Dell PowerEdge R-Series Reviews

My role in using and managing Dell PowerEdge R-Series involves virtualization. I use VMware virtualization as my main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series saves me a lot of time. I'm saving probably at least four hours for each upgrade that I have to do. Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers have helped reduce unplanned production downtime. We achieve approximately 99.8% uptime with Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

The features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series that I prefer most are the iDRAC and firmware updating capabilities, which are the main reasons for my preference. The ease of updating firmware through iDRAC is a significant benefit. It's easy because HPE requires you to download a large firmware package that is about six gigabytes, but with Dell iDRAC, I'm able to reach the internet directly to download the drivers for installation. This is possible because they're stable and they just work without any downtime.

I have not seen benefits from running AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers, as it is not applicable to my situation. I'm not planning to use or run any AI loads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series. The reason is that the cost is too much, so we're looking at other competitors such as Lambda-ware because it's cheaper.

On another subject, it would be nice to see Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers a little bit lighter. They're very heavy and feel about 40 to 50 pounds, so if they could lower the weight by 15 pounds, that would be beneficial.

I've been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series rack servers for approximately 10 years.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers have helped reduce unplanned production downtime. We achieve approximately 99.8% uptime with Dell PowerEdge R-Series. This is because they're stable and they just work without any downtime.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has not affected the overall flexibility of my operations or business. Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers have helped reduce my total cost of ownership.

I would evaluate customer service and technical support from Dell as a challenging subject. Many of the customer service representatives are located in India, and this creates a struggle with time zone coverage for US customers. Dell does not have much US-based support, which is unfortunate. I would like to see much more of Dell's support coming from the US instead of India. The knowledge level is definitely not as good in India as it is with the US team. The APAC and EMEA teams do have good support, but Dell is pushing all support to India, which is one of our struggles in wanting to continue with Dell.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerEdge R-Series, we were using Hewlett Packard and HPE to address similar needs. The primary reason we moved to Dell was to try something new, and we've been sticking with it. There was really nothing in terms of performance or cost that influenced our decision, as they're all comparable.

I have seen a return on my investment with Dell PowerEdge R-Series in terms of company uptime, which is 99.8% of the time.

I have seen a return on my investment with Dell PowerEdge R-Series in terms of company uptime, which is 99.8% of the time.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Dell PowerEdge R-Series was fair, as we go through our sales representative. We buy directly from Dell.

The other solutions I considered before Dell PowerEdge R-Series were HPE and Cisco UCS.

The investment per project is probably over $100,000. We've been running the equipment for probably about five to six years instead of changing out the equipment every two to three years. I don't know how I would assess Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers for energy consumption, as we don't track that metric. Regarding the impact of Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers on my company's sustainability goals, it's not applicable. During our evaluation process, our sales representative was able to sell the product to us in both positive and negative aspects. What was exceptional about the sales representative was that they were very nice to us. Since hardware is hardware to us, the sales representative being very nice to us resulted in our decision to buy from them. What would make this a perfect rating for me is if they move the support back to the US. I would rate this review a 9 out of 10.

Unity is our main storage for production, and there are virtual machines running.

We have PowerEdge servers for running VMware virtual machines and Unity EMC Unity to store our virtual machines.

We have about nine hundred people in the company, and we have four ESXi servers at headquarters and two ESXi servers at both remote localities. We are planning to have a better impact at other localities and make a bigger infrastructure, as we have two more big remote localities where a virtualization infrastructure does not exist yet.

We are running a lot of workloads on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and have a lot of free CPU resources. Each ESXi server has half a terabyte in memory operation, and we have almost two hundred terabytes of storage.

I haven't seen ROI from Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. My focus is on virtualization and backup, which is really good, and I enjoy it. It is important to do a job or work which I enjoy. It is the first important thing in life, in my opinion.

The benefits I have seen from Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are stability. I tried to build a visualization infrastructure very systematically and slowly to make this solution, and now it is running very well, stable, and we have no problems with this infrastructure. I am satisfied.

The best features of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are that I use iDRAC for remote access to turn off servers. It is a very good feature for me as an admin, and I use vCenter from VMware for controlling all ESXi servers together with a backup solution for backing up our data.

We have very simple alignment and a very simple infrastructure due to Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, which provides good flexibility.

