Dell PowerEdge R-Series Reviews

My use case as an end user is for everything. I use Dell PowerEdge R-Series for the VMware hypervisor part, which is Dell. My Veeam storage repositories are also Dell. My storage array is an ME5, which is also Dell. My 25 Gb switches are also Dell. I know Dell product lines quite well overall.

In my company, Kompass, a business directory, I manage a database of companies targeted at marketing and sales departments who will call us to request a file or a list of people to approach depending on the business sector and specific filters. I manage the internal infrastructure, and all my internal infrastructure is hosted in a data center at Equinix on Dell servers.

I handle all infrastructure roles, whether it is Active Directory, VMware, or everything else that runs on Dell servers.

What sets Dell servers apart for me is the iDRAC feature, which I find exceptional for debugging remotely, being able to power the server back on, and knowing when there is a disk that is getting weak or a RAM stick issue while calling support. Everything is remote in the data center, and I get information back to know how my physical machines are doing before getting to the OS layers and then getting feedback at the application level. Having access to the physical layer remotely is formidable.

I do not have anything that I believe could be improved about Dell servers. However, I would like to see a range for AI that is more accessible for companies that do not have significant budgets. The most powerful machine, even at Dell, for doing AI for my needs is a gamer PC, a Dell Alienware or an XPS. At a similar cost, the most powerful machine has an RTX 5090, while the AI-capable server cards that Dell sells are very expensive.

Dell has divided things clearly: they have a range for gamers and a range for professionals. In the professional range, as soon as you talk about AI graphics cards, it gets very expensive and less powerful. I have tested this.

Because these specific cases may become cost-effective through parallel task distribution, they seem suitable for companies with significant budgets. I am in a company that does not have a lot of money, and I found that the highest performance is obtained on a gamer XPS PC rather than a rackable server.

The importance of AI in my company is critical. I have discussed this with my sales representatives many times over the past two or three years, and I ended up buying machines from the competition because I need a rackable machine in a data center where I can put an RTX 5090, which Dell cannot provide.

It is a somewhat specific use case. Perhaps it does not concern all customers. Dell has the servers and cards, but they have not made the combination between the two, which penalizes me since that is my requirement.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for about twenty years.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is good for a small company.

I have performance metrics, but not at the low level. I focus more on application layers, such as the VMware side and specific containers and applications, where I have performance metrics. My infrastructure works well, and I have no noticeable latency or issues.

The server deployment experience was somewhat chaotic, but it is not Dell's fault; it was the integrator who messed up by not appointing a project manager. Although I faced many specialists, I ended up doing the project manager's job even though I was the client. They fixed this by hiring people to correct their setup, so it was not Dell's fault.

Scalability is feasible and comfortable with Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

A company of any size needs servers, and Dell PowerEdge ranges are very good. There may be people who say they need blade servers for many servers in small spaces, but I am not a mid-cap or large enterprise and my server room consists of two racks rented in a data center. My first experience with Dell was not performant, but I replaced it while staying with Dell by purchasing reliable machines.

I have called Dell support, especially for the VxRail part, because VxRail Manager is useless and breaks down every three months. I only realize it is broken when I want to update the VMware part, and I call support who fixes it, allowing everything to run fine until the next breakdown. I know if I had to replace my infrastructure, I would still choose Dell servers and VMware but not VxRail, as it adds unnecessary features that often fail.

I have no problem rating Dell support a nine out of ten. I feel inclined to lower it due to my previous infrastructure experience, but I believe the support did everything they could to help me with the faulty hardware. I am very happy with support now.

I looked at options including Nutanix and SimpliVity when I replaced my infrastructure because we had faulty servers suffering from constant crashes. I ended up putting out an RFP, and in the end, I chose Dell again, and I am very happy with this new infrastructure.

I tested the competition and can say it is very reliable, performant, and cost-effective for me, although I almost dismissed Dell due to faulty hardware.

I feel I see a return on investment from choosing Dell PowerEdge R-Series, especially since I cannot really compare to other solutions such as Nutanix since I did not choose them. I am not unhappy with what I have, but I have considered moving to the cloud, although moving to Azure would be much more expensive and less performant than my current setup.

