Dell PowerEdge R-Series Reviews

My role in using or managing Dell PowerEdge R-Series involves having a cluster for all our customers who need a specific type of hosting. We are a hoster and a software development company, and it is an all-in-one solution for hosting and the software they need to have. That is our primary use case for it as well. We are currently having three Dell PowerEdge R-Series in one cluster, and one is due in approximately a year again.

The most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series for me are the feature richness and the upgradability. I really love the way that it is so dynamically applicable for every situation, and they manage to have an all-in-one solution for every single situation.

Dell PowerEdge has supported the growth and operational success of my company through its great compute power and price-to-performance ratio. Every time Dell is at the top of its game for us, and there is just no other brand for us that is able to reach that kind of price-to-performance ratio.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has features that specifically cater to the needs of my small company, such as iDRAC. The iDRAC system is a complete feature set for managing servers and hardware technically and monitoring-wise. It really fits in our system and our ecosystem, and monitoring-wise, it is excellent. They have all these sensors available via different protocols and end points, which I love, and the ability to manage and control everything via the iDRAC interface is just a welcome bonus.

In our use case, Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very flexible. It is another computer which helps a lot because of the durability over time. They keep running, making scalability for getting more of those resources in our environment so easy.

I would like to see fewer brand-bound features and no boundaries because of brands in the next releases. More integration with other systems would obviously help.

Non-vendor-specific things could benefit Dell PowerEdge R-Series. Dell has a lot of OEM material, obviously, because it is an OEM provider, but it could benefit from more AMD, more ARM, and more across the line. There are a lot of potential things that they are still missing in their repertoire, so it might be interesting to actually provide that for customers.

I have been working in my current field for approximately fifteen years.

The stability and availability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series systems has been great. I have no issues at all. If there is an issue, we had one issue of a memory DIMM that broke down, but the system told us that this part of hardware broke down and we needed a new one. Dell support has been flawless with that.

Dell support has been flawless. I would evaluate Dell support on a scale of one to ten as a nine because they deliver where they need to, and when they make a promise, it is there. I do not know what would make it a ten for me. A ten is perfect, and perfect does not exist.

Positive

I evaluated servers from Lenovo a couple of years ago. It is another generation, but Dell was absolutely better back then and is now.

The benefits I have realized from using Dell PowerEdge R-Series are the dynamically upgradable hardware. You call Dell and they say what you need. They provide it once you have paid. Then you open the server, you install it, and it is flawless. Everything is detected by itself and it just works.

I have not evaluated or used Dell PowerEdge R-Series with another, non-Intel, CPU vendor inside. I have not evaluated other servers besides Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

I am not sure in what areas Dell PowerEdge R-Series could improve. Everything sums up instead of being scattered around all over the place. Dell PowerEdge R-Series has a particular server for a particular workload, and if you want to do something else with that server, you can. Dell provides options for it, and that just does not work that great with another brand.

Currently, we use Dell PowerEdge R-Series with Intel inside. The Intel processor in our Dell PowerEdge R-Series handles our workloads as expected. We were looking for specific workloads on specific processing power, and previously, we did not have the knowledge about what kind of CPU we needed. Nowadays, we are going into depth about how much a CPU can perform in particular situations, and that is something we did not have. We had to look up that information ourselves, which is where Dell could come in handy.

I am interested in what kind of workloads are particularly interesting for which kind of CPU. Currently, we are balancing between Broadcom licenses and the performance we will get from the price-to-performance ratio on Dell servers themselves. We are noticing that there is a middle ground or at least a balance between what is a great combination for Broadcom licenses including CPU core counts. There is a lot to think about, and that is why there are a few CPUs that really are the sweet spot for Intel and Broadcom combinations.

I can describe specific outcomes or improvements that are attributed to Dell PowerEdge, but not specifically to Intel. The ecosystem really works. I think it works flawlessly. The management consoles, the support—I really love the support—it is all no-nonsense and it works.

We are our own cloud, so for us it is on-premises, but it is kind of a hybrid thing. We do not have any other services from other providers, and we do everything ourselves with open source and Broadcom. I have purchased my Dell PowerEdge servers directly from one of the vendors over here. I would rate this review overall as a nine out of ten.

We use several versions of Dell PowerEdge R-Series. Most of the servers we currently use are the R350s. R370s are not available; they do not exist. We are waiting for the R380s to come out and we intend to transition to those, probably somewhere next year.

As the lead buyer, my role personally is buying the machines for our engineering needs. We create hardware and software for our end clients, usually per use case. When we need servers to host applications, we advise to buy these. We have a lot of racks with these running VMware and other hypervisors to test the environments that the end clients will use and to replicate their errors.

I appreciate Dell solutions because they are reliable, and we know what we are getting. If we do need support, it is quick. Dell offers us the ability to keep our own hard drive, which we appreciate because we can just get the replacement server, hot-swap, and we are running again.

