UCS C240 M6 vs ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Plus. Both Gen3 Ice Lake Xeon, both current-shipping (Cisco M6 is still listed; HPE Gen10 Plus still ships as transitional SKU into Gen11). This is a live-channel decision for enterprises buying new in 2026.
At a glance
| Spec | UCS C240 M6 | ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Generation | M6 (Cisco) | Gen10 Plus (HPE) |
| CPU sockets | 2 | 2 |
| Max memory | 4TB DDR4 | 3TB DDR4 |
| Drive bays | 24 SFF | 24 SFF |
| End of sale | still shipping | still shipping |
| End of support | not announced | not announced |
| Lifecycle | current | current |
| Remote management | CIMC + UCS Manager | iLO 5 Advanced |
| RAID family | UCS-RAID 12G SAS Modular / Cisco 12G SAS HBA | Smart Array P408/P816/MR416i-p/MR216i-p |
| OEM support plan | SmartNet / Solution Support (TAC access) | Foundation Care / Proactive Care (24×7 Call-to-Repair) |
Platform and silicon
Both Gen3 Xeon Scalable (Ice Lake), 32 DDR4-3200 DIMM slots, 4TB max memory, PCIe Gen4. Silicon parity. Platform behavior differs: C240 M6 scales cleanly into Intersight (Cisco’s cloud-managed ops platform); DL380 Gen10 Plus lives in OneView / InfoSight on HPE side. Both expose Redfish for vendor-neutral ops.
BMC and remote management: CIMC + UCS Manager vs iLO 5 Advanced
CIMC + Intersight on C240 M6. iLO 5 + OneView + InfoSight on DL380 Gen10 Plus. Intersight cloud-telemetry is a strong play for multi-site distributed estates. InfoSight is equally strong but with longer track record and richer AI/ML-driven fault prediction.
Storage and RAID
C240 M6: 12 LFF or 24 SFF with Cisco 12G Modular RAID (LSI/Broadcom-based). DL380 Gen10 Plus: 24 SFF with Smart Array MR416i-p. Both support NVMe. Mixed SSD/HDD RAID groups are smoother on DL380 in our testing.
Firmware and tooling ecosystem
HUU + Intersight automation on Cisco. SPP + OneView profile-driven on HPE. Both can fully automate firmware across 100+ nodes. HPE’s track record on this is longer; Cisco Intersight is catching up fast in 2024-2026.
Total cost of ownership: 3-year and 5-year horizons
New C240 M6: $9,000-$13,000 USD. New DL380 Gen10 Plus: $8,500-$12,000 USD. Cisco runs 5-10% higher in new-price on average. Support parity: SmartNet $800-$1,100/year, Foundation Care $800-$1,100/year, ICD Care+ $900-$1,200/year.
Refurb market reality
C240 M6 refurb market is thin — Cisco’s installed base is enterprise-deep but refurb channel is narrow. DL380 Gen10 Plus refurb is moderate and growing. For 2026 refurb buying at scale, DL380 Gen10 Plus wins on availability.
Third-party maintenance vs OEM renewal
SmartNet is historically expensive to renew; ICD Care+ is a material cost-saver on M6 at year 3-5 mark. Foundation Care Extended on DL380 Gen10 Plus is competitive with ICD Care+ through year 5; ICD wins thereafter.
When UCS C240 M6 is the right call
C240 M6 when: Intersight cloud-managed estate matters; Cisco switching runs your network; SmartNet relationship is established; fabric policy-driven ops is your north star.
When ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Plus wins
DL380 Gen10 Plus when: HPE is incumbent; you want transition path toward Gen11 same-family; OneView profile-driven ops matters; Aruba is in-rack.
ICD stock today
UCS C240 M6: 32 Cisco memory SKUs; 82 SSD SKUs; 24 HDD SKUs; 34 RAID controller SKUs.
ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Plus: 1353 HPE memory SKUs; 4724 SSD SKUs; 4288 HDD SKUs; 1167 RAID controller SKUs; 34 PSU SKUs.
Both platforms ship from our Cairo warehouse with same-day dispatch on in-stock parts. Cross-reference sheets, firmware bundles, and compatibility checks come free with every quote. Need parts for both sides of a mixed estate? One ICD quote covers every brand you run.
Typical workload fit
C240 M6 wins in UCS fabric-attached deployments where policy-driven provisioning matters — Cisco ACI, Intersight-managed multi-site, NFV workloads. DL380 Gen10 Plus wins in traditional on-prem virtualization, HPE-standardized estates, and as a transitional platform for customers moving toward Gen11.
Channel and licensing notes
Cisco requires SmartNet for firmware updates past year 1 of entitlement — factor into 3-year budget. HPE Foundation Care includes full firmware entitlement for the life of the contract. This is a real delta on year-3-4 operational cost.
Frequently asked
Can I mix C240 M6 and DL380 Gen10 Plus in one VMware cluster? Yes with EVC set for Ice Lake baseline. Tested in production at multiple ICD customer sites.
Refresh horizon
Both platforms have roughly 3-5 years of OEM support runway remaining. ICD Care+ life-extension pushes that to 8-10 years for both.
Side-by-side benchmarks we have run
On VMmark 3.1 with identical 2x Xeon Gold 6336Y, 512GB DDR4-3200, 2x 1.92TB SSD config, both platforms deliver within 2% of each other on mixed virtualization workload. SPECpower_ssj2008 results: DL380 Gen10 Plus shows 2-4% better power efficiency on partial load — attributable to HPE’s fan curve tuning. Under full load, C240 M6 matches within measurement tolerance.
Real deployment notes
Customers running C240 M6 in fabric mode with UCS Manager report significantly faster service-profile-driven bare-metal provisioning (2-3 minutes to bring up a new host from a saved profile). DL380 Gen10 Plus with OneView profile replay runs 5-7 minutes for equivalent operation. For rapid deployment at scale, UCS fabric has a real operational advantage; for long-lived general-purpose compute, the difference does not matter day to day.
Related: UCS C240 M6 parts catalog | ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Plus parts catalog | ICD Care+ single-vendor-agnostic support.