I have considered adopting another solution for my AI topic, but for other areas, I have not.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is good for a small company. A company of any size needs servers, and Dell PowerEdge ranges are very good. There may be people who say they need blade servers for many servers in small spaces, but I am not a mid-cap or large enterprise and my server room consists of two racks rented in a data center. My first experience with Dell was not performant, but I replaced it while staying with Dell by purchasing reliable machines.

The importance of AI in my company is critical. I have discussed this with my sales representatives many times over the past two or three years, and I ended up buying machines from the competition because I need a rackable machine in a data center where I can put an RTX 5090, which Dell cannot provide. Dell has the servers and cards, but they have not made the combination between the two, which penalizes me since that is my requirement.

I would rate this review a ten out of ten overall.

The primary use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series in my company includes application servers, data storage, and security.

The specific features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series that I find most valuable are stability and performance. 

We want to ensure that we have 24/7 availability with Dell PowerEdge R-Series, and we have pretty much had that with the servers over the years. 

Performance-wise, for the end-users and the data compute coming through, we are 24/7, so it has to be manufacturing and collecting data constantly. Those two factors from Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers have been very effective over the years.

The Dell PowerEdge R-Series plays a role in my company's AI initiatives, as we're in the very early days of AI. However, the intention is to store data on the new servers, which will then be run by AI models that will be on-premise. We would use the CPU, GPU, or whatever processing capabilities are within Dell PowerEdge R-Series to do the processing of the models.

The stability and reliability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series are very robust. In the last ten to 15 years of using Dell hardware, I have had a few PDUs and a few hard drives fail, however, in terms of warranty support and replacement, we have never had any actual business downtime. 

In terms of storage, bigger storage capacity for Dell PowerEdge R-Series would be an improvement. There hasn't really been anything that it has not been able to achieve for us, but storage capacity could be increased.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers for approximately 15 years.

The stability and reliability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series are very robust. In the last ten to 15 years of using Dell hardware, I have had a few PDUs and a few hard drives fail, but in terms of warranty support and replacement, we have never had any actual business downtime.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series scales with the growing needs of my company at the moment, as we are making this new investment. 

We had reached the age limit on the old hardware. We did have a conversation about whether we should just extend the warranty support and continue to use the existing infrastructure, however, the performance would be less than what you can buy today. It is natural that the performance of a machine and its CPUs will deteriorate over time. 

In terms of scalability, the depreciation on the hardware had already been completed from a financial perspective. From a lifecycle perspective, we could have extended it, but personally, I always prefer to have more modern equipment. I made that decision, but scaling was not a constraint.

Dell's relationship with our company, both on a global and a personal level, has been very good over the years. There is a strong relationship between Dell and ourselves, and there have never really been any issues. 

If it purely came down to price, maybe we would consider someone else, however, I value both the service level and the price. In that context, Dell's service levels have been very high and consistent.

Positive

I have considered other vendors other than Dell, and we have used HP previously.

I have seen a return on my investment with Dell PowerEdge R-Series historically. We have not seen it yet with this new investment, however, historically, we have. We have used two physical Dell PowerEdge R-Series machines to run 15 servers. You can imagine the return on investment there with two physical devices for 15 servers.

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Dell PowerEdge R-Series was fine. It was relatively straightforward. We gave our requirements to Dell and PFH, and they came back with the pricing. Then we readjusted it again with further internal discussions. It was a smooth process.

My advice for someone who is considering Dell PowerEdge R-Series is to take the time to see what business processes you want to use on it and make sure it fits properly. Do this in conjunction with Dell and your internal technical teams to make sure that it's fit for purpose for now and for a five-year window. 

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Dell PowerEdge R-Series an eight.

That is my primary use case for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

The most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are their worldwide support, which is very accessible along with receiving assistance from professionals and specialists, and the continuous innovations that make it an amazing product in this era. 

I find Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers to be a very complex product that is useful in various purposes and across enterprise-level and data center applications, making it very valuable in any area.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers stands out over competitors due to their clean design and strong technology support.

The grade store disks sometimes break, indicating an area for improvement in longevity and reliability. They need to improve the durability of the disks.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers since around 2015, which was maybe the first or early generation of PowerEdge servers.