My personal favorite feature is iDRAC. I appreciate that you do not have to work with the OS itself to flash something; it is easy and manageable.

Currently, it is sometimes challenging when a component gets out of fashion or is no longer available at end of life, to quickly get a drop-in replacement. I would appreciate an XE version of the server where we have some drop-in replacements lined up beforehand, and we already know how to validate them. Right now, when this happens, we have about three months to validate the new systems, and that is usually a little short notice for us. I am already happy we get the time we get.

I do have something to say about customer service and support. From time to time, we need to get special licenses or extended warranties or other items, especially for end customers. I think that could be streamlined. Right now, there is a human factor in it; there is not a click and buy option. This could save Dell some time to iterate that as well. If we have a technical question, it can take a little time, especially if we are trying to reach the Dutch support line. Usually, we still get redirected to a UK representative, which is acceptable because I speak English, but some of our customers are a little less happy. It would be beneficial if there were more local technical support. All of our questions get answered usually within a day or two, which I consider pretty quick. If it is high priority or critical, it gets answered within a couple of hours.

I have been working here for two years.

I am very happy with the stability and reliability. When we know all the factors, they perform the way we want. Usually, if something is not performing the way we want, there is a factor that the client is not using per specification. We can replicate it, and we give them advice on how to better perform.

When I refer to underperformance, it may refer to crashes. We are using non-ruggedized servers, so they are meant for a normal hot aisle, cool aisle server setup. We have some clients who place them in different situations where the temperature or humidity is not within specification. That will make the server a little less reliable.

We do not need to scale that often as it is all per use case. The end clients will also use only one setup, maybe high availability with four nodes, but that is about it. We do not need to scale very often, but we do have the option, and that is beneficial.

From time to time, we need to get special licenses or extended warranties or other items, especially for end customers. I think that could be streamlined. Right now, there is a human factor in it; there is not a click and buy option. This could save Dell some time to iterate that as well.

If we have a technical question, it can take a little time, especially if we are trying to reach the Dutch support line. Usually, we still get redirected to a UK representative, which is acceptable because I speak English, but some of our customers are a little less happy. It would be beneficial if there were more local technical support.

All of our questions get answered usually within a day or two, which I consider pretty quick. If it is high priority or critical, it gets answered within a couple of hours.

Positive

We intend to keep using the same R3x servers for the foreseeable future.

We have used other Dell servers in the past that were either overkill or underperforming. Dell PowerEdge R-Series really meets our criteria with a little bit of space to grow. If our applications get more intense, the resources are available. For at least the next four to five years, I do not see us transitioning to a different system.

We have been using Dell long before I started, so we have always used it. It is pretty standardized by our standards right now. As soon as we get the machine, we flash it, validate it, and ship it or we put it in our test solution racks. It is quick and easy.

As the lead buyer, my role personally is buying the machines for our engineering needs.

We have a partnership with Dell, and we are very happy with the partnership, so I do not think we will go to HP or another competitor.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series receives a rating of 9 out of 10.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is primarily used for private cloud infrastructure. The main functions involve virtual data centers, disaster recovery, storage, and backup capabilities.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is delivered as a platform for clients in the AI domain, allowing them to build on top of the infrastructure and utilize the compute capacity provided.

Clients have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series from the start, so they maintain a fully Dell-focused approach.

The product serves as a good foundation because reliable, stable products are essential based on maintenance requirements and other factors. This reliability is definitely one of the key pillars for choosing Dell.

While other vendors are used on specific parts like storage, Dell is always chosen for the compute base.

The technical team values the product highly. From an organizational perspective, the priority is ensuring the product is reliable with a long lifetime cycle. The goal is to avoid variance in infrastructure, so choosing one series should mean it remains available for three, four, or five years due to maintenance considerations, and that works perfectly.

The CPU inside is an Intel Xeon processor.

There is satisfaction with the product because it delivers compute as it should.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has been in use within the company for two years now, although the company itself has existed for 25 years in the same business.

From a minimum perspective, stability is excellent. With a large number of systems deployed rather than just one, two, or fifty units, downtime is minimal. The infrastructure is fully redundant, which ensures strong stability.

A combination of internal support and vendor support is utilized. The company manages what it can do internally with spare parts on hand. However, when materials or assistance is needed beyond internal capabilities, the service agreement with Dell is leveraged.

Dell's customer service is definitely good, which is why Dell remains a valued partner. Contacting them results in direct communication and solutions as quickly as possible.

Customer service receives a rating of eight out of ten. A perfect ten cannot be given because there is always something that can be improved.

Response time is good and technical knowledge is excellent. When contacting support, the conversations go directly into the main issue rather than asking basic troubleshooting questions. This is why the eight rating is given for customer service.

Positive

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is continuously developing and expanding each week and month.