Mainly, I would like to improve the speed of storage response. We would like to improve our performance by using disks without rotation. The price is better now, and I think it will be better in the future. I think this is the trend.

We haven't experienced any unplanned downtimes. It is a stable platform.

The product has been stable since implementation. We had EMC VNX 430, but there were often failed hard disks. Now, with Unity, there are no problems. There are no faulty hard disks, and it is functioning properly. It is interesting for me to understand why.

The capacity is enough, but when we expand our data, I call Prague, and they deliver to me the next expandable box, and we can add more disks. It is working well.

I have very good experience with their technical support. I have contacts for Dell servers and also for storage and other storage at our remote locations.

I would rate their support as the best, ten out of ten.

Positive

The implementation was easy.

We deployed it ourselves, except for storage settings and installation, which were done by our storage vendor from Prague, the technicians.

The technicians were from a software company named Comparex Prague.

I haven't seen ROI from Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

I am not using Dell PowerStore or other Dell products PowerMax or PowerStore.

We are using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers model 340.

I have good experience with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. We are running these servers for maybe four years, and before, we also used Dell servers, a previous version for which we continue with this platform.

They have positively impacted my organization. I find it easy to use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers; it's intuitive. I use web access to the devices, and it works well. In the past, using Java for Dell Servers was a very bad solution due to many connection mistakes with iDRAC servers. Now Dell has improved the solution and uses a web interface, and it operates without problems.

I switched to high performance in the BIOS environment of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. I create solutions for graceful shutdown in blackout events, and I have a higher solution from our connection provider, T-Mobile, in the Czech Republic. I have the condition to get an SMS switch when some important incident occurs, and I receive an SMS. I don't need to be all the time at the computer or on Outlook. I must completely say that I am satisfied with Dell service, and I have good contacts for support from the Czech Republic and also for storage.

I rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers ten out of ten.

An example of the use cases for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in my company is that we use them for virtualization platforms; currently, it's VMware, so the host that VMware sits on.

The most valuable feature of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for me, my team, and the company is iDRAC. It's more user-friendly than the HPE products, and we can access them remotely, which is very important when we have a global presence, especially at smaller sites where we don't have a person on-site. So, iDRAC really helps us to get into that platform and do maintenance and things like that remotely.

The reliability of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is another benefit I've realized from their usage. 

They look great, have a nice LCD on them, and are easy to manage and maintain in racks.

In thinking about how Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers can be improved, that's a tough one for me. I haven't had a problem yet. I don't have one additional feature I'd want to see on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

In terms of areas for improvement, maybe on the education side, working with third-party sellers on how easy their products are could probably help.

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

To measure the success with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we use some monitoring software that tells us various different metrics of the server, and it doesn't ever go down, so it's been really good for us.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers scale really well with the growing needs of my company; we're not maxed out on the host servers we have now, so we could easily scale out from there and then get more servers if we need them.

I haven't had to use Dell's support yet, so I don't know for sure. They're really good, and we have a support contract for five years, however, we haven't had to use it.

Positive

Prior to adopting Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we were using HPE servers. The factors that led me to consider a change were manageability, as I didn't enjoy the interface of HPE, and then Dell actually seeded us a server for free to use, which blew my mind; it was really a lot easier to do that, so I encourage them to keep that program going since that appraoch works.

My experience with deploying Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is that it's super easy; we aren't very automated yet. However, it was very easy to set up the iDRAC part and then go into setting up the hard drives for ESXi without having any problems.

Since we've only been a server customer for about three years, we haven't had it even depreciate off our books yet, so it hasn't been long enough to really calculate that ROI.

It is easier for me to get licensing and pricing for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers; the licensing, specifically on their competitor's websites, is very difficult to find. In contrast, for Dell PowerEdge, it's very easy on their website to figure out what SKU you need.

Before Dell PowerEdge, I looked at Lenovo. However, on the server side, they're not quite there yet; we do use Lenovo for laptops and things. Other than that, I went directly from HPE to Dell.

I don't use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for my AI initiatives yet; primarily, we do that in the cloud right now. In terms of planning for AI on-prem, I have looked at all the AI factory stuff, and it's really appealing. In terms of AI in general, and how we could use it, we have scientific white papers that we go through, and it would be really good for scientists to be able to search through those and get really good responses versus trying to do it manually, which would save them a lot of time.