When discussing stability and reliability, we aim for Tier 3, requiring the right solutions and servers, which Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers can help us achieve.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are very scalable and recently announced new HCI called APEX HCI, providing many advantages and flexible options that are understandable for customers.

They have superior customer support compared to Supermicro, which does not cater to enterprise-level needs.

Positive

I have used Supermicro and HP before selecting Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

While I can't recall specific numbers, our company has had discussions about the return on investment from using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. It takes time to realize those benefits.

With over 15 years in this field, I can say that the setup costs, pricing, and licensing in terms of cost efficiency and OPEX, alongside working with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, is very cost-efficient. They allow for improvements, changes, and upgrades which are understandable and clear.

We are planning to implement Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers with GPUs this year, and we are currently working on that purchase. 

We are not using it for AI yet; we are just planning this year while working with Dell's representative office on it. We look for solutions suitable for AI and GPU, while previously we considered flash disks and CPUs for cloud platforms and RAID controllers as important for implementing HCI.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a nine out of ten.

We use them as cluster nodes for virtualization purposes.

I find the flexibility of the build-out in Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers very valuable because we can do different things based on the use case. This flexibility is highlighted by being able to reduce CPU count, RAM count, and the number of drives depending on the site's importance. Additionally, using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers exclusively provides a single source for replacements, assistance, and support. We have a good partnership with our distributor. We've got really good support with them.

Power consumption is probably on everyone's top of mind regarding Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers; they use a lot of power and create a lot of heat. Also, the noise levels are pretty high, though I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done about it. It'd be nice to get the volume down so that we can use these a little bit more frequently in other use cases where there's maybe a nearby office environment.

One thing that might be a little bit of an improvement is the faceplates. It can't be that expensive to have the LCD screen on all faceplates. We've gotten into this situation where we didn't have the faceplates. We like them. We buy them, but they don't come with the LCD screen. We then have to rebuy those, so it would be nice to have that standardized across the fleet because it can't cost that much more.

I personally have been using or working with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for about two years.

They have been rock solid for us; we haven't had power supply failures. The drives seem to be the area of most concern, but if we look at the MTBFs on them, they're above industry standard. We don't have a huge install base, so we're not really that good at evaluating that, but drive improvement is definitely something we could look at for the future. We talked to them about some opportunities to test some of their stuff in our lab environment.

Our organization has more than 6,000 people. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers scale very well with the growing needs of my company. For our current use case, it's very good, and some of the improvements we've seen in storage density and power efficiency gains will only help us.

It has been good. I'd rate them at least a nine out of ten. There was a little hiccup where they sent one of our drives to a location that doesn’t exist anymore, but we don't know exactly why it went there. We might have to check with our account holders that all of our addresses have been updated and get a bit more contact on some of the things that we don't really review as often as we possibly should.

Positive

Everything worked really smoothly. They're easy to rack, and I love the rack systems as they are very easy to use and to move. We do a lot of moving of equipment, and having that ability is really good. We encourage them to continue to keep their racking systems the same and include them in the purchase. That's really big and helpful.

It was before my time, but even now, we're always looking because we have to make sure that we are not vendor locked and missing opportunities. HPE is another big example of something that we would look at. I'm not sure if we are looking at anything else, but we have been looking at the ruggedized version of Dell's product line, including both the XR and some new ones we saw at the conference, which we're going to maybe talk to our vendor about having some demos done for us.

In comparisons between HPE and Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, support really stands out; it's been a little more difficult because our enterprise side of the house is HPE primarily. I don't know if that's a function of HPE or our company's relationship, but Dell, being our sole source through our distributor, has provided us with very good support and response.

The performance metric or benchmark we use to measure success is whether it works. If it's not working, then we have bigger problems. Dell has just been very helpful. We don't have a lot of maintenance that we have to worry about. We have the occasional failure of a drive, but the response time is incredible. We're pretty happy with the product.

My advice for any other company considering Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is that the proof is in the execution: just buy them. You can either go based on a salesman's word or just buy some and use them, and you're going to be pleasantly surprised.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a nine out of ten. They're on the right track. They're asking the right questions, and we'll keep working with them to try and make everything as good as it can be.

I mainly use Dell PowerEdge R-Series; I used to have a few Ts, but now I use almost exclusively the R-Series.

