Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers Reviews

These servers have been real work-horses. Dell has done a nice job at including more management tools, with OpenManage and the likes. The DRAC Enterprise is an amazing feature, especially when managing decentralized server farms.

One of the main factors in helping efficacy is having like-branded servers, which have compatible tools. There are are more universal management tools out there, but they are generally pretty costly. The fact that the servers have generally been quite reliable, has really decreased expenditure. I know that when I put a server in place, they will simply run. I had servers that were still from the PE2650, and PE4400 up until fairly recently when everything got replaced. There is something to be said about reliable hardware.

Unfortunately, I am now more in the space of IaaS, so I am a little bit removed from that particular area. In my experience when I was actively using Dell's servers, they were always improving their hardware, and coming up with more efficient solutions. One of the things that I had started using pretty extensively is blade servers, as they are more efficient on energy, and can provide the same computing power as racked servers, yet consume much less rack real estate.

I have used all series of Dell PowerEdge servers for about 12-14 years, through to the 12th generation.

For the most part, my experience with Dell was in conjunction with VMware vSphere, and VMware View. There were some issues that I encountered with the servers, but it is a result of having multiple server generations with different processors in place, which caused some problems with HA and DRS with VMware, but these don't necessarily quality as issues with the servers themselves. From a hardware perspective, these servers have always been rock solid.

I think the customer support at Dell is adequate, at least when it comes to their server support team. Some other areas are more lacking, but over all, and as it relates to servers, I have no complaints.

Most of my experience has been with Dell servers, so I can't comment much on different solutions.

If you're familiar with deploying servers, then it's not really complex. There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to setting up the OpenManage server and agents, but nothing unsurmountable.

I have always deployed my own servers. If you are operating in an SMB, I would recommend that you get your hands dirty, and learn how these servers are setup, connected, etc., as it is going to be a matter of when, not if, that the server is going to have some failed component, that you're going to want to know how to deal with. Typically, if you have your Dell support, even the basic one, I believe you are able to get a technician to come help with hardware repair/replacement.

Well, since this is a discussion about hardware, one would argue that ROI isn't really much of a relevant argument in this case, as the factors for it would depend more than just the actual server purchased. This is really a CAPEX expense, and given today's technology, and the business need and requirements, I personally would much rather start moving my computing resources to the cloud, (i.e: AWS, Azure, Rackspace, etc...), and shift that CAPEX into an OPEX and free up some funds for more fluid cashflow.

I have worked very minimally with HP servers as well, which were also pretty good servers.

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.

The user interface is the solution's most valuable aspect.

The implementation process is quite good.

The pricing of the solution is fair.

I can't think of any features that are lacking on the solution. It works well for our clients for the most part.

It would be nice if the rack servers had an HCI solution as an option.

We've been using the solution for the past two years now.

The stability is good. It also lasts a relatively long time. Our customers are typically looking for something that will hold up for about five years, and this solution does that. It's not buggy. There aren't glitches. It doesn't crash or break down.

You can easily scale the solution up and down. Our customers want a solution that can work with for half a decade at least, so they need something flexible, and this solution delivers.

We deal with customers of all sizes, from small to large organizations. This solution works well for each of them.

The technical support is okay. We have an internal team, however, they are by no means experts. We need Dell to fill in the blanks and sometimes that can't help us the way we hoped they would. It might be helpful if the Dell site had more information so that we could just go there.

We use a variety of Dell options including FX and XE, among others. Which we use is dependant on the client requirements.

The initial setup is not complex. It's quite easy to set everything up, in fact. All of the underlying technology is the same on Dell, so we don't have an issue handling the implementation on the Dell servers for our customers.

We can handle the aspects of the installation ourselves, as it's pretty straightforward.

We are a service provider and a reseller. We use various versions of the solution. The deployment models also vary as it depends on customer requirements. We deal with a lot of hyper-converged solutions.

I'd recommend the solution. We've had no issues with it at all.

