Dell PowerEdge R-Series Reviews

There are countless use cases for Dell PowerEdge R-Series. It is really difficult because Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be used in so many ways. For example, in our case, we build virtualization clusters very nicely with them.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has definitely improved and facilitated our work. It is much easier to handle than competing products. You need to invest less time.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has contributed to growth and business success, especially in small companies. The complete package we get from Dell makes work easier; it is not just the handling of the devices, but also the support and if there are ever problems. Dell is very well positioned there.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has specific features that are particularly helpful for small and medium businesses; the flexibility is definitely a big point.

In terms of features I have found most valuable compared to other manufacturers, I would definitely say iDRAC. The iDRAC interface and the updates that can be deployed through it are particularly valuable examples.

Compatibility issues are areas where Dell PowerEdge R-Series could be improved.

We have had Dell PowerEdge R-Series for three years now, and we have been using it for a really long time. We just removed the older ones that were installed for maybe five years or so, making it six years total.

We have had minor failures, but nothing dramatic. The issues were resolved by Dell support.

Dell products grow with my needs. If we have other requirements, Dell usually has the right solution ready.

We switched because of the flexibility of the systems; we can tailor them to what we currently need, and the complete package from consultation to purchasing to support if something fails is great. Compared to competitors, you just do not get that.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate Dell support an eight.

For products that are not part of the premium support package, it is a bit more tedious.

Before Dell PowerEdge R-Series, we used various HPE solutions.

I am involved in working with Dell PowerEdge R-Series very directly on a daily basis. I would rate this review a 9.

On-premises

Our use case for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is as a private cloud. We have three products: utility computing where we use servers for bare metal configuration for our customers, private cloud, and integration of private cloud with hyperscalers.

The most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are its flexibility and performance of the servers which are very good. I have been using PowerEdge for almost 25 to 30 years in my server rooms and data centers. I trust them more than other products because I have been managing not just data centers but also the internal IT of Tech Mahindra. I have been seeing a lot of improvements in Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers as we progress forward.

Onsite support can improve hands and feet as we progress forward, but the remote site support is very good. The dispatch services are outsourced to small and medium companies, so we don't get consistent support.

We have been using PowerEdge for a very long time, and I have been using it for almost 25 to 30 years in my server rooms and data centers.

We want to see what the approach is on generative AI as we move forward. On AI, we need to understand how this is going to scale, as AI is a different animal altogether.

I evaluate the customer service and support for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers as good; it has been good, and we don't find any problems.

Positive

We are using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for AI initiatives as we move forward because we have developed infrastructure as code for our customers, and we are bringing generative AI and writing LLMs for that. We will definitely be using our systems for that in our data centers, GPU as a service.

Overall, I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers ten out of ten.

Private Cloud

Other

We have VMware with 2 node servers and almost 20 virtual machines. We have in-house software and an HR and finance application running on it. It works fine for handling diverse applications.

We are using the FX2 chassis, which is a small setup. We have a small environment with very few servers.

Our environment is small, and it fits our environment. For our requirements, it is working fine.

We have protection with secure firmware of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. We have not experienced any security incidents or vulnerabilities with our PowerEdge servers.

It reduces our downtime because it has been working fine. There has never been any failure. I have used HPE servers previously, and we had issues related to rebooting, power supply failure, etc. Our Dell PowerEdge Server is working fine. There is no failure.

We use OpenManage Enterprise software. It gives us an advantage in rebuilding a new server. We can build templates and use the same templates to deploy new servers. There is no manual work.

It is a stable server. I have never faced any failure with these servers.  They keep running for at least five to seven years without any issues.

They should reduce its size. Because the CPU power is more now, they can reduce the size of the servers. Currently, we have a 2U server. If possible, they can make a 1U server.

If they can provide more disk slots in one server, that would be good for the environment. Sometimes a BIOS upgrade fails, or something unexpected can happen.

I have used Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for the last 15 years.

