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Dell PowerEdge M vs Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.6
Dell PowerEdge M offers quick ROI with reliability, virtualization efficiency, enhanced communication, and long-term use with AI-driven automation.
Sentiment score
7.6
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers offer reliability, cost savings, easy management, and high performance, with flexibility and excellent support enhancing satisfaction.
We utilize AI technology with Dell PowerEdge M through a module known as CloudIQ, which provides automation and takes care of predictive analysis and reporting.
By not having to worry about it, I would estimate we save two to four hours a week, depending on what's happening, such as if we need to spin up a new server, which would contribute to more time if done the old way.
In my immediate case for antenna analysis, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers offer a reduction from days of computing to half a day or hours.
The value of uptime to us is critical.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Dell PowerEdge M support is praised for responsiveness but criticized for delays and varying expertise from third-party partners.
Sentiment score
7.6
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers support is praised for expertise and resolution speed but sometimes faces delays and communication issues.
They provide excellent help when needed.
Regarding technical support from Dell, I find them to be one of the best support providers in the industry right now.
It has always been scheduled maintenance, which says a lot for a production environment, as we haven't had to call in a trouble ticket for the actual hardware during its entire run.
Typically, the contacts we have on-site are very knowledgeable, they come in within a day and usually have it fixed and taken care of if there are issues.
When we had a power supply failure out of the box, we called support, and they delivered the replacement within four hours as promised.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Dell PowerEdge M excels in scalability for medium and enterprise clients despite chassis limitations, with superior flexibility and integration.
Sentiment score
7.7
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers offer scalable solutions for various sectors, facilitating flexibility and efficient growth despite configuration challenges.
Regarding scalability, I can scale up to 64 enclosures, and each enclosure can hold around 7 blades.
The scalability of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is excellent.
Any outages or blackouts are limited to particular servers, not affecting the whole chassis or enclosures.
We bought our product with scaling involved, and we've been scaling it up anytime we've needed more storage.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Dell PowerEdge M offers reliable performance and stability, excelling in power management and maintaining high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
8.2
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers offer exceptional reliability and uptime, outpacing alternatives with minimal hardware failures and robust redundancy.
Over four years, we've had less than 1 percent downtime.
There is a feature to update the server while it is running, so there is no need to restart.
We have truly not had any downtime on the infrastructure at all.
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerEdge M needs faster boot times, better support, enhanced networking, intuitive configurations, and improved training and virtualization resources.
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers need improvements in performance, scalability, support, security, pricing, efficiency, and integration with virtualization platforms.
There are differences in security configurations, particularly in SNMP and SNMP3, between HP ILO and iDRAC.
In terms of potential room for improvement regarding Dell PowerEdge M, I would want to see something such as dense nodes and additional storage, as well as multiple network connectivity on the blades.
We need to know about any upcoming updates so that we can plan accordingly.
The beneficial aspect of that feature was that we could skip the PowerStore and just have the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers alone, as they also served as storage, which helped us save money.
This forces you to go up to a larger server to get the desired processor, which increases the cost.
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerEdge M offers competitive, negotiable pricing, budget-friendly for medium enterprises, and often ends lower than IBM, slightly higher than HP.
Dell PowerEdge Rack Server pricing is competitive yet varies, praised for performance and reliability, with bulk purchase discounts available.
Sometimes Dell may be a little costlier, but that is considering the services and solutions we are providing, which can be adjustable.
They have been stable and running for years without performance downtime or significant disc failures.
Some customers find it cheaper due to contractual agreements, while others find it expensive, especially when scaling up.
The software associated with servers, like VMware subscription licenses, drives costs.
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerEdge M delivers high density, scalability, and reliability with excellent management features, performance, support, and cost-effectiveness.
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are valued for their performance, reliability, cost-effectiveness, and management tools, ideal for diverse applications.
The ease of troubleshooting and managing through remote access, using tools like iDRAC, significantly saves me time.
If the customer is changing their network infrastructure from 1GB or 10GB to 25GB or 400GB, the MX7000 fabric switch can support that.
They keep running for at least five to seven years without any issues.
With PowerEdge Servers, I don't need a one-to-one ratio redundancy, which leads to about eighty percent downtime reduction.
One of the valuable features is Active Directory, which helps in managing the network.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerEdge M
Ranking in Blade Servers
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
Ranking in Blade Servers
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
208
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (3rd), Data Center Networking (3rd), Rack Servers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge M is 18.1%, up from 18.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is 1.6%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Brian Ricci - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a good interface and return on investment to users
My impression of the scalability of the product is good. You can put a lot of memory in the tool now, and you have a good choice in processors, so you can go wherever you want or do whatever you want with your money. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Syed Masuood - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles workloads and diverse applications efficiently
We have a lot of VMs on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. On a single server, we have probably hosted 14 or 15 VMs. Out of these, 8 to 10 are continuously running, and four of them are backup VMs, so it can handle a good workload. For cybersecurity, it is only accessible on the intranet; it is not accessible through the web. We use it for local development purposes, and it is behind our firewall. Its security is strong. We handle a lot of test data for government and confidential customers. It is safe and strong locally. We have not experienced any security issues. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime if we need to replace a hard disk, instead of completely shutting a server, there is a hot swap feature. It is quite good in that aspect. Usually, for any activity, there is a downtime of about 30 minutes. It has saved a lot of time. We have tried AI workloads for a development environment for a government customer in Singapore. The servers are hosted in Singapore. It is an ML-based engine with AI. It is a government project where data is processed, and we run it on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. The benefit of running AI workloads on PowerEdge Servers is that it is easy to allocate memory. The application we are running is memory intensive. It is pretty easy to scale memory and storage.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerEdge M?
The solution's most valuable features are centralized monitoring and management and the ease of upgrading firmware.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerEdge M?
When rating Dell's pricing model, it varies case by case and configuration by configuration. Sometimes Dell may be a little costlier, but that is considering the services and solutions we are provi...
What needs improvement with Dell PowerEdge M?
In terms of potential room for improvement regarding Dell PowerEdge M, I would want to see something such as dense nodes and additional storage, as well as multiple network connectivity on the blad...
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 do you like most about Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
It has helped us reduce unplanned downtime by 20% to 30%.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
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 Serve...
 

Also Known As

No data available
PowerEdge R
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Newport City Homes, Neuroblastoma and Medulloblastoma Translational Research Consortium (NMTRC), Georgian College, AgreeYa Solutions, IIHT Cloud Solutions, Arizona State University, AudienceScience, University of the Incarnate Word (UIW), The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), Holy Cross School
NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerEdge M vs. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.