Prices are increasing each year, but density is also improving, allowing more capacity to be placed into the same machine. More can be accomplished with the same resources compared to ten years ago. While the price is increasing, velocity and performance are getting better, which makes the value proposition positive.

Great value for money is definitely provided.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series receives a rating of nine out of ten for the product itself. It is a reliable product, and there are no plans to switch to any competitor soon because it is excellent.

The overall review rating for this product is eight out of ten.

My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is servers for ERP for some clients, and servers for virtualization for some other clients. Those are the most used applications.

A specific example of how Dell PowerEdge R-Series was used in a virtualization or ERP project for a client includes the TOTVS system running locally for two clients on the R670xs, and for virtualization projects, most of my clients use the servers as file servers in virtualization with two or three virtual machines as the standard for the companies' environments.

I chose Dell PowerEdge R-Series because I know it is an extremely reliable machine. I usually purchase it with a 7-year warranty to give the client greater peace of mind. The machine usually lasts longer. I have some Dell PowerEdge R-Series units that have already been in use for 14 years and are still performing extremely well. Of course, with the limitations that come with age regarding processor architecture, memory, and disk, they continue to handle smaller functions in the environment. It's a long-term investment the client makes and it's equipment that will serve the environment for many years in a very efficient way.

In the functions where I use it, it serves extremely well, but in terms of AI, I cannot provide an answer because I haven't used it in that scenario.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is deployed in my organization on-premises locally. It is a private cloud because all members of my clients' teams access it via VPN or some other secure access method. It can function as a local cloud, but most are on-premises with few units in colocation.

Today I don't have any AI application because my clients are smaller companies that don't have this type of application locally.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has had a positive impact on my organization by providing better productivity and lower cost for my clients. There are applications where, if I consider the cost of that application being hosted in the cloud, in one year I pay for the server and from there on I incur fewer operating costs. This situation greatly facilitates the manager's investment decision because they make an investment in hardware that will serve them for 7 or 8 years, and with the cost they would have hosting this in the cloud, they would have a much higher amount to pay over time. Dell PowerEdge R-Series helps greatly in this characteristic. Since I also use 1U or 2U models, they offer very good rack density. I can sometimes have four, five, or six servers in a rack, offering very large processing capacity for the entire environment while keeping the infrastructure quite lean.

The use of Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers has greatly impacted my ability to offer better performance and better application performance in the environment, as well as management. As I've mentioned several times, iDRAC makes it much easier to manage the company's infrastructure area. I have alerts when an event occurs, and I have the convenience of doing firmware updates via iDRAC. Equipment management using iDRAC is quite integrated and greatly facilitates governance of these devices.

Regarding sustainability, all Dell equipment is produced with Dell already using recyclable materials in the manufacturing process, producing the product in a more environmentally friendly way. The product already comes from the factory with much better metrics than before. Considering the lower energy consumption that has already been mentioned compared to previous generations, that is, higher performance per watt consumed, they help process more data with less energy consumed, which greatly helps the company's sustainability profile. The product offers recyclability options and its longevity is quite high, at least 7 to 10 years.

The best features that Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers in my experience include redundancy for the power supply, which works extremely well, and Dell support. The storage options are also very extensive and good, especially the newer versions with NVMe and SAS options. I've been using NVMe and SAS more in these solutions for better performance, including mixing disk technologies and SSD units of different technologies. I can have two PERCs in the same machine to work with different disk systems. I can have a hard drive on one controller and SSDs on another controller without causing any problems. The ease of server maintenance is very high. I often provide server support and maintenance myself, adding memory and changing processors. It is quite simple. The options Dell offers are very good. iDRAC is also excellent. Management through iDRAC makes the IT technician's life much easier.

Regarding the AI features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series, if it's for AI applications, I have to select a version that supports the specific NVIDIA controllers for AI. Within the equipment's governance aspects, with the options it offers for me to manage the machine remotely via iDRAC and the Lifecycle Controller, it offers very interesting features for hardware and lifecycle management of the equipment, which really add to the proposal of having a machine like this used for AI, provided it is sized according to the required application or the application's needs.

In terms of power consumption, Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers have very good quality power supplies and energy consumption that I consider quite low compared to older products. When I remember servers around 2011 and 2012 that consumed a lot of energy, today in terms of performance per watt, they have exceptional capacity. With each year and each generation that comes out, there are more power-saving and integration features to reduce energy consumption. This is also helped by the fact that NVMe storage consumes less. The new memory standards usually also have lower power consumption than previous generations, which helps in the product's overall energy consumption in relation to the performance offered. Performance per watt in each generation rises considerably, and energy consumption remains practically the same, while processing capacity sometimes increases exponentially.

