Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs Dell PowerEdge XE-Series comparison

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

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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

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Ranking in Rack Servers

1st

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

264

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (2nd), Data Center Networking (3rd), Blade Servers (4th)

Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Ranking in Rack Servers

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Rack Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 26.7%, down from 28.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge XE-Series is 1.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Rack Servers Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series	26.7%
Dell PowerEdge XE-Series	1.8%
Other	71.5%

Rack Servers

Featured Reviews

Tom van Mil

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.

Read full review

Hany Magdy

CEO at Matrix ITS

Positive feedback highlights seamless integration and exceptional support

The reviewer primarily works with HCI, specifically Dell VxRail Hyper-Converged Infrastructure. Dell's HCI solution is considered superior to HP's in Egypt, where most customers prefer VxRail. For HP products, they provide blades, servers, C7000, and DL380. Dell's product range includes servers, storage, and hyper-converged infrastructures. Dell offers better pricing for server and technology, especially for HCI since they use VMware, which is considered one of the best hypervisors. Dell's Data Domain is recognized as the leading backup appliance globally, offering cyber resilience backup solutions. The reviewer has experience with Dell PowerProtect from eight years ago and Dell Avamar, which is particularly suitable for larger companies and virtual environments. They have also worked with Unity, VNX, and VMAX all-flash storage solutions, with the VMAX implementation using all NVMe (non-volatile memory). For backup solutions, they utilize GBS, Veeam, Veritas, and Dell solutions including DBS and Data Domain. The reviewer rates this solution 9 out of 10.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It helps in growing our needs in the organization by doing what it is supposed to be doing and it also helps in scaling."

"Dell PowerEdge R-Series is basically install and feel at home, so to speak, and I find that really great."

"The newer servers are more energy-efficient compared to older ones."

"I'd give Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a rating of ten out of ten."

"The ease of setting them up is valuable. It is easy to set them up."

"The Xeon CPU makes the system work very well and fast. I like this type of CPU. It has helped to improve the performance of targeted workloads by 70%."

"I appreciate Dell solutions because they are reliable, and we know what we are getting."

"This server was priced more cheaply than other options such as IBM and HP, making it quite cost-effective."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series pros

"The solution is flexible in my experience."

"The resource management features are valuable."

"PowerEdge XE servers are high-performing. We're hardly using 15 percent of their computing power, so there's a lot left over that we could utilize."

"The most valuable feature of these servers is the ability to store a lot—the capacity and the number of hard disk drives."

"The most valuable feature is the trusted platform module."

"One of the most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge XE Servers is the ease of fixing issues if there are any."

"In general, it works well. We haven't had issues."

"The most valuable feature is that it can support up to 32 drives of internal storage."

More Dell PowerEdge XE-Series pros

Cons

"From a Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers perspective, I would prefer to see them just keep up with the latest processors, with more power."

"Lately, we feel that we need an improvement in our servers. Surprisingly, we have seen some servers here that do meet these characteristics. They are slightly smaller servers."

"The only thing that could be improved is documentation. During the installation, it would be good to have some information about how is it going."

"More integration to third-party services would be a great upgrade."

"I would improve the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers by enhancing the GUI and providing a better hands-on experience for quick fixes on the servers, as most of the work is done by a vendor coming in to fix the systems."

"Occasionally, there might be extended wait times between placing an order and receiving the delivery."

"The management of the security architecture could be improved. It takes some time and can be challenging."

"The versions that I work with, they used to max out on memory, on RAM, quickly, so I'd want to think in the newer versions, they actually allocate more processing power and more RAM to them."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series cons

"It is mostly stable, but the usual problem would be, for example, upgrading to a newer version of VMware or dealing with compatibility issues during the process."

"It should be easier to extend PowerEdge XE servers. We haven't architected them with an eye toward scalability. They have a fixed number of slots for hard drives, which is enough for our present use case, However, we would have more options if we could extend that. We could deploy the servers in a broader range of use cases with different requirements. It's fine for our current deployment with only a few thousand users. We're exploring other solutions like such as VxRail or PowerFlex for larger public-facing use cases."

"We use OpenManager a lot, and that can be a bit clunky at times. They can make that better."

"The quality and reliability could be improved."

"In future releases, there should be more support options for the latest processor."

"Upgrading can be a bit difficult."

"The support team must improve the speed of response."

"I would like to have support for performing a detailed analysis of the server from a mobile device."

More Dell PowerEdge XE-Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is not good."

"The pricing of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has been a little problematic. It was sticker shock with our most recent purchase compared to the previous one, and there's a gap in pricing at our current level because what we do isn't very compute-intensive, resulting in a mismatch where we fit into an in-between category without an exact solution available."

"Regarding the pricing, it seems fair."

"One of the clients has been offered a price of $18,000 instead of the regular price of around $25,000."

"Pricing appears to be comparatively favorable, particularly within the project's scope."

"The main reason I choose Dell there is cost. Dell is cheaper than HPE. Why would I want to pay a premium for an HPE product when I'm getting the same amount of support, the same amount of data protection, and the same amount of performance from Dell?"