I am involved in working with Dell PowerEdge R-Series, from project planning, both at my company and at the customer's, to setting up the infrastructure and maintenance, including all the typical admin tasks.

I use Dell PowerEdge R-Series more for the basic functions, having administrative servers, starting with Active Directory and those standard things. In the AI area, that product is not used by us, simply for legal reasons, since it is not allowed at the customer. I also run industry-specific systems on them, specifically for the TV sector, basically across the board.

When you ask about functions of Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I will be blunt: it is a server like any other; as long as it runs, I do not really care, in principle. It is of course nice that you can say, if you know one, you know them all, meaning whether I have a 340 or a 750, I know where the power button is and where other components are located. This consistency across the same family is the advantage.

Regarding how Dell PowerEdge R-Series works, I can say that they are very reliable.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series products grow with the company's needs; they are scalable for my long-term plans. For my company internally it is manageable, but with the customer, if a project grows, then I just have to take the next bigger one.

On the negative side, I must say that the price of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is an issue. This is partly because the systems often come with components by default that I do not really use. Dell has RAID controllers pre-installed on most systems, which I rarely need because I then go via software RAID or use things differently. I simply have to buy them with the system. In that respect, a competitor on the market would be an advantage, because there you could buy those things as add-ons, meaning I could leave them out. However, I have Dell in my portfolio, which is why I use them consistently.

I think you can configure a lot in the ordering process. However, for my use cases, there are still too many things that are predefined, which I simply have to buy because they are part of the base configuration, and that is a bit of a disadvantage.

I would like to see the iDRAC function of Dell PowerEdge R-Series expanded further because I find it really impressive. I even find it better than with other vendors, and while I have no idea what else you could do with it, it is great.

I have been working in my field for 28 years with interruptions, making it 29 years of professional experience.

Regarding the stability and reliability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I have had problems with one or another machine. A technician comes out, repairs it, and then the things run again. I also have devices at a customer that have been running continuously for eight years, and I am waiting for them to finally give up, but they do not.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series products grow with the company's needs; they are scalable for my long-term plans. For my company internally it is manageable, but with the customer, if a project grows, then I just have to take the next bigger one.

Every three to five years, there is a refresh, and in that context, I check whether the capacities are sufficient or whether I need to scale up. For some projects, I simply put in a second server. For other projects, I said no, I will start from scratch and then I put several really big machines there.

I would rate Dell support very highly at a 10. When I call, which is something I paid for, I have a spare part the next day or an appointment with a technician.

Positive

I do not know if my company used another solution for servers before Dell PowerEdge; that was before my time, and I have no information about it.

I was involved in the initial deployment and setup of Dell PowerEdge R-Series products.

As a pure technician, I am the wrong person to ask about return on investment from the products. I do not have any performance indicators or benchmarks to measure success with Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

Regarding the pricing and licensing of Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I would say it is a bit expensive. For my purposes, there are many components in the base configuration that I could actually save. That is why they are relatively expensive for me. However, if I calculate it in comparison, then with Dell I have a Mercedes and elsewhere just a Hyundai.

I would not say that the devices I have in-house have contributed to growth and business success for a smaller company like mine, but those I have at customers' definitely do. That is something you pay for when you buy these things: you do not have a no-name box, you have a Dell. Dell is a name that, especially with customers—and I am talking here particularly about public sector clients—automatically ticks a few boxes, and then you might get one or another contract more easily.

I do not see specific features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series that address the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, except the iDRAC, which is one feature where I find it very well implemented. With other devices, it is a bit more fiddly. However, it is also like driving any car; with some, it is a bit easier, with others not, but that is definitely an advantage. Apart from that, the server itself is a server like any other. My overall review rating for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is nine out of ten.

My enterprise operates on-premises infrastructure with Windows and Linux boxes, while sometimes working on ESXi hosts that host clusters for VMware and Nutanix. Most of my work life involves managing servers on either virtualized servers or physical servers, which are predominantly Dell or HP, with HP being my primary experience early on and later on gaining substantial exposure to Dell servers.

As a server admin, I find the remote capabilities of Dell PowerEdge R-Series very valuable, primarily because we have to remote into the servers for our work. The Linux team utilizes PowerShell, SSH, and Putty to connect, and having access to iDRAC, the ability to configure it and use features like Wake-on-LAN are consistently helpful.