I never faced any failure in the last four to five years. It is a reliable product. Not even one server has failed so far.

We are using the FX2 chassis with two node servers. Two slots are still free. We can add new servers at any time, so the scale-out option is there. The RAM increment option is also there. We can add a lot of RAM there. 

I encountered issues a few times, and they resolved them within the time frame.

Positive

We were HPE customers for ten years. We switched to Dell EMC products about ten years ago. We have VNX storage, xUnity, data domains, tape libraries, and PowerEdge Servers. About 90% of my existing infrastructure is from Dell EMC.

We chose Dell PowerEdge Servers because they are well-known servers. They are the core products of Dell. I love EMC products. They were acquired by Dell. It is almost a similar technology.

Due to built-in software, it is easy to deploy and easy to manage.

When we purchase new servers, partners are responsible for deployment. However, after the initial deployment, it is our responsibility to manage them.

I have tier-one partners like Condo Protego, Cloudbox, GPM, and GBM. We are working with these partners. They have the capability to design the solution, but not all partners are equal.

We did not work with Dell's Professional Services because our environment is not a very big environment. It is an expensive service and not required for our business.

It keeps running and does not create any problems. There are no hardware or power supply failures. It has been good for our business.

We are at an initial stage in our AI journey. We have not tried to run any AI workloads on our PowerEdge Servers. Our business environment is a bit different, and at the moment, we do not require much AI for our business.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers an eight out of ten.

As a network engineer, I am not very involved with the servers, but I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for three years.

My main focus is on the network side, and those servers are used by different teams for virtualization or cloud computing.

The feature I like the most about Dell PowerEdge R-Series is the graphical interface of iDRAC.

It helps to speed up the process because the servers are very reliable, which has significantly reduced unplanned production downtime.

The most important feedback I have to improve is regarding the prices.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been positive until recently, but the prices increased significantly.

I have been in the industry for almost nine years.

The sustainability goals depend on what we are doing.

The energy consumption of Dell PowerEdge servers depends on the workload, and we monitor them via OpenManage and via different tools from the data center side.

My evaluation of customer service and the tech support side depends on the service requests; some go very smoothly and are finished quite fast, while others take more time.

Before we got Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers, we used multiple servers from different vendors, including Dell, but it is not the only one.

I use HPE as an example of another server that I am using.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been positive until recently, but the prices increased significantly.

We did use Dell PowerEdge R-Series to run AI workloads.

I am not very sure about the benefits of the AI workloads because another team is more AI-based.

I would rate this product 9 out of 10.

On-premises

The main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is for my tech company where people use it for various purposes, including the tech team and marketing people, so it is not specifically just for day-to-day operations. Marketing people use it, and customer support uses it as well, with no specific limitations.

Our marketing team uses Dell PowerEdge R-Series primarily because the reliability is greater compared to other brands. Being a startup with an entrepreneurship model, the systems we use are Dell only, whether on Mac or Windows. If Windows is used, we use Dell only.

Regarding the main use case and how my teams are using Dell PowerEdge R-Series, it works well and everything is perfect.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has positively impacted my organization, and everything is fine. It works well with no concerns. As a company, any complaints only come to me, but there are no complaints. It works perfectly and is good.

The reliability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series has made maintenance easier since I have not faced any errors or challenges. Regarding battery life, that is the main focus. Typically in a company, we do not specifically check it, and the compliance is zero.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series rack servers has affected the overall flexibility of our operations positively. If any challenges arise, discomfort will only come to me. Nothing so far has been problematic. I am actually using Mac and other things as well, and the experience is good.

In terms of energy consumption, Dell PowerEdge R-Series is good with no issues. The energy power is really good.

For improvements on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I have no comments since there is no issue.

Regarding what could make my experience with Dell PowerEdge R-Series even better, it currently works well. We have close to 120 units, out of which 30 are Dell, while the remaining are Mac. There are no complaints or concerns. People are working well and the performance is good, and the rest is fine.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for the past six to eight months.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has positively impacted my organization, and everything is fine. It works well with no concerns. As a company, any complaints only come to me, but there are no complaints. It works perfectly and is good.