In terms of improving Dell PowerEdge R-Series, to be honest, the product has so many options that I find it very difficult to improve it in terms of product itself. Of course, there will always be some technological evolution and new components, but what the product offers in each generation, and I've already followed five or six generations of Dell PowerEdge from generation 11 up to generation 17, it has always kept pace with technological innovation. In terms of storage, it's always extremely in line with what the market is offering. In terms of memory, each new generation always follows the newest RAM trends. Processors also have both AMD and Intel options. I believe the product already has very high maturity. The availability of redundant power supplies and the availability of off-band management via iDRAC are excellent. The product is already extremely solid and reliable. The most I could perhaps say is that sometimes in some operations, I find iDRAC a bit slow, but that's a characteristic of off-band management because performance comes from a separate card that has its own processor and its own memory, so sometimes it's not as fast as I'd expect from the machine itself. Overall, there really isn't much to say because the product is extremely robust and efficient.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for 18 years.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is extremely stable. I have servers that remain without rebooting for more than a year, occasionally rebooting only for some critical update, but the machine is never turned off. They run 24/7. I have machines that have been running 24/7 for 10 years, and the only times they needed to be restarted were for some critical update to avoid invasion risks or some problem of that sort. Apart from those reboots for Windows updates or Dell firmware updates, restarts don't occur. The machine remains continuously in operation.

The scalability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series depends a lot on the choice at the time of purchase. If the client opts for a 2U model, for example, and later needs to expand storage a lot, there may be limitations. That's why product pre-sales is very important. The scalability options are excellent in memory, storage, and processor upgrades. I really have nothing to complain about. The machine has plenty of expansion capacity.

Customer support for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is exceptional. Every time I needed Dell support—and I usually buy the equipment with at least 7 years of warranty and renew it after that period—service was very fast, and part replacement was done immediately. Most contracts are 4-hour response. I have never had any problem with Dell's service. On the contrary, Dell's service is outstanding in hardware support with the correct warranty. It's important at the time of purchase to also choose a ProSupport or ProSupport Plus warranty so that I have immediate service and avoid having equipment sitting idle. If I choose a basic warranty that covers weekdays 8x5, obviously if there is a problem on the weekend, at the end of the day, or at night, I will be without service. It's important to choose an appropriate warranty, but Dell's service is fast and efficient.

I rate customer support a 10.

Previously, I used assembled servers. I built the machines myself, but that caused a lot of problems. The machines didn't have longevity because after 2 or 3 years I already had to replace the equipment. When I started using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers, that changed. The machine practically only leaves when it really can no longer perform the tasks. I have Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers with more than 12 years in clients, while the assembled machines I used previously rarely reached 5 years.

Cost savings for clients translates greatly with Dell PowerEdge R-Series. For example, for one of my clients, the proposal for their ERP, TOTVS, to be in the cloud was R$ 8,000 per month. I paid R$ 86,000 for the server. In one year, I pay for this server and still have money left. In terms of performance, since this particular company has its team working more on the local environment than outside the company via VPN, the performance delivered to users is also higher. The ease I have in maintaining the environment with this equipment locally is also very great because I have an internal team, so I don't have to worry about whether they are managing backups in the cloud, and I have a very large saving in terms of investment in cloud services. If I were to consider the cloud's cost over 5 years, I would have bought five servers for this same role with the amount I would be paying for cloud hosting. This greatly reduces the cost for the client.

The use of Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers has helped reduce the total cost of ownership, the so-called TCO. It has helped greatly in the sense that the product's acquisition price is competitive and, considering the cost of workloads that I would have in the cloud—the same equivalent that I am paying for what is used locally on Dell PowerEdge in terms of cloud services—in at most 24 months the server is paid off and starts generating operational returns for the company. These machines easily reach 10 years of useful life. Even if it needs to be replaced for no longer having appropriate performance for the specific task it was originally purchased for, it can be moved to a secondary task and it continues to be a useful machine in the environment, where it can continue generating savings for the company because the hardware is already acquired and depreciated in the environment. The cost aspect is quite clear when I compare it with some workloads that, if placed in the cloud, would cost the price of three or four of these servers over five years.

In the case of the Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers I use for ERP, they have already reduced task processing time, which increases productivity. They have a reduction in TCO due to paying for themselves relative to cloud hosting. In terms of staff, the company's organizational structure was not affected in that sense, but the productivity of existing staff increased, which avoided the need to hire new staff.

My experience with pricing, configuration costs, and licensing shows that there's been a very big change over the past year. There was an explosion in the prices of memory, storage, and server components in general, precisely due to the growth of AI data centers. This changed prices in a very negative way. Previously, I could build a high-performance server for a client for around R$ 80,000. Today that same server doesn't cost less than R$ 200,000. This is a situation that came to the market unexpectedly and has made things quite difficult. Right now, prices are very high, both for licenses and hardware. From clients, I've noticed a great difficulty for them to understand the change in price and the increase of more than 100% in many cases, especially in servers, and then make an investment. This makes things quite difficult.

