Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers Reviews

We use VMware hypervisor on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. We use the PowerEdge storage with iSCSI.

We use these servers for the hypervisor, and we have many Windows servers on them. They work very well, and they have a very good performance.

The performance of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is very good. 

They are easy to configure. It is simple to work with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

I have been working with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for two years.

They are very stable.

We use Dell support for notebooks, servers, and storage. Overall, I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

Positive

We only use Dell servers. We build the hypervisor servers for the company, and these are the only servers we use.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a ten out of ten. They are very good. I am happy with them.

We use this solution as a host for clusters. We use 750, 740s, and 730s.

PowerEdge is able to run the latest high-demand applications for our use case. They host our clusters and facilitate the building of environments. 

We also like the iDRAC feature for monitoring system data and providing analytics. The newer iDRAC is a lot better than the older versions. 

The management features of this solution have been most useful.

We have experienced some challenges with iDRAC when upgrading firmware.

We have been using this solution for a couple of decades. 

I would rate the support for this solution a seven out of ten. 

Neutral

The initial setup was straightforward. 

Implementation was done as a combination of the vendor and our internal reps.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

Our setup is only for single storage with Dell servers R620 and R630. We have 10 servers and we have deployed the ESXi on each one, with multiple VMs on each server.

This solution is being used for testing purposes. We are testing for our clients that require any builder deployment. When our project is over, then we will restart this VM.

What we like the most is the stability. Without shutdowns, our VMs and servers are up and running fine.

The backup and the requirement of the DR site is valuable.

All of the servers are in cluster mode and when PowerEdge Server is down, others are affected.

It doesn't automatically upgrade the firmware. We have to manually process it because we have forgotten about the firmware and virus updates.

We would like to see the upgrades done automatically. In future releases, automation would be required.

We have been working with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Server for approximately five to six years.

It's a very stable solution.

Scalability could be improved.

Technical support is good.

The initial setup is straightforward. It was easy.

This is a server that I would recommend to others.

I would rate Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers a nine out of ten.

Virtual Environment and performance enhancements for SQL applications and for future VDI implementations.

Performance has been observed once servers have been operational and power consumption has been reduced as well due to the new technology.

The solution has always had very good performance.

The availability/scalability is excellent.

Their technical support is always helpful. They have a very good support timeline that lasts not just a year or two, but even five years down the line. It's a long-term arrangement.

The solution is highly scalable, with a two-socket server, CPU support, and the M.E.N SST. 

It can support VDI.

You can combine these servers. Therefore, not only do they work with virtual environments, you can have them as a Data Analytics server. They can handle a lot of heavy processes. They are one of the main big servers that can handle a lot of things. For example, I'm replacing four servers with three servers, which means I can also reduce the licenses. Instead of buying two licenses, you're buying one license. The lines are reduced to half, and you have a few open managed application that will tell you the health of the server. 

The content and insights with Dell are great. Whenever something happens to your server and you have the support, they will give you a notification. Whether it's CPU or RAM or the power supply, whatever the issue, they will tell you. You always have a proactive notification on all the servers.

Security and BIOS are very good. Previously, BIOS was just a plus for the team to have on the server. Now, BIOS is more into Cyber Security and has the intelligence to recognize what is being loaded before going to the main OS. There's artificial intelligence integrated into these servers and the insights are one of the main reasons that they'll provide you with a good service, and offer you some visibility on the server. You feel safe. The server won't let you down. With the notifications, you can always handle things before they become a bigger problem. 

The company needs to invest in more marketing exposure. Users need to know that Dell servers compete with HP Servers. in the region, the Middle East, many more companies work with HP. They could change this.

The solution could still use some more analytics.

It would be helpful if we had the power of an open managed application. It should be more hands-on in terms of how are you going to manage your server. In order to do that, you need more visibility into the health of the server itself.

I've been dealing with this solution for around a year. I used to have HP servers, as well, however, now I'm working with Dell again.

The solution is extremely scalable, and it's easy to do so as it has a two-socket server and CPU support, etc. It offers quite high performance for easy scaling down the road.

You don't just buy a server for one service. You buy a server to take advantage of several services in your environment, and so, it helps that it can scale.

I've personally never worked with technical support directly, however, it is my understanding that technical support is excellent. They offer long timelines, so you don't just have technical support for, for example, the first year or two. They continue to work with you even years down the line. They're very fast and responsive and their head in Lebanon is very good. 

Support is one of the main reasons we considered as well, as we know that if we have any critical issues, we won't have problems getting the answers we need. We get the answers we require either the same day or 24 hours. It's great.

We did use a different solution, HP, and now we are returning to Dell. Part of what played a major factor is the support for AMD CPU's. Since Dell EMC supports the AMD, there also were internal considerations as well to take them on.