The reliability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series has made maintenance easier since I have not faced any errors or challenges. Regarding battery life, that is the main focus. Typically in a company, we do not specifically check it, and the compliance is zero. If Windows is used, we strongly go with Dell.

For improvements on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I have no comments since there is no issue.

As a procurement manager, I can say we had a lot of Windows prior to my tenure, but after it came to me, we completely shifted to Windows that is Dell. The reason is reliability, and that is the main reason.

I purchased Dell PowerEdge R-Series through a different direct system procurement process.

For deployment, we have a reseller, and we basically have everything vendor-wise. If anything needs to arise, then we will search for the vendor. There is nothing specific about this arrangement.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is deployed in my organization in a hybrid setup, where it is both on-site and in the cloud. Eighty percent is on-site while twenty percent is based on need.

In the hybrid setup, we rarely use the cloud. We work primarily from here, but we might use it once or twice a month, and everything is done with Google.

For improvements on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I have no comments since there is no issue.

I would rate this product and my overall experience with Dell PowerEdge R-Series a nine out of ten.

Hybrid Cloud

Google

We use classical servers for multi-purpose virtualization.

The biggest benefit in the product is mainly because Dell PowerEdge R-Series is a well-known company with very good support. The price is much better compared to other vendors such as HP, which is high priced and offers no better quality. From a price-performance perspective, we get most of what Dell or Lenovo offers.

Remote management stands out as one of the best capabilities for us.

The prediction of hardware error using some AI tools could still be improved.

We have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for some ten to twelve years.

Everything is satisfactory. I do not see any disadvantages. It is more that in the current market, you have to wait a little bit longer because of memory availability. The market is such that now you cannot get them as soon as you wish, but if you plan the purchases, then it is acceptable.

I would rate scalability as excellent. If you make the right purchase, then you can scale as you want.

I would rate customer support as excellent.

We replaced HP with Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

The initial setup is very easy.

We are a very small company and do not work with many vendors.

I would say we have achieved stability in operation. We will not grow by using Dell PowerEdge R-Series, but we have achieved stability.

We have Lenovo, Dell PowerEdge R-Series, and HP.

We are an end-user. There are no special features. If you purchase the right servers or the right solution, then everything is satisfactory. It is nothing special; it is just a server. I cannot think of anything that is not perfect. Everything is acceptable. I would rate this review a ten.

On-premises

Other

We started full-scale deployment in 2013 exclusively with Dell PowerEdge. We have the fourth generation of servers. We went from 720, 730, 740, and now 760. I have all the models.

We use PowerEdge to connect directly to electronics and readout systems so it is all deployed on-prem, on a private network with no connection to the outside.

I work in a research environment. We use these 400 huge clusters to connect to the electronics of readout detectors to read the data out of the homemade front-end electronics and then assemble the data files to be analyzed. It's moving data between electronics and the IT world of storage grid analysis, etcetera. I'm the service manager only for the readout part and that is already enough of a job.

Our servers are on the private network completely disconnected from the outside world. It's less of an issue than it would be for a front-end server to the Wild West. The whole firmware handling what Dell is doing through OAK Management Enterprise or other tools from the iDRAC is also important so that we get signed from the packages we can trust that were tested and don't render our server into a brick. When I get a maintenance window, it's once every four, or five months for four hours. I don't have time to do something, figure out if it doesn't work, and undo it. It has to work with the first job. Resilience in total globally is also important. I can install firmware and updates and have trust that it will work.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are good for power consumption compared to other brands. When we buy our Servers, we always take platinum, it's the best quality power supply. Maybe the others consume more power but I can certainly compare them to other platforms or vendors, and they are absolutely on the low side. Now with the 16th generation that came out, there's another huge step in the positive direction compared to the previous generations. In general, every time there's a new generation, I see that we get the same computing power for less electrical power. It moves in a good direction. We cut our energy consumption by half. This has saved us costs because we are running 300 days a year 24/7 on a full load. Thanks to PowerEdge we can lower our energy consumption lower than the competitors.

