Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers Reviews

Our main uses for PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel are virtualization, file servers, and Active Directory, which our entire infrastructure sits on.

I have five Dell PowerEdge servers now. About 40,000 users are using these servers. About 70 to 80 people use the file server.

Support for virtualization is very important to us. It provides redundancy when booting from storage, where the servers are loaded from a separate storage. It provides full server support.

The use of OpenManage Console reduces the time it takes to manage PowerEdge Rack Servers in terms of updates and maintenance.

Unfortunately, PowerEdge Rack Servers do not support NVMe storage.

OpenManage Console is slightly confusing, especially after upgrade releases. There isn't a manual for what to do with lifecycle management and in what sequence. I have to rely on user forums instead of Dell in these cases.

This is my third purchase. I bought my first three PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel two years ago.

The primary reason that we chose PowerEdge - they are stable and don’t crash.

I keep my firmware, BIOS, and drivers up-to-date. Regarding security, we have not had any incidents.

The two Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers that I am using solve my needs completely in terms of redundancy and scalability.

I used Dell support a couple of times, and it was okay.

I would rate Dell’s support as eight out of 10. When resolving an issue, they transferred me to multiple support techs. This is because when you reach global support, your request is processed by the operator. Then, there are a few other steps. Usually, I am asked primitive questions before being transferred to Tier 2 or 3, who take a couple of days to get back to me.

Positive

One of the reasons that we choose to use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is because we never had a problem with the previous ones. Whereas, we have had servers and blades from Lenovo with a lot of problems. There were constant motherboard failures.

In addition to Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we also have Dell's storage. Since there have been no problems with them, except for routine battery changes, we continue to use Dell’s reliable hardware. 

It was straightforward with the help of the Dell wizard. I just needed to connect it to VMware. Obviously, someone has to study when preparing to deploy and configure PowerEdge Rack Servers. In my case, deployment and configuration of two PowerEdge Rack Servers with VMware, cloud, and integration with our storage took about three days.

My strategy was to launch these servers as quickly as possible. First, we made sure that there was communication. Then, we installed clients in VMware. After that, we started installing the PowerEdge Rack Servers.

As an educational institution, we have certain budget restraints. So, we work around our budget and what hardware we can get from it.

We considered Lenovo and HPE, but chose Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers because of their reliability.

Choose stable servers when considering fast servers, because even though they might work fast, they might not last. We have been happy with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

I would absolutely rate PowerEdge Rack Servers as 10 out of 10.

We use PowerEdge Rack Servers for quantitative analytics, data simulations, and machine learning.

The hardware makes it a good solution.

PowerEdge Rack Servers are very good for handling the evolving needs of high-performance workloads.

Its tuning and performance are good.

The specs for the benchmarks are very good, but the firmware and software are lacking. There are some issues with the Linux kernel and the long-term support (LTS) for some of the firmware's dependencies. It is causing the kernel to dump. The support for the Linux brands isn't optimal. We would like them to optimize the kernel drivers for benchmarks.

There are some issues that need to be solved with our model in regards to UEFI and firmware. 

I have been using it for about 10 years.

There haven't been any issues with downtime.

Dell's open source support is very good. There are a lot of issues that they need to handle though, like the firmware and UEFI.

We previously used IBM and Lenovo.

It is a cluster, so you just plug and play.

Lenovo is very good with updates.

We use AMD Opteron instead of Intel Xeon.

We chose Dell because of its open source. Our community likes Dell because of its open source delivery.

We use GCP Spot and AWS Graviton as our failover solutions.

I would rate this solution as eight out of 10.

We install a lot of VMware and vSAN on the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel.

All the customers that I have implemented PowerEdge for are very happy and like the performance. I think PowerEdge has improved the entire system where I have implemented it. 

Intel's Xeon scalable processors used in PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to improve the performance of the targeted workloads by about 20 percent, according to feedback from our customers.

• I love the updates from the iDRAC, they are very nice. 
• The installation is easy.
• Replacement, if something fails, is so easy and so good.

PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel are also good at handling high-performance workloads. It depends on the CPU, of course, and the type of server, but the performance is great.

In addition, all the security features work great. That is a very important part.

Dell's OpenManage console is user-friendly. You can connect to everything from Dell. It's simple. In the companies where I have implemented it, I have shown the IT staff how to use it and they are happy with it. I don't know if they use it every day, but during the implementation, it seems like it's good for them.

I don't really know where PowerEdge could be improved. I really like these servers. Even VxRail works great with them. Maybe they could change the logo to something more beautiful.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for about five years.

PowerEdge is very stable. 

There are issues, of course, but not major issues. On a scale of one to 10, the stability is a nine.

The scalability of all brands is great, and that includes Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel.

I like Dell's tech support very much. Not just for PowerEdge Rack servers but for all of Dell's products, if I have issues, the online support answers and gives solutions very quickly.

Positive

It normally takes one day to integrate PowerEdge.

The setup is hybrid right now. It was formerly strictly on-premise and we used it for our file storage and for our virtual machines.

Originally, it was purchased for strict file storage and access on-prem. However, when COVID hit, we ended up purchasing laptops for every single employee that we had. Having to use our new file storage device, which is no longer on-premises as they're now at home, was easy. That's why we went with a hybrid environment. We put a lot of the data into the cloud and backed it up in the on-premises file storage.

It allowed us to move some file storage that we had around. It allowed us to really look into what we had and what we were using. Looking at Apex, it is setting us up for when it will need a refresh or when it is at its end of life.

The most valuable aspects include hot swapping and the elasticity as far as being able to scale. We had a bunch of stuff on an old, existing EMC. The company was unaware that they had to keep the files that they had for so long. We realized that once we were meeting the seven-year mark and we could start purging some of those files, we had to scale down a little bit.

The initial purchase that we had was a little big, however, as we started adding more users that were working from home and had their own drive, OneDrive, we had to expand it a little bit. Dell was able to ship me bigger hard drives.

When it comes to running the latest high-demand applications, PowerEdge is good. The VMware that we had was almost end-of-life, so we had to upgrade it and Dell helped out with that quite a bit, putting it on our PowerEdge and assisting us with a lot of stuff that VMware didn’t. VMware just said, "Here. Here's your product. Good luck.” Dell was a lot more helpful. They had a lot of engineers that knew about that service that we were trying to tap into a little better.

The BIOS recovery was something we used because we had a huge power outage and a power strike when one of our air conditioners had a bad power surge run through it at our facility. Dell helped us rebuild our actual BIOS system in it, as one of the mirror arrays that we were using just wasn't being seen. We were afraid it was a hardware issue, however, it was really a BIOS issue that we couldn't see right off the jump. We’re glad Dell was there to help.

The solution's analytics helped to decrease production downtime by at least 30%. I'm in Arizona and down in Tucson we don't get that much downtime. We have a lot of battery backups, we have a generator system, and more. However, when it does happen, the analytics of it, as far as the trends on what months the monsoon season hits, it kept all in the logs.

The system management capabilities of PowerEdge helped increase stack productivity. We've had a little bit of turnover in our system admin department, however, having the ability to go back and look through the logs and see how users ended up using their home drive, their shared files, and their encrypted files really helped out my new guys coming on board.

The solution's accelerated GPUs help support demanding workloads in our organization. We had a couple of changing workloads due to the fact that when people shifted from home, they were hitting the server from a different angle. They were coming in off a virtual private network instead of being on-premises and the system didn't blink.

I’m not sure if PowerEdge helped to reduce data processing time in our organization as we don't crunch a lot. We do have a lot of videos coming in and a lot of video editing going on, so in that way, it does help.

The PowerEdge system management frameworks enable us to progress towards full automation. We knew what we were looking for when we refreshed this last model and we purchased a new server just from the analytics we got off the first one.

