10 years ago

If they can actually pull it off without the device either melting or spinning its fans fast enough to achieve escape velocity, it does sound like a pretty sweet deal.

andrewmcwatters2• 10 years ago

Seeing stuff like this on HN brings excitement back into tech for me. New hardware and debatably a challenger to the Mac mini and Intel NUC? Very cool stuff.

digler999• 10 years ago

Mac mini ? How come nobody has mentioned the mac pro[1] (aka the traschcan-shaped mac workstation) which is much more closely related to this

[1] http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

andrewmcwatters2• 10 years ago

Solid point. Mac Pro competitor in mini form factor. If only Apple had something like that, that would be crazy.

anentropic• 10 years ago

except the price

toisanji• 10 years ago

this does not seem interesting to hackers at all

rch6• 10 years ago

It is if it ships with Linux.

jasonkostempski• 10 years ago

I'm sure they're referring to upgradability which is the last attractive feature of desktops. I can't figure out why anyone would care how big their tower is. If you're going to have an array of 6 monitors, I'm sure you've got an extra square foot or 2 for a standard tower that won't lock you into HP components.

mi100hael• 10 years ago

Support for six displays out of the box is pretty cool. I'm glad manufacturers are finally supporting more than just one or two displays by default.

gjem97• 10 years ago

Was looking for info on multi-head support. Where did you see this?

EDIT: ah, I see it now. Three dual DisplayPorts: http://store.hp.com/us/en/ContentView?storeId=10151&catalogI...

plucas• 10 years ago

Third paragraph:

...and has the ability to support six displays right out of the box.

Matthias2476• 10 years ago

The pro version has 4 displayports was written on one site. But I guess that means that 6 displays can only be connected at a limited resolution (Full HD?). Wonder if could even drive a 4k screen on each displayport.

honkhonkpants3• 10 years ago

Even a Macbook Pro can drive 4 external displays and the internal display at the same time. The Mac Pro that came out in 2013 can drive 6.

The question is really up to the GPU makers to put the right output capacity on their cards, and the integrator to hook up all the ports and make sure the software actually works.

protomyth• 10 years ago

I get the feeling people who have security folks that need 6 monitors will be ordering this. It sure would be a nice replacement for the box we have now. The small size is a big benefit.

wscott2• 10 years ago

If you have 6 displays on your desk, why does it matter that your computer is tiny? Maybe this is a nice portable gaming box...

to3m• 10 years ago

If you've got enough displays, cable length can become a factor! This is much easier to solve if you've got your PC on your desk, and it's much easier to fit your PC on your desk if it's smaller rather than larger.

rch6• 10 years ago

A couple of times I've been stuck at a desk with limited foot room, despite being surrounded by monitors. This would have been helpful.

colanderman• 10 years ago

"Based on publicly available information of workstation competitors as of October 3, 2016 with volume of at least 1 million units annually as of October 3, 2016 having < 3 litres volume, professional graphics, Intel® Xeon® quad core processor, ISV certified applications, ECC memory."

This fine print, particularly the words "Xeon" and "ECC", let them conveniently ignore the 6th gen i7 NUC: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-kit-nuc6i7kyk...

detaro4• 10 years ago

To be fair, that is a fairly defining feature of "Workstation" vs "Office PC" if selling PCs.

chx3• 10 years ago

The Iris Pro in the Skull Canyon is impressive for an Intel IGP but it's not really comparable to an nVidia Quadro...

honkhonkpants3• 10 years ago

Actually has a footprint larger than the Mac Pro which is only about 7" in diameter. This has a diameter of 12".

Leynos2• 10 years ago

It'd definitely smaller than 12". That's the size of the SFF PC I have on my desk, and this thing, next to the coffee cup and mouse shown, is definitely not as large. The subtitle of the article states, "HP Z2 Mini delivers server-grade power in a 2.3 by 8.5 inch package".

honkhonkpants3• 10 years ago

It's 8.5" on each square side and 2.3" high. A square 8.5" on a side has a diameter of 12".

mrpippy2• 10 years ago

Not including the external power supply. No pictures of that, but someone else said it was 135W which will not be small.

croon• 10 years ago

By pre-defining specs for the device, you can obviously create a sleak box for it with no wasted space, but I would claim it will always be impossible to create something as powerful as something 4 times its size, given the larger components are still produced, just going off physics. Otherwise no one would still build towers and just use laptops. (Of course more people use laptops, but it's not because of performance)

Since they don't mention specs other than "next gen xeon and nvidia graphics", and the only claim to power is "Building off the success of the HP Z240 SFF, the HP Z2 Mini Workstation is twice as powerful as any commercial mini PC on the market today", I won't hold my breath.