Before choosing Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I evaluated HP and IBM. But Dell offered a better package. This was already back in 2011 and 2012. Today Dell has no competition in terms of server solutions. I practically can't even compare other brands' solutions with Dell's.

I rate Dell PowerEdge R-Series a 10.

I give that number because the product has excellent configuration capability even before purchase. It very much depends on the technician choosing the appropriate components for the application the product will have in the environment. It has a very broad selection of processors, memory capacity, storage units, storage controllers, the option of management with iDRAC or without management, and an extremely wide range of network interfaces from 1-gig up to 100-gig interfaces. The product is extremely flexible already in its configuration phase and, when well specified, it will certainly deliver a sensational return on investment.

My role in the use or management of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is that I handle management and configuration. In pre-sales, I configure the hardware according to the environment where it will be used and the application that will run on this Dell PowerEdge R-Series. I determine the hardware specification beforehand, such as the amount of memory, how many processors, how many cores, which architecture, Intel or AMD, whether high-speed NVMe storage is needed, and whether I need HDDs for data storage in larger volumes, such as 12 or 20 TB. I perform the assessment before acquisition to determine the equipment, what type of network interface it needs, and what type of iDRAC. After that, I complete installation and configuration of the hardware to receive the applications and after that, maintenance of the machine lifecycle, including updates, firmware updates, and possibly hardware upgrades if necessary, specifying what needs to be updated. I may need to double the memory or add more storage space. I also perform this assessment and analysis, recommend the components, and add these resources to the server.

I would advise others who are thinking of using Dell PowerEdge R-Series to seek either Dell pre-sales or a professional with extensive experience in Dell servers so that the configuration is optimized before purchase for the application that will run on this server. It's very important to make the right choices before purchase to avoid, after the equipment has already been acquired, being unable to make upgrades, improvements, or component changes to deliver better performance or more storage space. It is essential before purchase to perform a very detailed analysis with the help of a Dell technician. Dell offers this pre-sales service to assist the client in purchasing the right equipment for their scenario.

Positive

I am currently working with Dell solutions, particularly with Dell technologies. I am currently working with Dell PowerMax. I work with PowerMax, some Isilon, and some Dell PowerEdge servers, as Dell actually has a huge umbrella with many products.

For Dell PowerEdge, I think I'm working with the 6500 series and I also have expertise in the 7K series. That is the R series. I started working with Dell PowerEdge R-Series around 2016 or 2017, so it has been almost 10 years. We actually have a very huge environment for Dell PowerEdge R-Series, with close to 1300 servers deployed. One of my object storage use cases is MinIO hosted on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, and similarly, I have another NAS storage with Qumulo also hosted on the same Dell PowerEdge R-Series hardware.

I am currently running S3 object storage and eNAS workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series. We need strong hardware for object storage to sustain our cloud-native workload, and we also required a robust server for NAS and file sharing, which was a recommendation from the vendor. Before Dell, we faced many challenges with Intel, which is why we switched.

We are integrating AI capabilities, as we have started using Dell AIOps. Right now, we are still getting familiar with it, but I believe we will soon have GenAI workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers. Testing is ongoing, and while we are not yet using a lot of AI, we are making gradual progress.

The best feature of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is the tool called OpenManage Enterprise, which allows me to manage my entire list of about 1300 servers under one consolidated pane, making the administration absolutely fantastic. The firmware recommendation and upgrades are straightforward, and Dell's iDRAC is one of the finest tools that proactively informs me of hardware failures.

The support from Dell is one significant benefit I observe, especially at American Express where we work with many vendors. Dell's SLA commitments are reliable, and their engineers provide excellent support during escalations, often resolving issues quickly. Their hardware has a lower failure rate compared to other vendors, leading to fewer outages.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series has helped reduce unplanned production downtime. The impact of Dell PowerEdge R-Series on our sustainability goals is absolutely fantastic, as we haven't encountered any major outages.

I believe Dell should enhance training for their AIOps product since there is limited tutorial availability. Recently, I attended a Dell webinar discussing various topics, but it didn't focus directly on operational usability. Infrastructure and operations engineers would benefit greatly from more engagement and training to effectively utilize these tools.

From a functionality perspective, I have noticed that Dell PowerEdge R-Series tends to go into maintenance mode frequently after reboots. While the recovery process is quick, there should be a feature to disable automatic maintenance mode.

I started working with Dell PowerEdge R-Series around 2016 or 2017, so it has been almost 10 years.

In the last year, we only experienced a total downtime of 23 minutes for the storage I handle, which is less than 0.00001%. This downtime was due to an external network switch failure, yet the server's redundancy kicked in quickly, resulting in minimal impact on operations.

The scalability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very good; we can scale horizontally and vertically as needed, but we prefer horizontal scaling for quick adjustments.

