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Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs HPE Synergy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 26, 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
7.1
Dell PowerEdge R-Series enhances productivity and cost efficiency with reliability, support, and reduced operational burdens, ensuring ROI.
Sentiment score
6.8
HPE Synergy reduces operational costs, accelerates deployments, consolidates workloads, and offers substantial ROI through savings and efficiency.
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
7.5
Dell PowerEdge R-Series receives praise for responsive support and knowledgeable staff, despite occasional part availability and communication issues.
Sentiment score
6.5
HPE Synergy support praised for knowledgeable responsiveness, though some users faced initial challenges, especially with newer technologies, needing escalation.
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.
I would rate the technical support from HPE Synergy, and for all other solutions, as very good and appreciable with a score of nine out of ten on a scale from one to ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers scalable, adaptable server solutions, supporting business growth and diverse workloads with seamless expansion and performance.
Sentiment score
7.6
HPE Synergy provides scalable expansion with seamless hardware integration, though some users find component management challenging across data centers.
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
7.9
Dell PowerEdge R-Series is praised for stability, reliability, minimal downtime, efficient error handling, and outstanding support, ensuring dependable performance.
Sentiment score
7.9
HPE Synergy is stable and reliable, with minor setup issues mitigated by updates, redundancy, and strong support.
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

The Dell PowerEdge R-Series could benefit from enhancements in performance, management, documentation, support, efficiency, pricing, and integration.
HPE Synergy users seek better integration, speed, networking simplicity, support, storage sharing, UI enhancements, and improved security and deployment.
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.
Currently, it supports only two drives in the blade server, which can be limiting.
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers competitive pricing and support, though enterprise licensing can be complex, with potential for discounts.
HPE Synergy's high costs include notable VMware licensing fees, but discounts and strategic value may justify the expense.
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.
Pricing in the blade server market is very competitive, with HPE offering a competitive price.
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers reliability, scalability, remote management, user-friendly interface, excellent support, durability, security, energy efficiency, and virtualization.
HPE Synergy offers composable infrastructure, flexibility, and OneView integration, enhancing deployment, resource management, scalability, and system reliability.
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.
It offers significant compute power in approximately ten rack units, making it practical for workload optimization.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerEdge R-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
228
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (4th), Data Center Networking (2nd), Rack Servers (1st)
HPE Synergy
Ranking in Blade Servers
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Composable Infrastructure (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 2.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Synergy is 18.8%, down from 21.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE Synergy18.8%
Dell PowerEdge R-Series2.8%
Other78.4%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Muzamil Yakub - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers robust security and management features while supporting diverse workloads
For the most part, there’s no need for improvement in areas like manageability and security; they’ve covered those quite well. The storage controllers are also very well designed, and the support for NVMe is excellent. Regarding customization, the chassis can be tailored to meet specific user needs. They have addressed many aspects thoroughly. For instance, remote management is well taken care of; I even have an app on my phone that allows me to check the health status of the hardware. Overall, we can monitor and manage servers remotely without any issues. I would say that while Dell keeps up with industry innovations, they’ve addressed nearly all areas effectively. Dell could improve its coverage a bit. Sometimes, there are firmware updates that need to be addressed. When we log into the iDRAC interface on the server for management, we currently have to manually upload the images for the new firmware upgrade. While the upgrade process itself is straightforward, many customers are often unaware that a firmware upgrade is even necessary. If this process could be automated so that the server can check for available firmware updates on its own, it would be really helpful. The server could send out an alert email indicating that a new firmware upgrade is available, allowing the administrator to decide when to perform the upgrade.
CarlosArdila - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps grow horizontally or vertically within one box or chassis
The initial setup is very easy. We deployed this in two days, including installation, system setup, firmware upgrades, configuration, and network connection. By the next day, we were already deploying virtual machines. We initially began with the Blade system. As the migration to SAP HANA approached, it seemed prudent to upgrade our hardware. Consequently, we facilitated their transition from the Blade system to Synergy. Subsequently, we collaborated closely with the SAP consultancy company to oversee the migration process, ensuring seamless integration of all workloads and sub-environments. We have four people working on the deployment, including a project manager, two specialists, and one tech support.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
6%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business79
Midsize Enterprise52
Large Enterprise95
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

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?
For the most part, there’s no need for improvement in areas like manageability and security; they’ve covered those quite well. The storage controllers are also very well designed, and the support f...
How would you choose between HPE's Bladesystem and Synergy?
For me, choosing between HPE’s Bladesystem and Synergy came down to which solution was more powerful, reliable, and stable. It turns out Bladesystem was the winner. Bladesystem is excellent because...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?
As far as the prices are concerned, rack mount solutions are less expensive than HPE Synergy prices; however, HPE Synergy prices are higher but justify themselves as the solution accommodates all t...
What needs improvement with HPE Synergy?
In my opinion, for future improvements in HPE Synergy, there should be better management of power consumption complexity as well as an increase in the number of servers that can fit in a single Syn...
 

Also Known As

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs. HPE Synergy and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.