Getting better performance than "other mini PCs" is a pretty low bar for a stationary workstation. I'm unsure who this is for. It's not a laptop, so you can't bring it with you. A midtower would have better performance and can be strapped under your desk so you never see it.

AdamN• 10 years ago

That was the theory with the first clocks to go on ships ... but then John Harrison realized that smaller can be just about as good for a significantly more useable product: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison#The_longitude_wa...

m_mueller• 10 years ago

Clocks don't need cooling.

revelation2• 10 years ago

It's a mobile GPU and a 40 odd Watt Xeon. It's not really Workstation hardware.

djsumdog• 10 years ago

Off the shelf parts with the Thin-ITX form factor can help you build a pretty powerful workstation at this size. I built one myself:

http://penguindreams.org/blog/building-a-thin-itx-router/

You wouldn't be able to build anything as powerful as these HP offerings, because they can custom fab parts to pack in ram and high end processors in a smaller density (like laptops) and build a lot of custom heat dispensations components as well.

Still, there are Thin-ITX boards that can support a decent amount of ram and power, just not Xeons or high end video cards.

rodgerd• 10 years ago

Four times the size can also be tremendously counter-productive, in terms of having a big empty space that air swirls around in. Cooling is a pain in the arse.

Slackwise• 10 years ago

The HP Z2 Mini was designed for the millions of CAD users demanding smaller hardware

I'm not a CAD user, but is there really a "demand" for smaller desktop hardware?

lowmagnet• 10 years ago

As long as it meets the specs, most CAD people probably don't need expandable hardware.

Matthias2476• 10 years ago

That's also what I'm wondering. For my primary work PC it's: Either it's really portable and has a screen - then it should be small. Or it's not portable - then I don't care as long as it fits on or under the desk.

For some environments however small or invisible hardware and the associated clean look is definitely a bonus: E.g. if it's a PC in your living room (I bought a NUC for that), or maybe for publicly exposed working places (receptionist, ...). But that's not really what is targeted with that hardware.

rikkus• 10 years ago

On a 'living room' PC: I bought a Thinkpad T430s for £150. It's connected to the TV, the amp, and syncs various file storage services to itself then backs them up to various locations with Crashplan.

The best thing about it? If I want to do anything with it, I just open the lid. Screen, keyboard and pointing device built in.

lightedman• 10 years ago

Yup, lots of it. Smaller computer means more room for other machines, like larger CNC Mills.

Tempest19812• 10 years ago

Tangent: I'm curious about HP's hostname taxonomy. I.e. What products or content live under www8 vs www2 or www7.

http://www8.hp.com/...

r1k• 10 years ago

I assume that's just their way of pinning you to a load balancer.

Tempest19812• 10 years ago

Me too, but then try the same URI at www, www2, www3... it's a 404

walshemj3• 10 years ago

Or there web presence is to use a technical term "$%^T"

jasonmp85• 10 years ago

This is an anecdotal story from a Daring Fireball reader, but the claim is it was initially to help locate servers?

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/03/09/hp-license-plate...

0x0• 10 years ago

That doesn't even make sense. What happens if a server goes down and needs to be replaced? Do you have to wait for someone to remove the old box and insert a new box in the rack? Obviously there needs to be a handoff of the same name because everyone in the world is linking to the "license-plate" URL....

derefr• 10 years ago

Having seen these at several large corporations, I always figured it was either:

1. a division of labor: each corporate "division"—themselves large enough to have their own subsumed IT departments—gets its own hostname prefix to plan a routing map under.

2. a division in time: creating a new wwwN "prefix" allows them to "throw out" their old route-map and start again for new projects, while still keeping old projects on their existing routes at the old hostname.

My guess leans more toward the second option: corporations large enough to maintain extensive intranets have a particularly faithful dedication to the "cool URLs don't change" philosophy, because they don't want to go around fixing thousands of links built into dozens or hundreds of internal apps, emails, calendars, &c.