The support from Dell is one significant benefit I observe, especially at American Express where we work with many vendors. Dell's SLA commitments are reliable, and their engineers provide excellent support during escalations, often resolving issues quickly. Their hardware has a lower failure rate compared to other vendors, leading to fewer outages.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series has helped reduce unplanned production downtime. The technical support is phenomenal, and I would rate them a 10.

I previously worked with Intel servers before adopting Dell. We decided to switch because Intel had numerous issues, taking up to 10 days to address simple drive failures due to global procurement challenges.

The initial setup with Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very straightforward without any challenges.

I worked with Dell Professional Services during implementation. The engagement during the implementation involved professional services for cabling, rack stacking, and support during the operating system installation and guest OS deployment. Dell also provided onsite expert assistance for configuration issues. I would rate the professional services for this solution a 9, taking off one point due to the associated costs.

The ROI from Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers isn't very visible to me, but the continued investment suggests positive outcomes for the company.

Dell is expensive, which is a known fact. When comparing similar products, Dell often has higher prices. However, if my colleague considers running AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, cost is something we must present to management, as it can be a concern. Dell is indeed expensive.

We evaluated Supermicro and HP, but the operational performance of Dell is far superior. Prices are comparable between Dell and HP, but Dell outperforms HP significantly.

If someone is getting a good deal, I'd say go with Dell PowerEdge R-Series for their AI computing needs instead of hyperscalers. The total cost of ownership is something I haven't looked into closely. The Dell products have helped consolidate various technologies under one umbrella, which likely supports reducing the total cost of ownership. I wasn't involved in the calculation process. I primarily use Dell PowerEdge R-Series and have not worked with other series such as XR or MX. For workloads that require guest OS or block storage, I recommend Dell PowerEdge R-Series, and for cloud-native applications with minimal database dependencies, it's a solid choice. My overall review rating for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 9.

We run multiple workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, including database and virtual machine workloads. Some of our multi-purpose VM workloads are running databases such as Mongo or Oracle.

We serve a multi-purpose system, so Dell PowerEdge R-Series should adapt to the requirements for high capacity and high computing workload. I believe it is easy for customers to have multiple choices. Because sometimes we do one project and have requirements for HPC, we have requirements for the mid-range. However, because Dell only has the mid-range, sometimes we will select another vendor who can provide both of those options, which I think is not advantageous for Dell in some cases.

I think the pricing of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is acceptable and represents an advantage.

I believe the system deployment is not difficult and is easy. Dell PowerEdge R-Series is similar to other competitors. For example, VxRail is different and sometimes difficult to deploy. However, Dell PowerEdge R-Series is straightforward to run the technical deployment.

Unplanned production downtime is a concern. According to our experience, when we run a high workload to a certain level, for example, more than 80% or up to 90%, the system does not perform well. This is because the high percentage of the workload affects the hardware performance. The stability of the system is acceptable, but the problem occurs when the performance reaches about 80 to 90 percent.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series needs to resolve the problem with workload at high performance. When the workload reaches 80 percent or 90 percent of CPU or processor power, the system seems to be stuck, and sometimes it fluctuates in performance. I would advise avoiding performance degradation when the workload is about 80 to 90 percent of CPU while keeping it stable. This is why, when we talk about the core system, we run another system, not Dell PowerEdge R-Series. Dell PowerEdge R-Series is not our first choice for high-performance computing, as we use another solution for that.

I believe the technical support is not satisfactory. Sometimes, the time for support takes a while, and sometimes the replacement equipment for maintenance or insurance is not delivered on time. This is one of those things I am quite concerned about regarding technical support.

Regarding energy consumption, I believe the heat from Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers is slightly higher than other vendors. While I do not have precise measurements, we have sometimes experienced problems with the heat released from the server, and it is higher than other vendors.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series needs to review their design to be ready for high workload computing. Now, we sometimes choose machines that can serve both traditional workload and high-performance workload. If your system is ready for that, we would consider the whole solution as one package, spanning from HPC to the mid-range. It would make sense because it is difficult for us when HPC is one vendor and mid-range is another vendor.

We have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for about five years, since 2020 or 2021, until now.

According to our experience, when we run a high workload to a certain level, for example, more than 80 percent or up to 90 percent, the system does not perform well. This is because the high percentage of the workload affects the hardware performance. Sometimes it does not run well. For the stability of the system, it is acceptable and fine.

I believe the technical support is not satisfactory. Sometimes, the time for support takes a while, and sometimes the replacement equipment for maintenance or insurance is not delivered on time. This is one of those things I am quite concerned about regarding technical support.

We have experience with other servers. In our system, we do not use only Dell PowerEdge R-Series; we use other products, such as HPE and Cisco. These three occupy most of our system.

I believe the system deployment is not difficult and is easy. Dell PowerEdge R-Series is similar to other competitors. For example, VxRail is different and sometimes difficult to deploy. However, Dell PowerEdge R-Series is straightforward to run the technical deployment.