My advice to other companies considering Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is to go for it; it's a great product, and you won't be disappointed.

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

My team manages four data centers where we use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers to host our customers. We also use them ourselves for internal purposes. We have certain software platforms that we build in-house, which are homegrown, that we use on a daily basis on those servers. We also have some third-party software that we host on them that we use within the team.

As an automotive dealer management system provider, we provide hardware and software to automotive dealers using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. We deploy a server on-site running Windows, and then our application along with the database. We can have it on-prem in the dealership, or if they prefer, we can host it, and we will do the same thing as a virtual machine in one of our data centers.

We really appreciate the security features that are built into the iDRAC within Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. They are modular, and we can build and request servers in the same way, whether it's now, six months from now, or a year from now. They're consistent. The user experience is consistent across them. It doesn't matter if you're logging into a T160 or a T350, or an older T330, that experience is the same across the board. Even with the new versions of iDRAC, technicians and our support teams are comfortable logging in and can navigate around easily enough without having to learn something new.

There are cost benefits of using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. Since we buy many of them, plus they're smaller, they're very efficient regarding CPU and power. We can max out that process on that RAM and have it run four or five years without worrying about having any issues or thermal problems.

There is essentially no learning curve. The iDRAC features are heavily used for our out-of-band management with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. Other servers have similar products, and having the license included with the server is beneficial rather than as an additional charge later.

We're working on implementing support agents and business intelligence work within the next year, currently determining our hardware needs and data storage requirements.

Due to the fact that we use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in both data centers and dealerships, we can move workloads seamlessly. If a dealership wants to move to a hosted environment, we can transfer that workload from the physical server directly to our data center, and vice versa.

New Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers consistently perform better as technology improves. The progression from 7200 RPM disks to 10K disks, 15K disks, and now to SSDs and NVMe storage has led to substantial improvements. As NVMe generations advance from Gen4 to Gen5, the throughput improves significantly. Newer servers with updated technology provide faster throughput, more IOPS, and less power consumption with solid-state storage. The newer Xeon processors are more power-efficient while handling increased workload.

I would prefer more flexibility when configuring Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. Some challenges we see when looking for a server include wanting a two CPU server without necessarily needing a larger server. Perhaps a smaller server with more processor choices would be beneficial. On some of the smaller ones, you might not be able to get a larger 16-core processor, only an 8-core. This forces you to go up to a larger server to get the desired processor, which increases the cost. There's no real benefit to having that bigger chassis just for the sake of that processor.

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in both rack and tower configurations, and we have been using them for approximately 20 years.

When we encounter a performance issue with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, it's typically due to the fact that we've overloaded that server, or if we're running a virtual machine, we haven't added enough resources to that virtual machine. 

We experience hard drives wearing out approximately every five years. However, we don't have many issues with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and rarely call support for hardware issues. 

Occasionally, a power supply or hard drive will fail, maybe a fan (things that are moving) however, other components such as RAM and CPU remain reliable. We have servers that we've had for seven years that are still operational.

For most of our customers, if they start to grow, we can exchange their Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. If they started with something a T160, a smaller server, and they need to grow, we may just add hard drives into that box. If they need more RAM, we can add that in there. If they need a larger server, we can move their workload over to a larger server and replace it. The process is really straightforward.

We currently have 650 employees and are growing.

Dell support is great. When we call them, there's usually a wait when placing the initial call, possibly half an hour before receiving a callback, but once we have a case created and a tech involved, we can email them back and forth, and they respond really quickly.

In situations where we have a harder issue impacting the server, having a faster response time would be beneficial, as many of these servers carry production workloads. If a drive fails and the storage array is in a degraded state with reduced capacity, waiting half an hour for support feels much longer.

Dell support rates nine out of ten.

Positive

We have examined other competitors, however, with the volume we buy, we get such a great deal from Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers that it isn't financially viable to switch.

When examining a potentially new Dell PowerEdge Rack Server, we typically receive one on a loaner basis. We examine the disk IOPS, as our application is heavily database-driven. High IOPS is important to ensure we can move data in and out of the database quickly. We examine the CPU and clock speed as well. We typically put one of our workloads on that server, and we have built-in metrics in the software that run against it, along with other benchmarks such as PassMark, which provides data we can compare to other servers to determine if the new server gives us equal or better performance compared to previous models.