It helps me forecast better. We don't grow exponentially. Teachers are hard to come by, however, some will leave and some will stay. The business models are the same, yet they expect more. Now they want to do a video. They want to capture and record the videos and the Zoom meetings that they're doing, therefore, it's a little different.

It's more from the pandemic, however, the logistics part of it could be better. Getting an actual bare-bones server was a little difficult when we ordered it in beginning. I'm still waiting on the printers that I ordered last year as well. That's the only thing I would really say and I'm sure it has to do with the pandemic.

The latency of it is what we're running into, as our teachers do a lot of video captures, video teaching, Zoom, and Teams video conferencing, and their latency is getting worse with the public domain.

I've used the solution since I've been with the company, probably for the last three years.

The scalability is very good. There were different options that we could have gone to. We could either have gotten smaller hard drives and/or downsized if we needed to. They knew our business model was going to change when the pandemic hit.

We have about 650 end users on this particular solution and 80% of them are teachers. The rest are administrative professionals.

Currently, we are planning to put a new server that we have in the mix online and up and running with the PowerEdge server that we have. Now, with Apex and more coming out, we're looking to possibly pivot.

Technical support is very good. We had to call Dell technical support when our BIOS got corrupted and they were on the spot. They escalated us to tier two within 20 minutes. It was really quick.

Positive

We did previously use a different solution, however, I cannot remember what our large area network's device was.

Dell came in with a very competitive offer with the first model of storage that we got, so that's what my predecessor went to, and we kept it around.

The initial setup was very straightforward. We knew exactly where we wanted to put it in our array and how we wanted to set it up, what the power requirements would be, where it would fit on my battery backup system, and the plan for system recovery in case it had to be gracefully shut down. It was super easy.

When deploying PowerEdge, we didn't get a chance to use the automated server and OS deployment features.

The deployment was scheduled for six hours and it took three. 

We actually had to migrate users off of an older version that we had onto the new box that we had. The implementation strategy was all about really getting our users off the box and making sure nobody was trying to access it. After that, it was just migrating users over, setting up the new box, putting it online, and running tests.

For maintenance, normally we use a server admin, myself, and maybe one other developer that helps us with the syslogs on it. There are probably three of us altogether.

We used an integrated reseller for the deployment. They were amazing.

We had an issue with a brownout or a power strike and our BIOS got a bit corrupted, however, it was nothing that couldn't be recovered on the fly.

We've seen an ROI. I don't have any details offhand. I know when we first purchased it, we got a pretty good deal on it and we didn't know if it would actually meet end-of-life due to the usage that we had on it. However, it outperformed our metrics.

I'd advise others to use the pro services that come along with it, that are available for purchase with it. It helped us immensely. If you were to extend the service contract and get the pro level, it costs a bit more.

We did evaluate other options. When it's over a certain dollar amount, we have to go out and get at least four bids.

I can't remember the exact version we have. We just purchased a new Dell SAN.

We do not use PowerEdge for artificial intelligence applications yet. We're looking into it. Right now, a lot of the video data capture that we do is with children, school-aged children, and children in a preschool environment. We were thinking the AI might be able to help us where the teacher might not be looking. If they had a camera in the room to capture the relevant stuff that was going on as far as what the lesson plan was about that day, it might be helpful.

I have not had a chance to use the solution's iDRAC telemetry for monitoring PowerEdge system data and providing analytics, however, we're really looking into that right now. We got the new SAN going in and we'd like to monitor a little better.

We do not use the solution's CloudIQ for predictive analytic capabilities yet.

It is a very stable product. It's something that we use reliably for backups. It's something we use reliably for our main server for a long time and we'd definitely buy another.

My biggest takeaway is it's not as easy going straight to the cloud when you were an on-premises provider. If you are an on-premises provider and you have all your services on-premises, going to the cloud takes a couple of steps. It's not just one big jump.

I'd rate the product nine out of ten. If I could get the same amount of storage that I got three years ago now, I'd rate it ten out of ten. I'd order it as quickly as I did when we ordered it the first time.

