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Cisco UCS X-Series vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 X-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
23rd
Ranking in Rack Servers
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerEdge R-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
2nd
Ranking in Rack Servers
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
306
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (1st), Data Center Networking (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2847909 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized profiles have simplified host deployments and have reduced configuration errors
I would say a form factor could improve Cisco UCS X-Series. We are in a life cycle replacement phase, and we face a situation where we have to upgrade the hardware, but to get to the next series, you have to upgrade all of it. The chassis, the backbone components, including fabric interconnect components that provide the networking, all have to be replaced at the same time. You cannot mix and match things. So you get to a situation in your life cycle replacement that you need to upgrade, but it does not make sense economically to just buy a newer blade when the whole life cycle replacement is on the horizon, and you are forced to just replace it all top-down. I would say a form factor that is more universal and is not going to require an overall hardware refresh would be beneficial.
Tom van Mil - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator at Lico Innovations B.v.
Supports flexible hosting needs through seamless upgradability and strong monitoring capabilities
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco UCS X-Series scales with the growing needs of my organization very well, as much as you need it to with no issues whatsoever, and it scales whenever we need it to."
"The features I appreciate most with Cisco UCS X-Series are profile, profile deployment, and the ability to orchestrate configurations across all of the compute."
"They are incredibly valuable because they are both user-friendly and powerful for managing hardware."
"We do not have much workload right now. We are happy with whatever we have tested."
"I would describe my experience with Dell's support for PowerEdge solutions as great, as we had to get a motherboard replaced, and the replacement part arrived the next business day, which was impressive."
"The most valuable features are resiliency, reliability, easy installation, maintenance, and compatibility with other systems or servers."
"Using Dell PowerEdge servers has absolutely helped reduce unplanned production downtime; before we had them, we experienced unplanned downtime approximately once every two months, and after we implemented Dell PowerEdge R-Series, there has not been any downtime, resulting in a 100% reduction of unplanned downtime from hardware."
"If you are looking for a stable system, good support, and performance, then going with Dell ensures you are safe."
"The best features of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are the service, the availability of the equipment, and the relational price quality."
"I have realized a return on my investment with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in terms of cost savings."
 

Cons

"We are in a life cycle replacement phase, and we face a situation where we have to upgrade the hardware, but to get to the next series, you have to upgrade all of it."
"Cisco UCS X-Series can be improved with a longer lifespan. The products go end-of-support and end-of-life quicker than I would prefer."
"Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have higher hardware costs compared to HPE ProLiant servers, which are cheaper."
"It would be nice if they could make the solution cheaper and faster."
"The easiest thing to improve the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is to have a better road map for us."
"It would be nice if the rack servers had an HCI solution as an option."
"The maintenance for this solution could be improved."
"There are certain aspects, features, and functionality on the motherboard that need improvement."
"After purchasing the product, customers have not been getting the support that they need in the early stages of getting set up."
"After purchasing the product, customers have not been getting the support that they need in the early stages of getting set up. They can provide customers a little bit more education as to what they get with certain warranty levels. The data is there if the customers dig, but a lot of times, the customers don't dig. Some of the other server models come out a little bit quicker than Dell. It would be good if Dell is quicker to market on new, larger drives when they become available. Sometimes, we do get hit on that against a couple of competitors. Dell vets them a little bit longer than like the super micros to keep their stability and quality level up, but they lose a little bit of ground to a super micro. It would be good if they can release features and models as soon and as fast as they can. It would help them to stay more competitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing is great; very competitive. That's the reason we bought hundreds of them."
"The high cost of Dell PowerEdge Rack Server licenses is attributed to the pre-installed Windows Server operating system from Microsoft."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"The pricing is fair enough."
"The pricing for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is on par with everything else at the moment."
"Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers are very expensive."
"I have no issues with the pricing and licensing costs. They are fine."
"We would prefer it if the pricing were for half the cost. We have been expanding our company, and my boss stated that we must save money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business110
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise127
 

Questions from the Community

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When shopping for a rack server, would you go with Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem rack servers were the better fit for us. We ultimately decided to go with Dell EMC Poweredge....
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
I think Dell PowerEdge R-Series can support more storage capacity, which would be great. Most other OEMs are trying to ensure you have a one-stop shop for just one server where you could get a whol...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to use it as standalone servers but also as part of some clusters. I have some OpenStack private cloud deployed on them and some Ceph software-define...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
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