"It's pretty much on par."

"The cost structure associated with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers aligns closely with the prevailing norms established within the information technology hardware sector."

More Dell PowerEdge R-Series pricing and cost advice

"This solution is priced very reasonably."

"Dell has competitive pricing."

"If you want an SLA for parts and equipment then you need to purchase a support agreement."

"There are different types of licensing available, that works well for customers. The product is not very much to purchase."

"You always want slightly cheaper, but overall, they are quite comparable and quite neutral."

"The pricing model is quite competitive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

University

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Energy/Utilities Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	94
Midsize Enterprise	58
Large Enterprise	111

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

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?

If there is something I would like to see fixed, even if it's small, it seems that the orchestration of many Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers is very complicated; using Dell Server Administration so...

What needs improvement with Dell PowerEdge XE Servers?

For Dell PowerEdge XE Servers, particularly for standalone servers, extendability would be a great improvement. This feature is currently available only with virtualization environment. Adding exte...

What is your primary use case for Dell PowerEdge XE Servers?

I worked with HP Blade Servers including HP Integrity and Altex for the banking sector where I sold blade servers. I have not sold HP Superdome X or HP NonStop. The customers are using it for big d...

What advice do you have for others considering Dell PowerEdge XE Servers?

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Compared 18% of the time

Dell PowerEdge XR-Series vs Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Compared 16% of the time

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Compared 15% of the time

Oracle SPARC Servers vs Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Compared 15% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers vs Dell PowerEdge XE-Series

Compared 14% of the time

More Dell PowerEdge XE-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Dell PowerEdge R-Series

Download Dell PowerEdge R-Series product report

Rack Servers

Download Dell PowerEdge XE-Series product report

Also Known As

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers

PowerEdge XE Servers

Overview

PowerEdge R-Series delivers high performance, flexibility, and scalability for data centers. It supports demanding tasks with robust management tools and advanced cooling, providing reliability and efficiency across various workloads.

Engineered for large deployments, PowerEdge R-Series supports extensive configurations optimizing performance in data centers. With features like advanced cooling and energy-efficient architecture, it empowers organizations to manage heavy workloads while facilitating seamless scalability. It offers remote management, robust security, and integration with VMware ensuring operational excellence and high availability for business-critical applications.

What are the key features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series?

Scalability: Supports flexible configurations for diverse workloads.
Remote Management: iDRAC and OpenManage facilitate easy oversight.
Energy Efficiency: Architecture helps reduce energy consumption.
Security: Robust features ensure protected performance.
VMware Integration: Enhances manageability and productivity.

What benefits and ROI should you look for?

Performance: Handles high-performance and demanding tasks.
Flexibility: Offers easily upgradable configurations.
Reliability: Provides consistent performance with long-term support.
Efficiency: Reduces energy use and operational costs.
Ease of Use: Simplifies management and maintenance.

PowerEdge R-Series is deployed across industries for virtualization, database hosting, and application servers. It supports environments like VMware and Hyper-V for AI, cloud infrastructure, and computing tasks. Widely used by finance, healthcare, and academia, it enhances reliability and efficiency of IT infrastructure.

Dell Technologies

The PowerEdge XE-Series caters to AI-centric workloads by offering exceptional GPU support and processing power for demanding tasks like inferencing and large-scale training, making it ideal for organizations aiming to innovate with AI.

PowerEdge XE-Series stands out in modern GPU-centric computing with its purpose-built design for AI acceleration. Known for handling extreme workloads like model fine-tuning and AI-driven applications, it supports high-density GPU configurations and advanced thermal management. Its vast storage capacity and compatibility with VMware ensure reliable performance across virtualization, big data, and analytics while providing trusted security integration and robust scalability options. However, improvements in processor support, reliability, and management monitoring are sought by users.

What are the key features of PowerEdge XE-Series?

High-Density GPU Support: Configures multiple GPUs for demanding AI tasks.
Advanced Thermal Design: Optimizes cooling for enhanced performance.
Vast Storage Capacity: Supports up to 32 drives for extensive data management.
Compatibility: Works seamlessly with platforms like VMware.
Security Integration: Includes trusted platform modules for data protection.

What benefits should users expect from PowerEdge XE-Series?

Efficient AI Management: Enhances AI workloads with advanced processing.
Scalability: Adapts to growing demands in virtualization and big data.
Security: Offers robust data protection and reliability.
Improved Resource Management: Facilitates straightforward setup and usage.

In different industries, PowerEdge XE-Series is utilized for hosting SaaS, high-performance computing, and general-purpose servers. System integrators use it in client networks for applications like Hadoop, backup, and ERP. It supports virtualization and hyper-converged infrastructure solutions. Real estate sectors leverage iDRAC for efficient management, enhancing data security, power, and network redundancy.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco

Epsilon, ROZETTA CORP, JIGUANG, RACKSPACE, NEW BELGIUM BREWING

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. Dell PowerEdge XE-Series