HP is one of the main competitors in the Middle East. They compete head-to-head with Dell EMC also, and HP servers have some things that are better than Dell EMC. Dell has older technology. They're catching up, however, with artificial intelligence, analytics, and reporting, they're catching up.

They are pretty close in style and substance. Therefore, whichever gives me a better price will be the one I choose.

The initial setup was very, very easy. 

There's nothing to work with on the server itself. 

You just handle the configuration, and you do some EFI configuration. In the last stage, you're going to install the operating system so that it is a fast service. It depends on the disks you put in. At the server level, so it doesn't have that much configuration. It's just installing Windows and any operating system. Then you build over that.

Except for the Bios updates and the drivers and the compatibility issues, you don't have any problem with compatibility.

There are certain components on other solutions that I need to check with Dell. Dell was very good before and always is in the performance, availability and support. That said, our region in Lebanon, had some problems with the distributors and the people who are licensed to sell Dell products. It's been about five years now, and it's now official that everybody can partner again with Dell. You don't have to be an experienced partner, per se. 

Before, it was being controlled by one partner. Nobody is able to bring in Dell, and this partner had control for all the prices of all the support and everything. However, after merging with EMC and after having so many partners, its become more exposed to the market. Many partners that were struggling to sell Dell EMC servers and storage, as well as laptops and everything, are able to do so. 

This is the main reason why we have returned to Dell. We know about them. They offer very good servers and they are one of the leaders in the market. Dell and HP are leaders now in the servers. For this season, we reconsidered having their Rack Servers. This is the only reason we're going now to Dell servers. 

With Dell, if a company is considering their work environments and they're considering Data Analytics and Big Data, etc., yes, why not to go for the Dell server. They have an extremely scalable infrastructure designed for Big Data and they have the processes and ERP system that needs a lot of power. The Rack Servers, the PowerUp servers, are very good. They are recommended by many people worldwide.

I'd recommend organizations consider these servers. Dell also has a full portfolio of products that work together in harmony. Whatever you need, Dell likely has a solution for you.

Overall, I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

• OpenManage Essentials: Loading new firmware is easy, either via OpenManage Essentials, OMIVV, or the iDRAC. It’s just so easy.
• OpenManage Essentials facilitates the build of a desired template (including disk configuration) and pushing this out to multiple hosts at once. This greatly speeds up our deployment times.
• iDRAC 8: Being able to provision and manage RAID virtual disks from the iDRAC is a huge bonus. You don’t have to boot the machine via the console to do this.
• The firmware rollback is great. The iDRAC can store previous versions to make this very quick.

• iDRAC 8 allows you to configure so much of the server without having to use a console. For example, RAID configuration, disk health, and SSD wear.
• It also displays a great amount of environmental history, including temps and power usage, with up to a year of history stored in the iDRAC.
• The vFlash capability is handy, allowing multiple SD partitions to be created and mounted. Being able to load all kinds of firmware via iDRAC is great, e.g., disk, controller, BIOS.
• OpenManage Essentials is better than OneView in my opinion. While it lacks the visual finesse of OneView, it has far more functionality.

OpenManage Essentials could do with a visual “birthday” as it still requires the Silverlight plugin.

OpenManage for vCenter integration is powerful, but also a little buggy. Hardware-wise, they are great. I much prefer the iDRAC architecture over HPE iLO.

We have used the solution for about nine months.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

So far, the technical support has been very good. The self-service portal for requesting replacement parts is extremely easy to use and it is fast.

For technical support tickets, the experience isn’t quite as good. There were some delays in communication.

We used HPE ProLiant. We switched due to significant cost savings in capex as well as operational improvements.

For example, having OpenManage Essentials is better than OneView, at least for rack servers.

The setup was extremely simple.

iDRAC is easier to configure, with the front LCD panel, on the non-XD models, being very handy.

The NFC option for the front bezel combined with the mobile app is great for on-site troubleshooting.

For a small, extra cost, you can get OpenManage Essentials with configuration management. This allows you to deploy pre-configured hardware templates making mass deployment easy.

DELL is typically much cheaper that HPE, for example. Their licensing is far more transparent and simple.

iDRAC licensing is significantly cheaper. Extended support costs are also lower.

We evaluated HPE ProLiant.

It is a great product. Just be mindful of some of the current bugs in OpenManage and OpenManage Integration for vCenter. Other than these, we’ve had a great experience.

We're having increased performance. That's one of the big reasons we went with these PowerEdge servers.

The iDRAC that comes with the systems is great. It allows us to scale out a lot faster than before.

PowerEdge servers are good for handling and evolving high-performance workloads. We get everything that we need.

The biggest needs within our company are performance, stability, and support. If and when something goes wrong hardware-wise, a quick resolution is always a wonderful thing to have.

We do not use Dell's memory in our PowerEdge environment. We do use them separately.

PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime. The firmware updates that have been pushed out have reduced the amount of DIMM memory failures or false alarms. That's been really good. That's the main concern we have.