In our case, we figured out how much computing power we needed and bought more from the start. However, I'm spending my days buying memory and plugging additional memory. The change increases network bandwidth by changing onboarding functions. The memory capacity you can plug in is absolutely impressive for the bigger form factor. We can go through terabytes of memory without a problem. This is something impressive for me as we can open the chassis, and see how it's engineered inside so that we can easily access all the components, and change components without hours and hours of dismantling it. It is a bottom-up engineered product.

PowerEdge Rack Servers' impact on our sustainability goals is important but hidden. Based in Switzerland, we have to abide by the Swiss sustainability laws, which now forbid heat waste. If we build a data center now, we have to recuperate the heating and do something with it. We're no longer allowed to blow out the energy. 

For example, we are building new data centers now that are collecting it, and there's a residential area around it, and we heat the houses through hot water heating. We are legally obliged to do that. The times when we put a chiller outside and blow energy out are gone. That's the core context. If, when we started with the PowerEdge already at the time, we were 100 kilowatts for one room, we moved the junk out and put the first PowerEdge Servers in, and the power consumption went down to 80. So we recovered 20 percent for more computing. That was already more than ten years ago. by now, we have gone down to less than 50 with the latest generation of PowerEdge. So we are going down in power consumption while at the same time providing more computing power to the users. This is very important because the infrastructure to recuperate the heat costs money as well. The less I consume, the less I have to pay to recuperate it afterward.

There are two valuable features for me. Number one, we are always at the edge of technology, Dell is a great partner, so going to Austin to the HBC Lab, so we can test machines and platforms before they go commercial so we can adapt our developments because we plug homemade cards into the Servers. We have to make sure they're compatible. That's the development side. 

On the operations side, the value of service is always underestimated in terms of debugging, availability of spare parts, and the fact that they don't explode weekly. The quality of the products, the monitoring, the managed enterprise, pro support, TechDirect, self-dispatch of spare parts, etcetera, all of this allows us to run in the order of 500 servers if you take other clusters together. It is a tenth of a human host of a full-time equivalent. This means that if you would scale up linearly, one person could take care of 3000 Servers. That's quite impactful. Google published three people for 1000. We are doing one person for 3000. That allows us to free human resources for other tasks. The last time somebody had to go to the data center for support was five months ago. We could do many functions remotely, so there was no hardware fault. We could do daily maintenance remotely through iDRAC. Its remote management capabilities are one in a lifetime. I don't know any other platforms that offer the same level of manageability.

The world market for CPUs is excited. We have new ideas popping up left and right like new accelerator cards because there are GPUs. Dell is already working with Kalray, for example, that builds accelerator cards. There are new FPGA cards available on the market that are not in the portfolio. The last time I looked was when buying the new 760 Servers because it changes every couple of months, and not all Intel CPUs were certified. The adoption speed of new CPU and GPU technologies has room for improvement. 

However, I know coming from the technical side this is a lot of work, and it's difficult. I know they are working on it and it's not something you do in five minutes. We have to stay fair. It would be nice but I know that now Intel and AMD come up with new CPUs twice a year. In the past, there was a new CPU generation every two years and now it's every six months. So the developers of servers and all the devices and programs are running to keep up with the speed itself.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for 11 years.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are stable.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are scalable.

The support is efficient. We have access to the spare parts catalog, We can diagnose a file and send it to them, and within two hours we have somebody on the phone. They are reactive and the problems were solved in the first attempt. This allows us to pay a little bit more for the initial investment but over the lifetime of the equipment, we have zero manpower costs to keep them running. The total cost over the lifetime of the equipment, we are largely positive compared to other brands where we have to pay a team of ten people to manage the equipment.