Overall, I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

My clients use PowerEdge servers for Hyper-V by Microsoft and VMware machines. They're running ERP and CRM applications and agents for backup systems licensing models. The models we use include 730, 630, 620, 220, and 740.

The configuration and BIOS management are flexible. It's easy to install 10 GB network cards on the rack. They have a good selection that simplifies the network connections.

It takes a long time to deliver the hardware. The riser cards can be better. The riser cards are where the PCI cards connect. They need to have more than two riser cards in the server because it can be difficult to connect sometimes. 

I have been using PowerEdge Rack Servers for about 10 years.

PowerEdge servers are stable in general, but sometimes clients report having problems with the RAM. 

The scalability is good.

I rate Dell support seven out of 10.

Neutral

PowerEdge servers are easy to set up. You need about two or three people, including a specialist and an engineer, to maintain the solution. You usually need an engineer plus a specialist in Hyper-V or VMware.

I think the price of these servers is good.

I rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers nine out of 10. I recommend the product.

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers powered by Intel as production servers. In recent years, we have also used them for backup.

• They give us peace of mind; we sleep well at night. 
• The Intel Xeon processors have helped to improve performance.
• We have also seen a very small reduction in unplanned downtime.
• In addition, they have improved backups and my options to do the things I need to do, without hassle.

The solution is reliable.

The time it takes the machine to boot up, when I turn it off and on, could be quicker.

I've been using Dell rack servers since about 1995.

Support is very good if we need it. If we have any problem with the equipment, the Dell team works with us to fix everything. My experience has been that they want to solve all the problems, even if doing so takes time. They are on it until it's fixed.

Positive

We have only used Dell. We are comfortable working with Dell, the price is fine, and the Dell people are very cooperative.

Deployment is simple. Within one hour the server is up and working.

The pricing is fair enough.

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. 

We use this solution for general computing and for ESX hosts for our virtual environment. 

We are a partner who sells PowerEdge to many different customers, and we also use it in our own environment. The solution can be customized based on a customer's needs and allows us to build whatever we need in our own environment at that particular moment.

The system management capabilities of PowerEdge helped increase stack productivity. The solution's accelerated GPUs helped support demanding workloads for some of our customer's environments. PowerEdge helped to reduce data processing time in our company which has made us work faster. 

iDRAC is the most valuable feature because of the ease of use and management, and everything that it provides is super useful. The security features that PowerEdge provides, including firmware threat detection is good.

We do not currently use this solution's CloudIQ functionality for predictive analytics but we would like to use it in the future.

I have used this solution for five years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This solution is scalable. The way this solution is able to scale is impressive. Depending on how you build your PowerEdge server, it can serve the lowest end of customers up to the highest, depending on what their needs are. Whatever a customer is trying to accomplish, can usually be customized for their environment.

The quality of support for this solution varies. Sometimes you get agents who are amazing and other times you get agents who take a long time to resolve your query. I would rate support for this solution a six and a half out of ten. 

The initial setup is straightforward. Deployment took one to two hours.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

This solution is very easy to use. 

For every option, there is documentation with at least two lines of explanation.

You are provided with excellent instructions. 

They need to improve the support, as they are not very responsive, and they don't get back to you right away.

We have been working with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers for several years. 

It's a stable solution and we plan to continue using it.

Dell EMC PowerEdge is not very scalable. This is an area that can improve.

We have 389 users in our organization.

The critical issue is when you send them an email, you will not get a reply for two or three days.

They are happy to fix your issues but they are not very responsive.

We started when we had Windows 7 in 2012, and have now upgraded to Dell EMC.

The initial setup is straightforward. 

It took two days to complete the installation.

We have one person to maintain it.

We had help from an integrator during our implementation. We have been using these integrators for five years.

It's a one-time licensing fee for the device and we pay a quota per year for the support.

We deploy both on-premises and on the cloud, but at this time we are using on-premise only because we have to get additional access to the cloud.

This is a good product. I would recommend it for small to mid-size companies, but not for large companies who manage several computers. The response time for their support could be faster.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.