Of course, if you know you're going to do this from the beginning, you can just do what the W3 recommends, and begin each newly-defined route with a prefix for the current year+month (see https://www.w3.org/2005/07/13-nsuri).

SwellJoe2• 10 years ago

I did some caching/content distribution/load balancing work for HP many years ago (maybe 10 years ago, now).

The names are (or were) geographic and divisional. Their infrastructure is (or was) pretty old school. While they do have load balancing and such, it is often of the form of redirects based on locality or other information. People in Hong Kong or China starting on HP.com in the US would find themselves bounced over to servers in Hong Kong, based on their language and where their traffic was being routed to/from. They mirrored tons of their data automatically with Squid proxies and just additional web servers. So, once a user gets directed to a local HP site, they'll tend to stay on it...and if content doesn't exist in the local cache, it'll pull it from the origin. HP has tons of public server names not just in the wwwN.hp.com space.

So, while I don't have specific information about www8 vs www2, etc. Based on my own experience with their infrastructure, I would assume it is the most boring explanation. They need several servers to provide good service, so they just give various divisions their own servers. This was the case in Hong Kong, Korea, and China, where my work was deployed. They do have load balancing and content distribution and such (and did even back then), but the actual web services were pretty traditional; they just ran on a server somewhere.

heyNeato• 10 years ago

I don't know why I find that explanation so much more reassuring than my assumption that it was simply a really sloppy version control hack, to denote upgraded deployments.

Even though there are a bazillion other ways to codify DNS subdomains by region, including some sort of reasonable vernacular for the region, I'm glad it's about locales, regions and perhaps even content delivery or timezones maybe, moreso than version numbers.

Every time I get redirected to something like www2.example.com, I've often wondered which obstinate jerk would refuse to move whatever's on www proper, forcing the entire world to suffer eternity in a purgatory named www2.

Hopefully, all those times, it just turned out that I was in North America, region #2, and maybe region #1 was Antarctica for some reason.

jjp• 10 years ago

Based on a google site: search and an eyeball of the first couple of results pages I'd summarise as

www2 - partnering, alliances education [1] www3 - investor relations, careers [2] www4 - central european languages [3] www5 - japanese [4] www6 - no results found www7 - open vms [5] www8 - seems to be the primary site for english content

[1] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww2.hp.com [2] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww3.hp.com [3] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww4.hp.com [4] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww5.hp.com [5] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww7.hp.com [6] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww8.hp.com

24gttghh2• 10 years ago

Clickbait. Title should read:

"HP Unveils its[1] First-Ever Mini Workstation"

It's certainly not an Industry first, nor a "World's First" as the press release claims.

[1]Based on publicly available information of workstation competitors as of October 3, 2016 with volume of at least 1 million units annually as of October 3, 2016 having < 3 litres volume, professional graphics, Intel® Xeon® quad core processor, ISV certified applications, ECC memory.

dang• 10 years ago

Ok, we took out "Industry’s First-Ever".

24gttghh2• 10 years ago

I appreciate it was changed, despite my snark. Thank you.

dingo_bat3• 10 years ago

I'm just curious how hp can claim something completely opposite to what is obvious to many people. Isn't that false advertising?

jlgaddis• 10 years ago

Ever see something being advertised as "new and improved"? It can't be both.

I learned -- a long time ago -- to immediately ignore about half of anything in a press release or coming from a marketing/sales person. I skipped reading probably half of this press release just because I don't care that the VP of the division responsible for the product thinks it's great (of course he does, he's being paid to say that).

Give me facts: data sheets, technical specifications, etc. Personally, I have a (possible unhealthy?) extreme level of "contempt" for the average marketing/sales droid.

davidgerard• 10 years ago

Does it sound like a jet engine? I was disappointed how noisy even the small Lenovo Thinkcentre desktops were.

kogepathic2• 10 years ago

It has to. 135W power supply for a device which is 8.5x8.5x2.3"

There's no way that much heat is going to be quietly removed by those tiny fans.

I'd love some high res photos of the inside so I could look up the data sheet of the fans in use.