Due to our purchase volume, Dell provides excellent service. We utilize their deployment services. For larger cluster servers, we use their deployment services to help build, spec, configure, and install. Their support is excellent. If we have an issue with the server, using the secure connect gateways, that server will automatically call home to Dell, open a ticket, and notify us of detected issues, such as an imminent hard drive failure. They automatically dispatch parts and potentially a technician.

We have seen a return on investment in Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers baserd on our volume purchasing, though exact numbers are not known.

Since we purchase Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in quantity, we receive a discount for buying many of them. As we replace aging servers with new ones, we return the older servers to Dell.

Specifically, when examining clustered servers, the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers solutions were superior overall. The benchmarks we ran showed higher scores on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers compared to competitive servers. It's not just about price; they actually perform better as well.

The overall rating for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is ten out of ten.

My main uses for Dell PowerEdge R-Series include using them as IO machines, talking to PCI Express devices, changing over time, and pushing data to the network for in-flight compute.

What I appreciate most about Dell PowerEdge R-Series is how they are engineered internally. You can open them and easily disassemble and reassemble them. I am a fan of the iDRAC management interface, which is unique in the world.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers has helped reduce unplanned production downtime. Although calculating the exact amount is difficult, before we used servers from another brand, I had boxes exploding every week, with real fires. In more than 15 years using Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I had one motherboard failure in 13 years and a couple of memory bars, leading to almost zero issues. The hard disk used is simply consumable.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers has affected the overall flexibility of my operations and business. Thanks to iDRAC, I could give access to users, allowing them to reboot the machines, look at consoles, and reconfigure settings. This has created a great new experience for the users compared to before. For the management team, the whole software environment around Dell PowerEdge R-Series portfolio, for example, OpenManage Enterprise as a management platform, has increased efficiency. For instance, it previously took two people full-time for a week to upgrade the BIOS on 120 machines, but today we can do 300 in five minutes, completed by a tenth of a person equivalent. It is incredible.

For the improvement of Dell PowerEdge R-Series, something very personal to me is the number of PCI Express slots in the back. However, that is an engineering choice. Overall, I am happy with the machines, and I cannot think of any improvements at this time.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series since 2013.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers has helped reduce unplanned production downtime. Although calculating the exact amount is difficult, before we used servers from another brand, I had boxes exploding every week, with real fires. In more than 15 years using Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I had one motherboard failure in 13 years and a couple of memory bars, leading to almost zero issues. The hard disk used is simply consumable.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers has affected the overall flexibility of my operations and business. Thanks to iDRAC, I could give access to users, allowing them to reboot the machines, look at consoles, and reconfigure settings. This has created a great new experience for the users compared to before. For the management team, the whole software environment around Dell PowerEdge R-Series portfolio, for example, OpenManage Enterprise as a management platform, has increased efficiency. For instance, it previously took two people full-time for a week to upgrade the BIOS on 120 machines, but today we can do 300 in five minutes, completed by a tenth of a person equivalent. It is incredible.

My evaluation of customer service and technical support with Dell is extremely positive. We have proactive support, with technicians providing spare parts on-site within 24 hours. For me, this is a clear 10. While I know that for desktops, some people may not be as happy, that is not my business unit, but those users also switch from other companies to Dell laptops and desktops.

Before selecting Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I would consider only two brands of IT hardware in the world for running a serious 24/7 data center, and Dell is one of them, with HP as the other. These are the only two I take seriously for production quality and support, which is often overlooked but very important if something explodes at 2:00 in the morning. This is where the difference between vendors is evident.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been very good. Dell has always been a cool company with nice people to talk to. I know the whole chain up to management, so we can always work out prices that work for everybody, leading to extremely competitive and satisfying experiences for all involved.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers has helped reduce my total cost of ownership (TCO). The efficiency of power supplies is much better than before, leading to lower heat and power consumption for the cluster, resulting in doubling the number of machines while reducing the power consumption for the data center, which is incredible. Additionally, on the personnel side, we previously needed four or five sysadmins for 120 machines. Now, it is a tenth of one person looking after 300, freeing others to do different tasks rather than laying them off.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been very good. Dell has always been a cool company with nice people to talk to. I know the whole chain up to management, so we can always work out prices that work for everybody, leading to extremely competitive and satisfying experiences for all involved.

