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Cisco UCS B-Series vs PowerEdge C comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco UCS B-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
PowerEdge C
Ranking in Blade Servers
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.3%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PowerEdge C is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

DavidMbugua - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable product with efficient automation capabilities
Cisco UCS B-Series manages various processes, including handling payments for over 650,000 growers, running group financials, managing human resources, and operating our main ERP system, SAP. The servers' resilience was particularly impactful. Even during power outages, the servers resumed operations from the last saved point without human intervention. The enhanced processing speed also allowed us to complete tasks that took two days in just one hour. The automation capabilities enhanced efficiency and facilitated integration with our networking components, particularly since we also used Cisco switches. The servers' security was reliable, and formal training on Cisco products made management easier. I rate the product an eight.
Al Vasek - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports business apps and VDI with reliable compute
The solution is all about compute. The solutions are easy to handle, priced correctly, reliable, and dependable. Cisco is similar but more complex to configure and usually more expensive. My team supports a lot of Dell, focusing on hybrid environments like Azure Stack, splitting workloads between high compute needs in databases, which are expensive in the cloud, and other workloads in the cloud.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution is stable."
"Stateless Blade is the best feature."
"The product is easy to use."
"If we could get more reference architecture available on the portal, it would be helpful in making decisions"
"The solution is very unified and the technical team is very supportive, no help is needed from outside vendors."
"The architecture of this solution is very valuable; it has five traffic interconnects, and uses a network highway so bandwidth is never an issue."
"The stability of Cisco UCS B-Series is impeccable, as it has been running smoothly without any need for maintenance."
"The initial setup is simple, and not very complex."
"The management platform is great."
"The solutions are easy to handle, priced correctly, reliable, and dependable."
"The initial setup is not complex. It's a user-friendly tool."
"The security of the product is very good."
"The hybrid solution is much more stable than other products."
"I like the feature that allows for a backup and that is suitable for me."
"The scalability of the solution met our needs."
"The solution provides good support and service."
 

Cons

"Cisco is expensive and difficult to manage. The product is not intuitive. It also needs to improve storage management and upgrades."
"Previously, the unified port functionality allowed the same port to function as both FC and Ethernet, however, this has now changed."
"For future improvements, it would be a benefit if the solution could integrate better with products such as Oracle."
"This product uses a converged network adapter because it is the only way to provide flexibility with both fiber and ethernet connections."
"The aggregation in the data center is beneficial."
"Dell should address the issue of direct support and spare parts availability in our region."
"The GUI is not the greatest."
"The upgrades could be improved."
"There has been an increase in quality issues."
"The product’s pricing could be a little cheaper."
"Its customer service could be better."
"There could be some more ports added in the future."
"The product’s cost needs improvement."
"An area where the product lacks and needs to consider improvement is by allowing it to integrate with some AI tool for monitoring."
"HP is a little bit lower in terms of price."
"The solution’s pricing could be cheaper."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of the blade servers is okay, but the cost of Fabric Interconnects ends up increasing the overall costs. For example, suppose it costs 3,500 USD per blade server. When you include the Fabric Interconnects, you could pay up to 30,000 USD. Therefore, compared to the cost of servers from Lenovo, Huawei, Dell, or HP, the cost of Cisco servers can be high. However, Cisco gives good discounts (about 90% to 94%) to partners and to customers who are already using Cisco servers. New Cisco customers do not get the level of discount that an existing customer does. Because you can get discounts with Cisco, I would give pricing a rating of four out of five."
"This is a premium device and our clients are not as concerned about the reasonableness of the price compared to satisfaction with their productivity."
"Every three years, I need to renew my license and support the product...Every time I have to opt for the renewal of the license, I am shocked to learn about the increase in the price of the product."
"The product cost is high."
"UCS is expensive, and we will be migrating to the cheaper HP servers."
"It is expensive."
"From a business point of view, the price is on the higher end."
"The pricing for Cisco products is always high."
"PowerEdge C is a product that is priced at a medium range, so it is not too expensive."
"The licensing cost of PowerEdge C is very high."
"We buy licenses for the solution's advanced features."
"The product costs can be high, especially for disks and other components."
"The price could be reduced."
"There is a need to pay towards the annual subscription-based licensing model offered by the solution. The product is moderately priced. Price is a critical issue, and it is always good to have moderately priced solutions."
"The cost depends on the configuration."
"When we talk about pricing it is the cheapest on the market that I have found."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS B-Series?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is easily scalable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS B-Series?
The licensing cost for three years, followed by an AMC for two years, is reasonable. However, the management software, Cisco One, is priced a bit high but still considered reasonable. No additional...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?
Last year, we faced challenges with firmware upgrades, but they were quickly resolved with assistance from Cisco TAC.
What do you like most about PowerEdge C?
The solution provides good support and service.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PowerEdge C?
PowerEdge is quite a costly solution, and I would rate the pricing around seven or eight on a scale from one to ten with ten being the most expensive.
What needs improvement with PowerEdge C?
With reference architectures like VX rack, the update process is quite painful. They could automate or simplify it more. There are prerequisites to go through, and that's usually the only time-cons...
 

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Anonymous Banking Group, Artoni Transporti, Bellevue, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Hertz, Houston Methodist, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Lufthansa Systems GmbH & Co.KG, Outscale, Sony Corporation, Talbots
NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. PowerEdge C and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.