Considering HP servers ship with cooling ducts to direct airflow and this thing doesn't even seem to have them. I mean look at the CPU exhaust! From the photos it looks like the only vents are at the corners, but they've decided to exhaust the CPU (and presumably the GPU, hard to tell since it's under a hard drive) straight into the rear IO ports which don't have any vents to the outside.

mrpippy2• 10 years ago

From the pictures it looks like the power supply is external

amiga-workbench• 10 years ago

Really?

I've got a ThinkCenter M73 right next to me running a hypervisor for several Windows VM's. Even under load I don't hear a peep out of the thing.

walshemj3• 10 years ago

Only $799 the average full sized workstation has CPU's that cost more than this.

detaro4• 10 years ago

For the most basic model, I wouldn't be surprised if there are going to be options at more than double the price...

wscott2• 10 years ago

If you can't get this up to $4000 by enabling all the options then HP is doing it wrong.

ChuckMcM5• 10 years ago

See also the Intel NUC thing: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-kit-nuc6i7kyk...

What really astonishes me though is how you can have these really nice machines and Apple doesn't bother to update the Mac mini. Seriously, an Apple version of this would be a nice desktop.

daxorid• 10 years ago

I have the Skullcanyon NUC, and this is not comparable.

I've been waiting for someone to offer me ECC in a small form factor. This is the first time I've ever seen it.

ChuckMcM5• 10 years ago

I've got one of these: https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon/qm77/x9... which is mini-itx. Pretty small form factor. Using an M.2 boot drive. Not very cost effective though.

cylinder714• 10 years ago

Right! The Skull Canyon NUC is brilliant, but the lack of ECC RAM is regrettable.

Matthias2476• 10 years ago

Just interested: What's your use case for ECC? Do you intend to run a server on it and aim for highest stability?

jpt42• 10 years ago

I also have the Skullcanyon, as a laptop replacement machine. None of my previous personal computers have had ECC RAM, but none have had more than 16GB either. What is your use case that benefits from error-correction, if you please?

technofiend• 10 years ago

What really astonishes me though is how you can have these really nice machines and Apple doesn't bother to update the Mac mini.

IMHO there is indeed a great deal of pent-up demand for more powerful Mac Minis. I really wish Apple wouldn't just treat them as incidental devices, but presumably there's not much incentive from their perspective since these are lower margin than their other offerings.

ilaksh• 10 years ago

Also see larger but still small and powerful Gigabyte Brix UHD.

kristianp• 10 years ago

an Apple version of this would be a nice desktop.

It would compete with the IMac then, and with their notebooks too. Maybe Apple should charge enough of a premium for the mini to justify that loss.

blacksmythe• 10 years ago

  >> It would compete with the IMac then, and with their notebooks too.

Companies that try to avoid competing with themselves often fail quickly and spectacularly (after this approach appearing to work well for an extended time).

orangecat• 10 years ago

What really astonishes me though is how you can have these really nice machines and Apple doesn't bother to update the Mac mini.

It would almost have been better if they didn't update it. The 2012 mini was fantastic; you could take it to a quad i7 and 16GB for under $1000 thanks to user-accessible RAM. For most purposes that's much better than the current $1000 mini.

thirdsun2• 10 years ago

Absolutely - my main computer is an iMac, which will soon be replaced by another iMac (5K), however as someone who builds and upgrades a gaming rig as well, I always look with envy towards the very affordable world of PCs. I'd love to be able to slap macOS on custom build computers for a fraction of the price that is attached to Apple hardware.

hueving• 10 years ago

Are hackintoshes still feasible?

rdtsc• 10 years ago

This is very nice. I used to have a mac mini and would toss it in my backpack so I could work at home (I had two sets of displays and good keyboards). I can see this working out the same (well I work from home now all the time, but in a general sense I see it used that way too).

Certainly like the performance of it.

rch6• 10 years ago

Seems that it ships with a 'choice of Windows 10 Pro or Linux operating systems', but I don't see which distro.

digi_owl3• 10 years ago

Expect RHEL.

rch6• 10 years ago

That would be terrific. Swapping that out for CentOS or Fedora should be trivial.

chx3• 10 years ago

I'd expect Ubuntu on a desktop but what do I know. It's exciting to see Linux support no matter what.