In terms of the iDRAC software, when selecting systems, especially multiple systems to upgrade, there's really no way to confirm specific systems that are selected. It'll just tell you a number and it's very vague. It says, "Hey, you're about to perform this action on X amount of systems." If it had more visibility, then that would provide more peace of mind for our team and everyone else who uses the iDRAC software as well.

We've been using these PowerEdge rack servers for about two years now.

The technical support is good.

Whenever we ask for clarification on an action plan, we get the required feedback so that we can make informed decisions on our end. We'd love it if they'd keep up with the process that they currently have.

Positive

We switched over to Dell as they were highly competitive in their pricing, and their specs were either identical or gave better performance than some of the other options we were looking at.

The pricing was extremely competitive, and it's one of the big reasons why we went with Dell.

We use the servers on multiple of our data centers located throughout the United States, and the performance and stability of these systems have been phenomenal.

We did not consider public cloud services before choosing PowerEdge DRAC services.

Performance-wise, hardware-wise, it is solid, however, it could use some improvements around iDRAC. Therefore, I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

For those considering the solution, I would advise starting by doing some research. The system is incredibly stable and performs similarly to other systems that we're reviewing.

We use the servers for various use cases. A lot of our servers act as ESXi hosts that host our VMware infrastructure. We also have a lot of researchers that use them for their own computing, memory, and storage as well.

When it comes to running high-demand applications, we trust our Dell servers exclusively. Its overall stability and ease of use have helped to improve the way our organization functions.

I believe that our overall data processing time has been reduced, although it's hard for us to quantify that.

The most valuable feature is reliability. We rarely have any issues and because of this, Dell is our go-to for servers.

We make use of the encrypt-at-rest security feature, which allows us to keep our servers locked down in our data centers as best we can.

We used the CloudIQ feature for monitoring and it's pretty good overall. We have a challenge in our area because our IT is very broad and there is a lot of overlap. Other people's work is visible and we have a big environment, so there is a team of people that keep an eye on things.

I'd like to take the complexities out of all the different tools that surround it, like OpenManage. There's some different licensing and it gets a little wonky at times. Other than that, the product itself works fine. Rather, it's some of the management issues.

We have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for approximately 15 years.

This is a pretty reliable product.

Dell's support is fantastic. We've never really had any problems with them.

I would rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

We did not use another similar solution prior to this one.

We are looking for some of the newer models to replace some of our older equipment. We may not have to have as many as before, because it's more efficient.

Once we get a server, we can have it up in a day. One person can do it unless it's a heavy server. In that case, we need two people to lift it. Almost anybody on our staff can deploy this server if it's needed.

We handle the deployment in-house.

There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

When you compare this product to using a public cloud, you definitely have to pay attention to what you're doing in a public cloud. This is because you're generally using a shared server with other people and there can be problems because of this.

We are currently working towards full automation when it comes to managing PowerEdge. It looks pretty good at this stage. It most definitely assists with the overall operations.

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is that Dell is a reliable partner. The product works well and you can't really go wrong with it. As the product changes over time, it's pretty seamless and you don't have to learn a lot of new things. After four years, it may only be slightly different.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

All of my server's requirements are currently using the Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers.

There are certain aspects, features, and functionality on the motherboard that need improvement. 

If they had some software components that would have helped because I don't like creating electronic waste. We don't like upgrading for the sake of upgrading.

With that process, we tend to lose the newer features which would have come in during that time.

If they could have done something during that time where the new features could have been included, or improved upon the existing ones then it would have been brilliant.

In the next release, I would like to see some means by which they could improve the functionality on the motherboard. It would be a very large help and increase the life of these products.

I have been using Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers for 14 to 15 years.

We are using the latest version purchased from HP.

It's a very stable solution. 

We have many servers still running with this solution because our new one has not yet been commissioned. 

We have the exchange server, ERP that is running on it, file sense servers, and the security server is running.

We plan to continue using this solution in the future.

Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers is scalable.

We have 160 users in our organization.

Technical support has been brilliant. 

They have supported us for several years, but it's now out of support because we are currently implementing a hardware refresh.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The deployment time varies depending on the application being deployed. For example, the exchange took me a couple of days to get it up and running, and on a straightforward file sense server, it was less than three hours to get it up and running.

The security server also took a couple of hours to get it up and running.

We have four members to deploy and maintain this solution. They are made up of engineers, managers, and admins.

It's not a very expensive solution.

We were in a scenario of having every application running on physical servers.

We are now moving to an in-house virtual environment. We are using VMware so that one server can do a multitude of jobs at the same time. Hence the hardware refresh.

We are moving towards virtual experiences, using VMware.

This solution has absolutely fulfilled our needs well.

We are still running, this solution, we are upgrading only because of the features and abilities that it doesn't have. It's run now for 14 to 15 years.

It's a brilliant product.

I would recommend this solution to others looking into using this solution.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.