During the deployment, the amount of rails turned out to be a disaster. We asked for two fewer rails and I had the whole team come over and install the rails for PowerEdge. I had a colleague, who did the Rack all by himself, he was so fascinated with it. From the mechanical aspect, it's extremely easy and solid. 

There is also the engineering of the chassis down to the rail and how to put it in was well thought out. It was not some rails that were purchased out of a catalog from Taiwan. 

I use OAK Management Enterprise to control the whole cluster. Once we plug in the cable, the service tag is realized, and the server is deployed by itself. From plugging in a new machine to installation ready if there are not too many firmware updates, it's ten minutes. It's easy, requires little manpower, and is fast. 

When we had to install five hundred servers in the rack, there was a discussion about whether we should call on the professional deployment services from Dell to do that, and then we decided not to. Because we are two people, we could install 25 servers in two hours. It was done in two weeks.

We do the implementation in-house.

We have the equipment itself, but Dell also provides the full software framework infrastructure around it. That is crucial in monitoring in terms of what's going on and also that one allows for example one person to have a view over thousands of machines. I have CloudIQ on my phone so I can see what my servers are doing. I can predict its failure so we can react before something explodes. We can react before things fail. That, of course, reduces downtime, and increases happiness, on the customer side. 

As scientists, we want as much data as possible. In the experiment equipment running, there are no official numbers, but we are in millions per hour. Therefore, half an hour of downtime is costly. Not everything will be down, but if the data is unusable because there's one piece missing, it's as if everything will be lost.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers ten out of ten. We never have problems and if there is an issue we get help, and the issue is resolved quickly. I never found myself sitting around, not knowing what to do or not getting help. With other full-brand vendors, I couldn't get a support person to look at an issue. These vendors always underestimated support and the follow-up with the customer afterward. In my experience, Dell is the best.

I also spend a lot of time on the advisory board for the Dell HPC Community. I spent time with the developers in most of the service. Ten years ago, the Servers had two power supplies and they were both on the same side. Now on the new ones, one of the power supplies has moved to the other side. That was something we injected seven years ago into the development process because it makes installations in the Rack much more efficient.

On-premises

We have created Hyper-V virtual machines. We have multiple virtual machines running on this system. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are good for handling diverse applications. We have not faced any issues so far. It is good. It is doing well.

We are using Dell PowerEdge R730 Server, and it meets our needs for handling high-performance workloads. We are extremely satisfied.

They are good at firmware upgrades and other things. So far, we have not faced any issues with them. Earlier, I used some other brands. As compared to those, I am satisfied with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

We did not experience any security incidents with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

The advantages include ease of use. The rack accessibility, BIOS settings, and everything else are easy. Its configuration is straightforward. I do not have any difficulties working with it.

It operates without any downtime. It runs 24 hours and 365 days. The downtime is there for an hour or two only when I do an upgrade, but it is within the SLA.

I do not have any input. My servers are quite old. Newer systems are more sustainable in terms of energy consumption. I need to consider more power-saving and sustainable options.

We have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers since 2018. It has been almost five years.

It has been good. I have not faced any issues so far, and it is performing well. For the last five years, I have been using it and am extremely satisfied. I hope it will continue like that.

We have not done any expansion. We are planning but have not implemented any expansion yet.

When I had an incident, the support was good. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Positive

We have used other brands previously, but we had issues related to firmware and slowness. We are satisfied with Dell PowerEdge servers.

 It was not difficult. Based on my previous experience, it was easy to implement.

I worked with Dell Professional Services to plan, implement, and adopt the solution in the beginning. They supported me with the RAID configuration and other types of setups.

We reduced costs by purchasing one or two servers instead of multiple. We are using a single server for our workload.

I don't remember the model, but we evaluated HPE. 

We have not run any AI workloads on these servers. We have multiple software and platforms. It is not easy to integrate AI. We are planning to do it but so far, nothing has been done when it comes to AI integration.

Overall, I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a ten out of ten. It has been working well for the last five years. I am satisfied with it.

On-premises