We bought our Dell products from a partner. We do not buy directly from Dell; we buy through distribution to a partner, and the partner is a reseller.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series needs to resolve the problem with workload at high performance. When the workload reaches 80 percent or 90 percent of CPU or processor power, the system seems to be stuck, and sometimes it fluctuates in performance. I would advise avoiding performance degradation when the workload is about 80 to 90 percent of CPU while keeping it stable. This is why, when we talk about the core system, we run another system, not Dell PowerEdge R-Series. Dell PowerEdge R-Series is not our first choice for high-performance computing, as we use another solution for that.

We have experience with other servers. In our system, we do not use only Dell PowerEdge R-Series; we use other products, such as HPE and Cisco. These three occupy most of our system.

I believe it is a good choice for the mid-range. However, for high-performance computing, for example, high performance with the latest chip, I think Dell PowerEdge R-Series does not follow that route. For example, for the four-socket or eight-socket, I think Dell PowerEdge R-Series stops at the Intel Gen4 only and does not offer the Gen5 or Gen6 of Intel. So I believe HPC computing is not what they are heading toward.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series needs to resolve the problem with workload at high performance. When the workload reaches 80 percent or 90 percent of CPU or processor power, the system seems to be stuck, and sometimes it fluctuates in performance. I would advise avoiding performance degradation when the workload is about 80 to 90 percent of CPU while keeping it stable. This is why, when we talk about the core system, we run another system, not Dell PowerEdge R-Series. Dell PowerEdge R-Series is not our first choice for high-performance computing, as we use another solution for that.

For the scope of the mid-range, I would rate Dell PowerEdge R-Series at seven out of 10, which is acceptable. However, if we talk about HPC, I would not provide a rating because it is outside our scope. My overall review rating for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is seven out of 10.

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.

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.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series serves as the university's central research engine. We process heavy databases for biological data, fisheries analysis, and spatial mapping, such as coordinates and biomass density studies in the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Engineering departments also run complex mathematical optimization models here. Additionally, biotechnology projects leverage its RAM and CPU for bioprocess simulations and genetic crop regulation models, drastically reducing calculation times without system freezing

Dell PowerEdge R-Series brought massive IT efficiency, nearly eliminating downtime. Academically, it removed hardware bottlenecks, cutting genetic and spatial simulation times by 70%. It improved energy efficiency—processing triple the data with stable power use—and offered agile virtualization for changing research demands. Furthermore, its robust GPU support enabled fast AI and machine learning training, perfectly aligning with our carbon footprint and sustainability goals.

Our top three features are: 1) Massive RAM and processing scalability, crucial for rapidly growing biological databases. 2) The iDRAC system, which transformed my IT routine. It enables complete remote management, real-time health diagnostics, and proactive maintenance, eliminating time-consuming trips to the server room. 3) Hardware redundancy, like dual power supplies. This reliability ensures multi-day research simulations never crash mid-process due to minor electrical faults.

Areas for improvement include iDRAC licensing and mass update management. Advanced iDRAC automation requires enterprise licenses, which strains strict university budgets. Dell offering flexible educational pricing or adding more features to the base license would help. Also, the interface for mass firmware/BIOS updates is tedious, requiring careful manual planning to avoid interrupting long research simulations. A more intuitive group update tool would make maintenance perfect.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers at the university for a little more than two years. We implemented them specifically when our biological and spatial research databases started to grow too much and we needed much more processing capacity so as not to delay the work.

I consider Dell PowerEdge R-Series to be an extremely stable solution for the university's current needs.

I would rate the scalability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series as excellent. It has been one of the features that has helped us the most at the university, and as the biotechnology research projects, for example, grow and demand more resources, the servers have allowed us to scale vertically without complications.

Our experience with Dell's customer support has been positive overall. We have had to contact them on some occasions, mainly to validate some preventive diagnostics of components and to quickly manage the warranty of a part before a major failure occurred. The attention received from the technicians has been professional and efficient.

Previously we used rack servers from another brand, mid-range models from years ago before Dell PowerEdge R-Series. The main reason we decided to switch to Dell PowerEdge R-Series was the severe bottleneck we were facing with the growth of research projects. Those previous systems no longer supported the massive RAM expansion required by our new spatial databases and biotechnology models. They also lacked a truly robust remote management system like iDRAC, which forced my team to make constant trips to the site for any minor check. To top it off, their thermal and energy efficiency was very low, which greatly increased our maintenance costs. Dell PowerEdge R-Series quickly solved these limitations.

The initial setup was quite straightforward and efficient. Thanks to tools like iDRAC, deployment and integration into the university's data center went smoothly internally without needing external consulting.