We mostly use Power Servers for our R&D lab where we deploy the labs for developers and other testers to do their high-end testing and more.

The burden on the IT team has been reduced thanks to this solution, the monitoring, and other features. The deployment and giving access to the end-users have been easy. Overall, the amount of work that the IT team has to invest in came down drastically.

There are a lot of features. To be specific, the amount of virtual memory that we can use and the scalability are something that I like much. If you ask me what is the best feature, I would say the scalability. I don't have to invest in the new servers when I can scale this one. That is something which helped us a lot.

PowerEdge is great for handling the evolving needs of high-performance workloads. I'd rate it an eight out of ten.

I would rate PowerEdge’s approach to security with its signed Firmware, drift detection, and BIOS at a ten out of ten. Everything is easy to upgrade. It's easy to maintain and easy to work with.

In terms of energy consumption, it's consuming less than the previous servers.

We use PowerEdge for artificial intelligence applications. Our developers and QA use it and our developers develop the AI feature products.

Using artificial intelligence does solve problems for us in terms of using the servers for our developers.

The PowerEdge Eye Track telemetry for monitoring system data and providing analytics helps us get the job done and makes it easier in terms of monitoring.

PowerEdge has accelerated us in order to help support our demanding workloads.

The solution should give us an option to add on new hardware features. For example, the new hardware, specifically the SoCs that come in, and the NB RAMs that are coming, should have that feature as well. The existing ones are okay, however, the older version that we currently use, which is two years old, doesn't have that feature. 

I've been in the company for the last six years, and we were using the product even before that.

The solution is very stable and serves its purpose.

Technical support is very good. We had issues with the hardware replacement that was to be done on PowerEdge. They made sure that they stood by their four spare replacements.

Positive

I was involved in the initial setup of this solution. It was easy.

I was using the Power Servers for the last 14 years and it was transferred from the day I started working on the servers. It was always easy to set up for me and easy to train my employees. However, I don't do that anymore, my staff does it for me. However, it remains easy to set up.

I can't comment much on the licensing as it is not directly from Dell. It's our partner's pricing that we have to depend on. Pricing is competitive compared to others in the market.

I'm not sure which model we use, it's been three years.

We do not use the cloud and new predictive analytics.

I'd advise other potential users to go for it and evaluate it with the other vendors. However, in my experience, PowerEdge stands out.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

We use this solution for SAP and for other critical information that our customers need.

Our customers are really happy when we use PowerEdge because it improves the performance of their company. They also end up having more internal users or internal customers satisfied with solutions that they use in their company, such as SAP.

The system management capabilities of PowerEdge helped increase staff productivity by 50% for our latest client.

I've found the reliability, support, the capability to grow, and the ability to add other Dell solutions to be very valuable features.

As for security features, it's a good quality solution for the price. You can add different software or patches to have a better security solution.

It has helped reduce the data processing time by 30%.

The PowerEdge system management frameworks have enabled us to progress toward full automation when it comes to managing more.

The Industrial and healthcare areas both need improvement.

I've been using this solution for about three years.

The stability is really good.

It is scalable. You can start small and then add more products that allow you to increase the productivity of your company.

We have about 300 users and plan to upgrade the solution with more components.

We have not had a good experience with support. Technical support staff take too much time to resolve tickets. We have a super plus level of agreement, which means that the time of response is supposed to be four hours. The resulting time is supposed to be 48 hours. We sometimes see 72 hours go by with no solution provided to resolve the problem. So I would rate technical support and customer service at six on a scale from one to ten.

Neutral

We replaced Dell technology because PowerEdge is much better.

The initial deployment was straightforward because we already had technical architects who knew how to deploy the solution.

The deployment took over a month.

We implemented it ourselves with a team of six to seven people including a technical architect, an SAP Basis engineer, technicians, and a security officer.

The price is good for the quality of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

We looked at Lenovo.