I would assess Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers for energy consumption as brilliant. We quadruple the computing power while reducing the power consumption by 20%.

My impressions of Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers' impact on my organization's sustainability goals show that a significant factor for us is heat and power consumption. By simply moving from other brands to Dell PowerEdge R-Series, we could reduce it by 20 to 40%.

I give this review a rating of 10.

I am working as a pre-sales solutions architect. We provide technical solutions. We review a client's requirements and objectives, then provide the appropriate solution to the client. We also review the solution to find the most appropriate option for the client to ensure a good trade-off between technology and cost.

Customers use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers to deploy their business-critical applications, and these servers are recommended for VDI solutions. Companies in the financial and retail sectors use these servers to run their business-critical applications. 

We are currently using the 660 models.

The main benefit is from a cost perspective. Comparing the cost of HCI nodes and Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, the latter are much cheaper. Clients can choose tailored servers based on CPU speed, RAM size, and disk types, with various disk options including NVMe, SATA, and SSDs. We can customize the infrastructure servers.

From a cost perspective, they are much more beneficial for clients. We also get the pro deployment support from Dell for new deployments at the client's data center or service provider's data center, along with maintenance services until the end of the term.

Regarding sustainability goals, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers can be upgraded if they have a five-year warranty, and when they reach end-of-support life, they can be replaced with newer technology. Companies focus on upgrading existing servers to reduce costs and provide savings to the client.

As far as energy consumption is concerned, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers consume less energy compared to other servers. If you go with the HCI VxRail, the energy consumption is higher. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers consume less energy compared to other servers. They also come with thermal cooling nowadays, which also reduces the cost. It reduces the power consumption, or means KWA charges in data centers.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers do not require frequent downtime and can run continuously for up to one year without a hardware reboot. However, to reduce downtime, data centers should have redundancy or resiliency. All servers come with dual power supplies, and vendors provide hardware warranty and replacement within four hours for failed components. Downtime depends on the resiliency of the environment and server configuration. If HA is configured, any faulty hardware part can automatically fail over to another server. Resiliency is maintained at the VMware layer, so if a VM running on some servers goes down, it can move to other servers. 

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers enhance the overall flexibility of the operations. Based on the client's business objective and consumption requirements of the resources of CPU, memory, disk, and storage, we can customize Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. We can offer a very competitive price to the client. We get a lot of options as well because multiple models are available in the market, and these servers are robust as well as reliable, and sustainable.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are good for the VDI environment. They are also good for the manufacturing industries, the healthcare sector, the financial sector, and the insurance sector. They are being used in multiple sectors.

The best features include CPU speed, as clients typically use 2.3 GHz CPUs. It provides multiple choices for CPU use and clock speed, ranging from 2.5 to 3.2 GHz. Regarding memory, it offers the latest memory sets for very fast access. The newer technology, after NVMe technology, ensures excellent performance with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. For external storage connectivity, it also supports HVA ports with speeds of 25 Gbps and 32 Gbps, which match network bandwidth, providing great performance and reduced latency. The servers also consume less energy compared to HCI VxRail.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have higher hardware costs compared to HPE ProLiant servers, which are cheaper. From reliability, performance, and sustainability perspectives, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have no match, but the price difference with other vendors is noticeable. 

If we look at the internal storage, Dell is much more expensive as compared to other vendors such as HPE.

I have been working with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for more than 10 years.

There are no stability issues with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, and clients have good confidence in them.

Scaling up or down with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is easy, and vertical scaling is possible. Unlike VxRail, which requires adding new nodes for horizontal scaling, we can also deactivate CPUs in current technologies if they are underutilized.

I would rate their tech support a nine out of ten, as I have never faced any challenges.

Positive

It is very smooth because of the pro deployment services that Dell provides. It also depends on the client's environment and client infrastructure. Dell deployment is smoother than other vendors, as they do the rack stacking and cabling. They also test the hardware.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers provide clients with good cost savings and resale value, making them very cost-effective. Although there are differences in CPU clock speeds compared to other vendors, the reliability makes Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers the clients' choice.

Most clients are looking for currency savings as part of technology; they want to get away from tech debt. GenAI is taking good shape, so we work on automation or orchestration that we can offer to our clients and try to propose the best-in-class blended solution with emerging technologies. We prepare PoCs based on past experience and solutions provided to different clients. I work on the server side with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and Dell storage, mainly service storage and network-related products for top aggregation switches and management switches.