Tsiklon• 10 years ago

HP Workstations officially support RHEL and SLES, looking at the Datasheet for this little guy confirms it;

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/workstations/z2mini.html

digi_owl3• 10 years ago

Funny how while the PR spiel talks about CAD, the press image is of a stock trader desk.

mwfunk• 10 years ago

They probably just wanted to show off the 6-display config for that photo. Stock traders are much more likely to use that particular display arrangement than engineers.

gravypod• 10 years ago

This packet is probably more for their investors then anything else and investors probably think 6 monitors means powerful. It's smart marketing to attack who you are actually advertising to (and here it's business 'leaders').

xlayn• 10 years ago

HP Mac Mini. This is actually interesting, when Apple switched to max 16 Gb of ram on their PRO line, HP throws something with PRO graphics and Xeon.

Bud2• 10 years ago

Apples and oranges. Intel's mobile Skylake processors don't support more than 16GB of low-power RAM; Apple didn't have anything to do with that limitation.

This is a boxy desktop, not a mobile machine.

jsjohnst4• 10 years ago

I up voted your response as it's correct, but for anyone who doesn't want to believe, here's a fully referenced post I made a while back with specific references in the Intel documentation:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12900834

wmf2• 10 years ago

Or Apple could have used pro RAM in the MacBook Pro.

Sanddancer2• 10 years ago

Intel's mobile processors like the ones in the Macbook Pro support up to 64 megs of ram. Their ultra low power cpus only support 16 gigs, but the line in question goes up to 64, even with ddr3l ram.

JustSomeNobody2• 10 years ago

Too bad this doesn't have a built in hires display and a keyboard so we could compare orange to oranges.

NetStrikeForce• 10 years ago

I've been looking around my Mac Mini and my friend's Mac Pro for hours now.

I couldn't find the hires display.

Bud2• 10 years ago

You're forgetting the cheap Chinese external power brick that you will be tethered to, also...

noja2• 10 years ago

What's a turbo Z drive? Can I swap it for a Samsung 860 Pro M.2? Can I have two M.2 devices to raid it? I don't want to lose my work.

Edit: Liliputing says "There’s a 2.5 inch drive bay for a hard drive or SSD and an M.2 SATA SSD slot." (https://liliputing.com/2016/11/msi-trident-compact-vr-ready-...)

JonathonW• 10 years ago

That's the MSI Trident referenced there; HP doesn't say whether or not the Z2 accepts a standard M.2 drive (full specs don't appear to be available yet).

Sephr• 10 years ago

It's a 4-way M.2 NVMe raid card, which HP has ignorantly decided to populate with seemingly mediocre SSDs instead of the current gen flagships from Samsung or Intel.

You can remove the included SSDs and populate it with up to 4 960 Pro SSDs for what I imagine would be 14/8 GB/s sequential read/write performance.

Unfortunately there's no way to buy it without the included SSDs, so you're better off with the unpopulated M.2/mini-SAS NVMe raid cards from Dell, HighPoint, or SuperMicro.

pault• 10 years ago

Do you happen to know what card that is? I couldn't find it in TFA. I'm not sure about getting the full read/write performance with 4 960s, since I think you'll saturate the bus with 2 or 3.

Edit: tweaktown was able to get 9.2GB/3.8GB read/write on a non-bootable array: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/7553/samsung-950-pro-pcie-...

gregmac3• 10 years ago

Unfortunately there's no way to buy it without the included SSDs

Ah, brings back memories of buying HP servers several years ago. The only way to get the servers we needed was to buy servers pre-shipped with inadequate RAM and drives, rip it all out, and then install new drives and new RAM (purchased at the same time from HP, for an inflated price of course). We were left with a pile of essentially useless SAS drives and ECC RAM, and still had to do all the assembly in-house.

I've never had so much trouble getting a company to accept several tens of thousands of dollars before.. or since.

That project explicitly specified HP hardware, and as far as I know we never bought HP servers again after that experience.

finid• 10 years ago

Support your unique user needs with a choice of Windows 10 Pro or Linux® operating systems.

Above that line on the product's page is the Micorsoft Windows logo. HP should know that Linux also has an official logo. Put it there

JohnStrange• 10 years ago

Good specs, I wonder what it will cost with maxed out memory.

cmdrfred• 10 years ago

I've deployed a hundred or so HP mini's pro units processionally, utter garbage. Blurscreened constantly, took 6 months of screaming at their tech support to get them replaced. I can't recommended any HP product after that.