No, we did not use an integrator, reseller, or consultant for the deployment. The entire setup and integration process was handled internally by our university's IT team using Dell's built-in management tools

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has helped reduce the total cost of ownership for the university. The total cost of ownership has been considerably reduced if we look at it over the equipment's life cycle. On one hand, we have the reduction in electricity and cooling bills that I mentioned before, plus the ten to fifteen hours per week that my systems team saves thanks to iDRAC remote management. All that technical time saved is money for the university. The biggest impact is in hardware consolidation. Before, to support these new AI and spatial mapping workloads, we probably would have had to buy around four dedicated lower-capacity servers. By consolidating everything on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, thanks to its high density and virtualization, we estimate savings of approximately thirty to thirty-five percent in acquisition costs, third-party licensing, and maintenance projected over five years. This is a huge relief for the university's budget.

We have seen a clear return on investment with Dell PowerEdge R-Series. The first is in the operational and staffing side. Although we didn't have to reduce headcount, the savings of between ten and fifteen hours per week that my systems team has achieved thanks to iDRAC remote management has allowed us to reassign that time to strategic network modernization projects instead of spending it firefighting or doing physical checks at the site. Second is research productivity. By reducing scientific simulations and AI models from multiple days to less than twelve hours, researchers can deliver their projects on time and research grants or funds are used much more efficiently. Financially, by consolidating multiple heavy workloads on these servers instead of buying a fleet of smaller systems, we estimate an overall global savings of about thirty percent in costs projected over five years. The return on investment has been more than evident for the university.

In our experience, the pricing, implementation costs, and licensing of Dell PowerEdge R-Series have been quite reasonable. The initial investment in Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers represents a significant cost because this is enterprise-level hardware, but it is fully justified by the durability, performance, and TCO reduction mentioned throughout its life cycle. In terms of implementation, costs have been quite reasonable because these are systems with intuitive provisioning tools and advanced remote management, and we have not had to incur high external consulting expenses. We have handled the deployment directly with the internal team. However, the area where we have had the most friction in costs is licensing. As I mentioned before, the advanced functions of the iDRAC system or certain enterprise automation capabilities often come tied to a higher license tier, and for a public university with strict budgets these additional license costs sometimes complicate financial planning a bit. Apart from that, the overall balance between cost, price, and implementation has been positive.

Before choosing Dell PowerEdge R-Series, we evaluated other options. Before we were going to go with rack systems from brands like Hewlett Packard or Lenovo. In fact, we closely analyzed equivalent HP ProLiant series and compared technical specifications, processing density, and cost quotes with their equivalent product line.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge R-Series overall as a nine out of ten. It is an excellent system, extremely robust, and it has given us great results in data processing. The details about licensing costs and the mass update interface are the only things that affect the score.

I gave Dell PowerEdge R-Series a nine and not a ten mainly because of the two improvement points I mentioned. If I evaluated only the hardware and raw power for the projects and all that, I would give it a ten. But as an IT administrator, I have to evaluate the overall solution. The fact that the licensing scheme is somewhat rigid and expensive to access all iDRAC functions in the education sector, plus the fact that the mass firmware update tool requires a lot of manual work on our part, does make me deduct one point. If Dell made these costs more flexible for universities and improved that interface, it would be a definite ten.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers are deployed entirely on our own premises. Since this is physical hardware that gives us the processing power for biological and spatial analyses, we need to have them physically in our own university site to guarantee direct access and no latency issues. These systems operate within an environment that we consider hybrid. Although the heavy processing and databases live locally on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, all that information is later connected and backed up to the Azure public cloud for long-term storage.

We use Microsoft Azure as our only public cloud provider for backup and storage. The main reason is that it integrates very natively and smoothly with our Dell-backed ecosystems. All the heavy information from the spatial and biological analyses processed on Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers is first backed up locally and then we send the historical or long-term retention data to Microsoft Azure. This entire hybrid infrastructure has worked perfectly for us.

My specific role in the use and management of Dell PowerEdge R-Series within the university is to serve as the university's information technology administrator. That means I am directly responsible for planning, deploying, maintaining, and ensuring the operation of the institution's entire technological infrastructure. Specifically regarding the management of Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers, my work covers everything from the initial hardware configuration and resource provisioning for virtualization for the research departments, to proactive health monitoring of the system through iDRAC, management of backup policies to our Azure cloud, and supervision of firmware updates to ensure that scientific simulations and AI projects never stop due to technical failures.

If I had to give advice to other organizations, especially educational institutions or research centers considering implementing Dell PowerEdge R-Series, it would be to plan the initial sizing very well and to thoroughly analyze the licensing scheme they are going to acquire. On the technical side, do not skimp on the base memory and processing capacity thinking you will upgrade it later, because workloads and modeling grow very quickly. Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers have tremendous scalability, but starting with a good resource cushion will make your life much easier. On the administrative side, my main recommendation is to review in detail with your Dell provider the enterprise licensing options, especially if you can apply for academic packages or if you want to unlock iDRAC features from day one. My overall rating for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is nine out of ten.