AI workloads depend on the client's requirements; however, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers can host them. Generally, we allocate three or four VMs to run AI applications such as Dynatrace and Ansible. For AI development, if a client opts for GenAI, it requires a longer time and more resources, as historical data requires substantial storage. We propose PowerStore servers for GenAI due to the increased processing power and storage requirements.

When considering Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers over a hyperscaler for AI computing, I would recommend hyperscaler servers for clients willing to invest in high performances. For high workloads, PowerScaler offers superior performance, speed, and agility.

I would recommend Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers if you want reliability, sustainability, and greater performance. You also get good technical support and maintenance support from Dell. With pro deployment, you can also get free deployment services from Dell.

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

Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers serve as the foundation for our compute needs, running servers, workloads, and Kubernetes clusters. Our video servers and SQL servers are all based on one of those servers running in the back end, performing compute operations and understanding. Hosting our GPUs within the R-Series is a key factor in what we do.

We have been able to use Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers to run GPU nodes for the last three to four years. They were a key part of us starting to leverage AI in our growing system, understanding how to maintain the crops, understanding what is going on, and performing backend updates to the large language models before pushing out the inferencing to the end. This is where we perform this work on Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers have really helped us reduce unplanned production downtime. It is always hard to gauge this now because our Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers are very often inside of a cluster, so we do not have one server going down that will affect us. This is where ProSupport services come in, where they will get us a part in four hours to get us back going and try to avoid that N minus 2 scenario where we lose a second device, which really can usually cause problems.

Regarding energy consumption with the new Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers, it is a big topic for us. When we are running a 250-acre greenhouse with about 400,000 lights on, the power for one server does not really affect it as much. We do really monitor what we use and want to use as little as we can, but it makes it a little less of a spotlight for us as a company. We enjoy the built-in features of how it uses less energy and how it optimizes things, but it does not really hit our bottom line as quick.

One feature of Dell PowerEdge R-Series that I love, and it has improved generation over generation, is the iDRAC feature. Being able to get back into the server, control it, and then with them linking up to the AI Ops, allowing me to see real-life telemetry of what is going on and understand what is going on in a single pane of glass has made it so much easier for us to understand. These features benefit us because we are a small IT team. Now with our expansion into the Dell Private Cloud, it has allowed us to not even have to interface with the iDRAC but allow the software to do the work. It is almost letting AI deploy a VxRail cluster, a vSphere cluster, ESX hosts, or Red Hat OpenShift through a click, and it goes in the back end and deploys it. Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers are such a multi-function tool for us and they have such a great API to allow us to do so many functions that it makes it easy to work with.

The features I love and I struggle with each day still is the Bluetooth feature once in a while to get it working on my phone. I still struggle with that each day. I think sometimes my team teases me that I am just a little more old school. I prefer to just plug into the iDRAC, find the IP, and get to it. But I think for me, it is just a little bit of a generational thing now.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers have been part of our operations for almost thirteen years.

The overall flexibility of our operations has always been very high with using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers. We have multiple locations and multiple server racks across these locations. There is always the right size to fit our needs, anything from a two to four unit sized server rack, Dell PowerEdge R-Series server to something very simple in the 200 range to help us do what we need to do. We do not need to rely on a one-size-fits-all approach. We go and say, 'This is what workload we want to put on it. This is how much we need.' We customize that server to work in that location. And at the end of the day, it is that commonality that we are working with the same generational server across our platform.

I would evaluate the customer service and the technical support for Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers as amazing. I have always been able to call up and ask, 'How do I do this? What do we need to fix? I have got this weird error.' The joy of when you get the ProSupport Plus for those servers is that they are there to help you.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerEdge R-Series, we were using an HP ProLiant and basically even just workstations doing the work of what should be a server load. This was also part of the Nature Fresh growth pattern of growing from being a small company to being an enterprise company. We had to leave that small portfolio of thinking it was just as cheap to get a workstation to do the load of what a server should do. The benefits we started to see from the reliance and the availability of a server-grade system made it so much stronger for us.