AdmiralAsshat• 10 years ago

I've got an HP Stream Mini, which I've been perfectly happy with[0]. Granted it's not a business machine and I don't do any dev work on it, it's just my living room HTPC. But I totally dig how easy it was to open up and replace the wifi card, hard-drive, and memory. In fact, my only complaint about it so far is that I stupidly let it update to Windows 10, and now I periodically turn my TV on expecting to be staring at Kodi, but instead I get a login screen because W10 decided to install updates and reboot on me.

[0] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/cheap-functional-upgr...

joesmo• 10 years ago

"world’s first mini workstation" my ass (and no, the footnote doesn't make it so). Here's one that supports 7 4k displays and has no fan: https://airtop-pc.com/

intrasight7• 10 years ago

I don't understand why they didn't use a Xeon e3-1545m, which is a 35-45 TDP part and has adequate graphics for the intended market.

If it doesn't support ECC, there's no benefit vs the Intel Skull Canyon.

I am in the market for a new dev machine, and I want Xeon and ECC. Just not enough good options currently (unless you build from scratch).

rch6• 10 years ago

Check out Colfax International. They have some nice workstations that are relatively easy to configure.

intrasight7• 10 years ago

I had really meant to say "not enough good mini/laptop options"

djrogers2• 10 years ago

If it doesn't support ECC, there's no benefit vs the Intel Skull Canyon.

It does support ECC - right there on the product page.

intrasight7• 10 years ago

I don't see that

nextos• 10 years ago

It does support ECC, but I don't understand its thermal design. Probably it's like NUCs, a small box for the sake of prettiness and a tiny-n-cheap fan that will be noisy.

It's a shame, because you can passively cool things like a i7-6700T these days without much effort and without ever falling into throttling [1]. Plus, Calyos is about to release a loop heat pipe that will be able to cool massive systems without any noise [2].

I wish someone like Apple or perhaps the new Microsoft had the vision to sell corporate desktops and workstations that did not suck noisewise. I imagine a little fanless Mac Mini running on Xeon would sell like hotcakes and would give Apple the chance to gain a further chunk of enterprise marketshare. But they don't seem to be interested.

[1] http://www.atlastsolutions.com/ultimate-fanless-mini-itx-pc-...

[2] http://www.calyos-tm.com/

SwellJoe2• 10 years ago

They specifically mention acoustics in the (long) text about it. I would assume that means they tried to make it quiet. Whether I believe them or not is up in the air, as my last HP workstation was louder than hell.

shmerl2• 10 years ago

Airtop is silent, but it's rather large: https://airtop-pc.com/airtop/natural-airflow-technology/

igravious• 10 years ago

It supports ECC memory, it says it right there on the page.

chx3• 10 years ago

How come? The Skull Canyon has Iris Pro IGP, this has an nVidia Quadro.

nkurz3• 10 years ago

Is there an obvious reason that they stick with traditional air cooling for this, rather than using liquid cooling? Here's an example of a compact system with liquid cooled CPU and graphics card built using off-the-shelf parts: http://blog.newegg.com/building-a-mini-itx-gaming-pc/

I'd think that at this small size, you'd need really high air velocity to make it work. Coupled with small fans, this generally means the system would be really noisy. Is liquid cooling still too expensive? Not reliable enough? Not actually an advantage for noise? Or do the expected purchasers just not care about excessive fan noise?

noja2• 10 years ago

That thing doesn't look compact to me.

jjn2009• 10 years ago

mini-itx computers are small but this thing is tiny in comparison to the average mini-itx build.

nkurz3• 10 years ago

Absolutely it's smaller. Did you notice that they have designed it so that it can act as a VESA mounting plate that goes between a swing arm and the monitor? http://media.bestofmicro.com/B/N/628979/original/HP-Z2-Mini-...

I wasn't suggesting that mini-ITX was a substitute. It's only compact for something that uses standard hardware. What I was wondering was why they stuck with air cooling despite using a custom form factor. I presume there are reasons for this --- I just don't know them.

HP does claim that this machine is "63% quieter than a comparable HP business-class mini PC.": http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hp-z2-mini-g3-workstation,3.... My previous experience with HP machines though is that I hate being in the same room as one even when it is at idle. So even if this is 1/3 as loud, it may still sound like a vacuum cleaner.

tcdent2• 10 years ago

Liquid circulation doesn't actually cool, just transfers the energy to another interface for eventual dissipation into the air.