We are not running AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers; we are currently creating some agentic AI servers that are virtualized on Nutanix hardware.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series has helped reduce unplanned production downtime, as I find their stability and reliability comparable to HP. Any downtime typically stems from requiring firmware or BIOS upgrades, which may necessitate server downtime, but I have not perceived any performance issues with Dell PowerEdge R-Series relative to other manufacturers.

There is a specific reason my customers choose Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers, particularly for critical business operations, such as those related to security and surveillance, where reliance on robust hardware is paramount.

As a server admin, I find the remote capabilities of Dell PowerEdge R-Series very valuable, primarily because we have to remote into the servers for our work. The Linux team utilizes PowerShell, SSH, and Putty to connect, and having access to iDRAC, the ability to configure it and use features like Wake-on-LAN are consistently helpful.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series has helped reduce unplanned production downtime, as I find their stability and reliability comparable to HP. Any downtime typically stems from requiring firmware or BIOS upgrades, which may necessitate server downtime, but I have not perceived any performance issues with Dell PowerEdge R-Series relative to other manufacturers.

I have encountered situations where we needed to schedule a reboot of a server, and since the dependency was on the OS side, the server would not come up, requiring us to reboot from iDRAC. Unfortunately, there is no option to schedule a reboot from iDRAC, which necessitates a manual process each time to log in to perform a graceful shutdown.

I do not have any specific improvements in mind for Dell PowerEdge R-Series, as my daily responsibilities involve ensuring the hardware is up to date with warranties, firmware, and software updates. Recently, we faced an issue where a server in Botswana reached end of life and the customer did not renew the support license, which led to complications with upgrading and a discovered vulnerability in the BIOS version that we could not address due to lack of support. I believe organizations should at least be able to update firmware and BIOS versions on the hardware they have purchased from Dell. We managed to find a workaround by updating a similar server in Hong Kong that was under warranty, using its successful BIOS update as a reference for the Botswana server, though the process was cumbersome without direct support.

I have worked with Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers across many organizations, alongside using HP ProLiant DL series and starting with iDRAC servers about 10 years ago, thus gaining experience on various models of PowerEdge and ProLiant servers.

I consider Dell PowerEdge R-Series to be very stable, as I have not encountered significant issues that necessitate escalation to the vendor or troubleshooting teams. Any problems I have faced tend to arise from outdated hardware rather than issues with newer servers, which generally perform well without problem.

Regarding scalability, I would say Dell PowerEdge R-Series is not as scalable as some newer technologies such as Nutanix, which I have had the opportunity to use and find offers significantly better scalability for IT server operations.

I am unsure of how improvements could be made to the scalability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series since I mainly see it used in on-premises infrastructure, and there is an evident shift away from physical hardware towards cloud solutions, where scalability is more prominent in platforms like AWS and Azure.

I often communicate with Dell technical support; we opened a ticket regarding the situation with the Botswana server, but since it was not under warranty, they informed us they would not assist us with the update. My interactions with customer service are typically limited to issues that arise, as usually, Dell PowerEdge R-Series runs fine without complications, so less communication typically indicates better performance. In my 15-year career, hardware failures have been rare, but when they do occur, hot-swappable hard disks under warranty can be replaced by us or with assistance from a field engineer if necessary.

When I assess the technical support for Dell, I would give them a rating of 10. The response we receive correlates directly with the urgency defined in our ticket priority, meaning critical tickets receive appropriate responses aligned with the defined SLAs.

When it comes to total cost of ownership, there was a noticeable decrease since customers began using Dell PowerEdge R-Series, as they have strategically selected solutions to reduce operational costs. The decision-making process led them to shift from pricier options like V-center to more economical solutions like Nutanix, underscoring the cost-saving benefits of adopting Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

In my role as a Windows Server admin with 15 years of experience, my customer utilizes on-premises virtualization within Nutanix infrastructure. Currently, I am supporting approximately 20 Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers in the data center, with a few HP servers scattered across various global locations, while in previous roles, I supported a more extensive mix of up to 30 to 40 servers depending on geographical needs.