I have seen a return on investment with Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers. I can go back in history of our Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers to one of the first ones we got almost ten years ago, an R410. We were facing SQL issues that we could not explain. We switched everything over to an R410, and we also took leverage of every bit of a 410 at the time. We went to solid state and did all those types of things and we knocked our SQL time from being three to four hours to do a backup down to minutes to the point where now it became something we did not have to shut down our production to do a backup. We could just instantaneously do it. These types of returns we see each day as we continue to grow. And even now, when we look at how we expand, we are able to condense our current structure from generation to generation where a seven-node cluster in one place is now reduced down to three nodes. This really helps the space inside the rack and helps return on investment, and that goes right back into the energy savings because we are only having to power three servers instead of seven.

My experience with the pricing, the setup cost, and the licensing for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is that the licensing is basically your ProSupport, things of that nature. It has always been easy for us. It is always a little hard to wrap your head around which processor is in there and whether to go Intel or AMD, but it all works so well. Our costing model is about the same. The new change to it again is the Dell Private Cloud because that is now an extension on each node. A Dell PowerEdge R-Series node is one license for that, but it is still a simple model.

Other solutions I considered before selecting Dell PowerEdge R-Series were HP and IBM. It came down to being one single vendor for our switches and for the core components out there. This makes that support call so much easier. It makes that support time so much easier when you know that you have got one large team working to fix your issue, instead of having two different teams trying to figure out who is at fault. It is more of now, how do we fix that problem.

My impressions of Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers' impact on our company's sustainability goals are that one of our sustainability goals is recycled materials, reusing of components, and e-waste reduction. We use Dell's recycled services to come pick up the equipment once they are done. That is what matches a lot of our goals, as we have recycling containers and recycling packages. We make sure that we try to be friendly to our environment. We recycle our water. All of that leads into that same concept of how do you take what you have and make the most benefit of the resources available. I would rate this review overall with a score of ten out of ten.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is used for virtualized general infrastructure for the most part.

The best features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series that I appreciate the most are fairly consistent performance, pretty good support, sometimes fair pricing, and generally good availability of different configurations to meet business needs.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series generally helps reduce unplanned production downtime due to their reliability.

In Dell PowerEdge R-Series, the areas with room for improvement are pricing because costs have increased significantly for what they offer. The pricing should decrease as component costs drop, especially with current issues regarding memory and sometimes CPU availability. Additionally, the supply chain should be much better for a Tier 1 OEM like Dell.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for approximately 20 years.

Regarding stability, for the most part, we do not have downtime or glitches. Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers are fairly reliable, though I have recently experienced a glitch when I rebooted a server. From 1 to 10, I would rate the stability of most of them at eight because we own 14th generations and 17th generations, with the 17th generation being very new.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is scalable as any other server for our business. From 1 to 10, I would rate scalability at seven or eight.

From 1 to 10, I would usually rate the technical support for Dell PowerEdge R-Series at least an eight or a nine.

Positive

The deployment of Dell PowerEdge R-Series was fairly straightforward.

Overall, I have seen a return on investment with Dell PowerEdge R-Series. They are reliable, so I am getting good use out of them.

When comparing Dell PowerEdge R-Series with other solutions or vendors such as HPE, Cisco, Huawei, and IBM, I have HPs as well, but Dell's portfolio is perhaps a little more broad and easier to understand. Even Dell has many options, which is probably too many and confuses people, making the process much more complex than it needs to be.

The workloads I currently run on Dell PowerEdge servers are almost all virtualized with VMware.

I use AI daily with Dell PowerEdge R-Series in a special Google DoD FedRAMP environment.

Approximately 200 humans and 1,000 IPs, meaning 1,000 devices, use the solution.

The solution requires maintenance through updates and patching. I perform firmware and BIOS updates and housekeeping tasks once every 12 to 24 months, which means the machine has some downtime. Another concern is support, which typically comes in one, two, or three-year contracts that must be renewed, and the costs are sometimes much higher than they should be.

Regarding energy consumption assessment for Dell PowerEdge R-Series, they used to not be great, but in the last few years, they have become much more efficient. I believe they run the fans at different speeds at different times, maximizing power usage for efficiency in 2026.

I do not know if the solution has helped reduce my total cost of ownership, as I do not have anything to compare it against.

My advice for others looking to implement Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to work with a good reseller that understands all the different configurations and options so that you are well-informed. I rate this solution an 8 overall.