AnimalMuppet2• 10 years ago

... which is a pretty good definition of "cooling". All cooling is "transferring the energy to another" something (interface, medium, location).

dingo_bat3• 10 years ago

I mean that's exactly what every cooling system does.

revelation2• 10 years ago

I'm not sure there is excessive fan noise here, they have two fans and customized heatpipe design for what, 60W of excess heat at full load?

nkurz3• 10 years ago

There appear to be 2 versions of the external power supply, one at 135W and one at 200W: http://www.storagereview.com/hp_introduces_the_z2_industry_s...

The supported E3-1270, 1275, and 1280 are rated at 80W. I'm not sure about the M620 GPU, but since it's the successor to the 45W K620, that might be a good guess. If they need to offer the 200W version, I assume they will occasionally need to handle at least 135W of cooling inside the chassis.

bluedino• 10 years ago

Only 2 USB ports?

- Actually, when you click the review picture with the ports, you can't see the 2 USB-C ports and 4th DisplayPort. Web design glitch.

desdiv• 10 years ago

Before clicking: http://store.hp.com/wcsstore/hpusstore/Treatment/HP_Zmini_q1...

After clicking: http://store.hp.com/wcsstore/hpusstore/Treatment/HP_Zmini_q1...

No USB-C ports would be a total deal breaker for me.

PascLeRasc3• 10 years ago

No audio output as far as I can tell, and after I plug in my USB keyboard and mouse I'll be out of ports.

jsjohnst4• 10 years ago

USB hub? Many monitors have them these days built in. If yours doesn't, Amazon sells them for barely more than the cost of shipping these days.

PascLeRasc3• 10 years ago

Still, there's room on the case for additional front and back ports, and all the hubs I've used have had problems. It also defeats the clean look of the machine.

rhubarbquid• 10 years ago

It has 6 usb ports, 2 of them type-c

0xCMP• 10 years ago

I couldn't help but notice this funny marketing line which made me laugh

The incredibly compact form factor resembles more a super computer from the future than a PC of today.

desireco42• 10 years ago

I don't do CAD but powerful linux station in small package that can power multiple screens is something I would be in market for. Let's wait for reviews...

questionr• 10 years ago

better details http://www.storagereview.com/hp_introduces_the_z2_industry_s...

gaius• 10 years ago

This is what the Mac Mini should have been

homero• 10 years ago

I love these cute machines

EdSharkey2• 10 years ago

I am hungry for news of HP's "The Machine" or whatever they're calling it, which is the big iron that will leverage and be built around the memristor-based memory.

Any progress on that development?

IanCal• 10 years ago

They dropped the memristors from it last year: https://www.engadget.com/2015/06/05/hp-the-machine-no-memris...

EdSharkey2• 10 years ago

Thanks. Sucks they couldn't make it work.

dekhn• 10 years ago

it was a hype machine. the leader of HP labs just kind of made up a machine that combined all the experimental technologies the labs were working on (terrible idea: make a product that requires N experimental projects to all work out).

jitix• 10 years ago

HP has been coming up with some really innovative PC systems. And they almost sold the PC division few years back.

This is a good development - PC market might have shrunk considerably but it's not going to go away.

Merad• 10 years ago

It looks nice, but beyond looks I don't really get the appeal. If you want and/or need the power, and you're already planning to have 3-6 monitors on your desk, why not go for a slightly larger box that can hold reasonable cooling solutions that don't sound like a jet taking off when the PC is under the slightest load? IME, HP is terrible about considering the noise of their designs. Our current work laptops are HP 1040 G3's, and it doesn't take much get the fans spinning at a noticeable volume (playing a video + a couple instances of VS + the normal outlook/web browsers/etc). The 1040 at least has been an upgrade over our old HP laptops (I forget the model) where the fan seemed to run at 100% all the time.

repsilat• 10 years ago

why not go for a slightly larger box

One upside is that this will fit in your carry-on luggage. Cheaper than a beefy laptop, but I'm not sure portability buys you much if you'd need to think about mouse/keyboard/monitor too.

Maybe people just want more physical room?

destitude• 10 years ago

Gets me sad all over again that Apple refuses to update the Mac Mini.

monoid• 10 years ago

Sounds like a Steam Machine =)

HP Unveils Mini Workstation

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