You should compare PowerEdge's time for response, the scalability of the solution, the licensing cost, and support to those of other brands.

Sometimes you try not to spend too much on technology, but there is a point at which it is necessary to invest in this solution because you will increase the productivity of your company. When you see the quote, remember that all that money can be recouped with the increase in production.

If you wait for too long, you may start having problems and lose productivity. You can really get hit hard with a loss of productivity. You have to determine the time to change the technology to a new one.

If I were to rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, I would rate them a nine on a scale from one to ten.

Our primary use case for PowerEdge involves VDI and standard servers. We are not using AI workloads yet because we don't have the hardware, but we're waiting on our first infrastructure order. 

Using PowerEdge Servers has helped us reduce compliance production downtime. They are more stable than other vendors. 

PowerEdge's OpenManage Console has made managing the entire infrastructure easier. It has improved employee productivity by simplifying administration but doesn't necessarily free up staff for other tasks.

VxRail has a smart and easy way to perform updates. The hypervisor on the other servers performs well according to the hypervisor level. The support is magnificent, and it's easier to administer the servers.

The VxRail updates need to be faster.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for about eight years.

Dell PowerEdge rack servers are very reliable overall. They have never failed us, and we see less production downtime than we do with other vendors.

We used our Dell contacts to calculate the future need to get the right type of hardware and models. It's much easier to administer, and they are flexible. We don't have high-performance workloads, but PowerEdge servers perform well enough to meet our current needs. 

The support for Dell PowerEdge servers is magnificent.

Positive

We evaluated different server racks before choosing Dell PowerEdge, but the key factor for choosing Dell was security.

The initial setup of Dell PowerEdge Servers was very easy.

We deployed the solution by ourselves. We do it in-house.

The biggest return on investment when using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is reducing the total cost of ownership and easy lifecycle management.

I rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers nine out of 10. They're very reliable.

We use it in the media industry.

Our customers have numerous benefits, including an array of features such as RAM quantity, CPU power, and storage capacity.

Our energy consumption was quite high five years ago when we were a service provider. Today, over the last two generations, our power consumption has decreased significantly. This reduction is highly beneficial for our operations.

The flexibility is commendable. Whenever we need to perform any task on our records or servers, the process is smooth and swift. In the twenty years of using Dell, we haven't encountered any troubles, problems, or issues, which speaks volumes about the reliability of their products.

The enduring stability and longevity offered by Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers stand out as their most invaluable feature. These qualities enable organizations to deploy and utilize the same server model for extended periods, bolstered by Dell's steadfast guarantee.

The pricing structure could be improved.

I have been using it for over ten years.

Stability is excellent overall. We've encountered only one issue, which pertained to a SAN rather than a server. This occurred due to a peak in energy, affecting the controller within the rack. Nonetheless, stability remains consistent for our servers.

Scalability is truly excellent, as we can start with a certain number of memory units, and when a customer requests additional memory or space, we can easily upgrade. This process is fast and straightforward, making it highly beneficial.

We've relied on tech support for at least twenty years, and every time we've reached out, we've received swift and effective solutions. I would rate it nine out of ten.

Positive

The advantage of Dell over other vendors lies in the fact that over the course of twenty years, we've consistently opted for solutions that include mission-critical assistance. However, we've only needed to utilize this assistance twice in two decades. This demonstrates the exceptional quality of Dell's hardware, which has been thoroughly tested and proven reliable—an essential feature and service for us.

Deploying was simple. We were assigned directly to the data center. As consultants, we began by working directly in the rack. We initiated the installation process, starting with the hypervisor, and everything proceeded smoothly.

Twenty years ago, we used to purchase directly from Dell. However, they later decided to sell only through partners in Italy. Consequently, when we transitioned to buying from partners, we also became partners ourselves. At present, the pricing seems a bit high for us. While we manage to procure products through competitive bidding, the list pricing remains challenging for us. This difficulty primarily arises when selling to customers, especially medium-sized ones requiring only two or three servers.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.