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Castlewood

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Does it require to add memory in a group of 4 chips to HP ProLiant DL380 server ?

I have a HP ProLiant DL380 Gen 9 server with one processor. The processor has 12 memory sockets. Here is the current memory chips and the slot#:
1:   16 GB
2:     8 GB
3
4:    16 GB
5:      8 GB
6
7
8:     8 GB
9:   16 GB
10  
11:   8 GB
12:  16 GB

I've been thinking to add either 4 x 8 GB or 2 x 16 GB. The 2 x 16 GB is preferable but I was told they require in a group of four. Is it true?
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CompProbSolv
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What does it say on the inside of the cover?  That is where I always get my information for adding memory and making sure the correct slots are populated.

If budget allows, I'd go for a group of 4 of the 16GB just to have the memory available.
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Member_2_231077

It's preferable to have equal ammounts of Ram on each channel but it only gives a tiny speed improvement adding 4 small sticks instead of 2 big ones. Intel will show you a whitepaper showing just how much better the STREAM memory benchmark runs if the RAM is spread evenly but real life isn't like the STREAM benchmark. Intel won't show you the SPECint benchmark in their literature as that's more like real life and shows the tiny tiny difference.

Just shove the big sticks in 10 and 7 will work OK.

Actually though you can make it even with a bit of shuffling because 2*8=16

16
16
0
16
16
0
8
8
16
8
8
16

Hey presto 32GB on each channel :)
@Castlewood: You can try to use this website to validate your settings: https://h22195.www2.hpe.com/DDR4memoryconfig/Home/LEGAL to ensure compatibility.
HPE's memory configurator is all very well for the most simple configurations but this is what it comes out with for this situation if you pick the option that adds 2 16GB sticks:

 Channel 1 : 1 x ( 16GB 2R, 8GB 2R, 0GB )
Channel 2 : 1 x ( 16GB 2R, 8GB 2R, 0GB )
Channel 3 : 1 x ( 8GB 2R, 16GB 2R, 16GB 2R )
Channel 4 : 1 x ( 8GB 2R, 16GB 2R, 16GB 2R )

It's too stupid to shuffle the current RAM so it ends out putting 24GB on one channel and 40GB on another, very unbalanced indeed. My layout is far better and BIOS will validate it during POST.
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ASKER

Andy,

My existing 8GB ram is 1R instead of 2R as you listed. Would that matter?
By the way, help me understand the difference between 8GB 1R and 8GB 2R? Would 8GB 2R be more like with double speed or capacity and become 16GB 1R ? I may be silly but need help...
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