As a server admin, the costing aspect of running AI workloads does not fall under my purview, thus I cannot provide an honest appraisal on how Dell PowerEdge R-Series would perform under such workloads. However, I have considerable experience with servers of varying utilization levels, and the hardware has demonstrated consistent reliability regardless of workload intensity.

I am not aware of the pricing and licensing for Dell PowerEdge R-Series, as my scope as a server admin is focused on daily operations and maintenance rather than project setup and technology decisions; my responsibilities include ensuring the servers are running smoothly and promptly applying necessary patches.

From my observations, customers generally prefer deploying Dell PowerEdge R-Series on-premises, but there is an increasing trend towards hybrid or cloud infrastructures. Many customers are shifting towards subscription-based models with services like AWS and Azure, and I have witnessed a recent movement by one of my customers to phase out physical servers in favor of migrating to AWS cloud.

I have no specific comments on energy consumption, although it seems high due to the demands of running a server rack, which requires significant cooling and UPS support. Thus, I do not know if there are substantial savings with Dell PowerEdge R-Series, especially given the continuous operation required to maintain servers.

I am not aware of any customers with sustainability goals related to Dell PowerEdge R-Series; my customers are more focused on transitioning to AWS cloud services to save costs rather than setting sustainability goals with Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

I give this review an overall rating of 10.

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers to manage all of our data. We have a lot of data that comes in. We're from the insurance industry, so we've managed data for 30 plus years of claimants who need to file claims for insurance for their property and homes. That needs a system that's robust, reliable, and secure. We looked at high availability servers by getting Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

The benefits of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are its resilience, cost-effectiveness, and easy manageability. Our IT professionals are quite familiar with the technology, and we receive great customer support as well. We appreciate the resiliency because we can spread out our load of service between three hosts. That gives us redundancy if we need to do maintenance, or if we have an issue with any of the memory or hard drives in any of the servers. The storage itself is built with plenty of RAID, which means that data corruption and data loss are reduced significantly.

It has benefited us by eliminating downtime. Our servers have been resilient, and we've been able to do maintenance without any issues. We have truly not had any downtime on the infrastructure at all, whereas before we implemented this resilience, there were occasional downtimes that the organization needed to deal with.

The only challenge we have with the product is keeping it in line with VMware, knowing that VMware has now gone with a different provider. We're in this race with the software versus hardware compatibility. With Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we knew where we stood with some of the parts. 

Licensing is also an issue, as we don't know what the costs are, what licenses we have, and whether the pricing will change. There's no transparency in what's happening or how our support works with VMware. They could improve by coming back and managing, maintaining it with a periodic check. For instance, after installation, they could return a year later to verify we're still applying best practices.

We have been using this particular solution for about four years.

We have been able to do maintenance without any issues. We have truly not had any downtime on the infrastructure at all, whereas before we implemented this resilience, there were occasional downtimes that the organization needed to deal with.

The system has provided operational success by eliminating downtime. The resilience is really the key part that we focused on. If we want to enhance our services, the support has been great. We bought our product with scaling involved, and we've been scaling it up anytime we've needed more storage. The price point for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is easily configurable. You can have a small business to an enterprise level, depending on what you want to build it with. This makes it easy because we can buy something and scale it up to a larger business if we grow.

With Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, there is no one better in the industry for tech support service. I can vouch for having experiences working with other companies that have had different technologies and different support, and working with them is a completely different experience than working with Dell. That's what separates Dell from the other competitors. The Dell support is far better than anyone I've experienced.

Positive

We were required by our organization to have three reviews of competitors, and Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers came out ahead. HPE was one of them, and the third may have been Cisco UCS options. It was all standard, standalone servers per solution. That led us to go into the virtual environment.

It's easy to manage Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers because Dell makes it straightforward. The interfaces from the different storage and servers that we've used haven't changed too much. The deployment services we get in the beginning mean that we are onboarded quite effectively to the point that we can self-serve.

The solution deserves a rating of 10 out of 10. It's really that good. The Dell support is far better than anyone I've experienced. 

We are not using Dell PowerEdge R-Series yet, but we do use the PowerEdge. Our use cases for Dell PowerEdge R-Series are actually our virtualization hosts.

I actually love iDRAC as a feature of Dell PowerEdge R-Series for its value. I love iDRAC because with it we can simply access the server remotely without being on site. It is always convenient when I can just stay sitting in the office.

What distinguishes Dell PowerEdge R-Series from other servers is that I only used to have HP, which were simply not as reliable. When I joined the new company, Dell was already there, and I love the ProSupport and the reliability. Those are the main characteristics where I can say that is the difference.

I cannot say how Dell PowerEdge R-Series has improved my company because this company has always worked with Dell.

For our company, I do not see any areas where Dell PowerEdge R-Series could be improved. We are super happy with the products and we certainly have not fully exploited their potential yet. Accordingly, we already have room to grow anyway.

Last year we reinstalled the old servers and found they run great and also found we can still do updates over the internet, which I did not even remember the devices were capable of back then. Accordingly, I have no pain points.

We always have the issue that the company watches the money regarding pricing. Of course, when prices go down, I am happy, but that is no longer a purchase criterion for me because we are just so convinced by the product.

If anything, then it would be the price that could most easily be improved. I really do not have any pain points where I would say there has to be something. There is also nothing where I would say it is only mediocre.

We actually just have a problem with communication concerning improvements, as when new updates come out, we find out about them relatively late, which could be improved. But in this case, that actually only concerns the firewalls.

I have been using the PowerEdge since 2011.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers are very reliable. We have had hardly any failures so far. I am just convinced because we have been using them for ages. Our current servers, which we are using now, will be 7 years old this year. The others that we still have in reserve are still running as well. They have just been moved to a second tier. I have absolutely no problems with that. We usually use them beyond the official support period. When the support expires, that is how it is, but I still get spare parts through Dell partners.

Five years ago, we expanded the memory of Dell PowerEdge R-Series and were able to do that together with Dell. We simply called, we need more memory, we bought it, and accordingly, that worked. Otherwise, the devices themselves are completely oversized for our company, and we have just been living with these devices for 7 years now. So I can say it is working.

I would rate Dell's support as A+. With HP, I always ended up in a foreign call center, and we always had a language barrier. That is just how it is. My English is not the best, but I somehow manage with hands and feet. But if I am then on the phone with someone whose native language is also not English, then it does not work. With Dell, when I call within business hours in ProSupport, I always get a German hotline, and they have always been able to help me so far. I would rate Dell's support 10 on a scale from 1 to 10.

Positive

I used to work with HP in another company. The differences between HP and Dell PowerEdge R-Series—for me, the biggest difference is simply how I get drivers and updates for the systems. With Dell, I paid for ProSupport, and even if the devices run out of ProSupport, I can access newer drivers at any time. That is only possible with HP if I purchase additional support, and for a lot of money. If the devices no longer get support, I also do not get new drivers. That is a reason for me not to buy HP, even if the devices were sometimes better hardware-wise. HP is usually very expensive because I always have to buy support at a high price compared to Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

I was involved in the deployment and initial setup of Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

I am mainly involved in working with Dell PowerEdge R-Series as I plan the rollout and implementation together with our partners. We plan and implement them together with our partner.

Regarding no downtime, we actually have not had any downtimes. Regarding return on investment through the Dell product, because our IT landscape is not directly tied to the success of the company, the return on investment is something we cannot calculate. We only switch to new hardware when we reach performance limits somewhere, but then the device has probably paid for itself a thousand times over. That is difficult.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series pricing and licensing are actually nicely in the middle range. We are not anywhere where we would say they are overpriced. Again, if the price were cheaper, that would be great, but it is actually not a purchase criterion.

I did not consider other solutions before deciding on Dell PowerEdge R-Series. We actually also here go through our partner, and I need a partner I can call and say: "Listen, you sold me a solution here." If he tells me: "I can sell you the solution, but you have to somehow take care of the servers yourself," then that is no use to me. That is why we have always used the servers that our partner also offered, that he also knows himself. Accordingly, we did not consider any others.

I think it is great how the interfaces, especially in iDRAC, have changed again and again in recent years. They keep getting more modern, and I am super happy with that too. We actually have not had any failures in the last 7 years regarding availability. Regarding return on investment through the Dell product, because our IT landscape is not directly tied to the success of the company, the return on investment is something we cannot calculate. We only switch to new hardware when we reach performance limits somewhere, but then the device has probably paid for itself a thousand times over. I would rate this review a 10 out of 10.