Dell PowerEdge R-Series Reviews

My main use case for it is a server.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is rackable, which is the feature I like the most about it.That rackable feature benefits my company at the end of the day because it is easy to ship racks all over the world.Dell PowerEdge R-Series has features that specifically cater to the needs of small-medium organizations, which stands out for Dell versus our competitors. They have a slightly nicer model for managing maintenance of BIOS upgrades and RAID upgrades, and I find it always really easy to get their serial number off the Dell iDRAC code.Dell PowerEdge R-Series has supported growth or operational success for my company because good servers sell good software.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series could be improved; some of the chassis could use a redesign, though I have older chassis, so I should go check their new models.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for a year and a half.

I have experienced some downtime or crashes, but we are at scale, and nothing is outside of the average normally.

I see Dell products growing with our future needs. We are horizontally scalable, so it is just the number of machines that we buy.

My thoughts on the customer service and technical support for Dell PowerEdge R-Series are that it is good; 10 would be perfect, so I rate it nine.

I did use something similar to Dell PowerEdge R-Series before choosing this solution.

The deployment of Dell PowerEdge R-Series has been straightforward.

The return on investment for me specifically is good maintenance or a good lifecycle, which I see as the biggest return on investment when using Dell PowerEdge R-Series.The lifecycle has been expanded because it is useful to use the older hardware that we have decommissioned for new use cases; they do not go immediately into e-waste. We are actually using them in other areas for things that we had not even developed a few years ago, so they have been well past their lifecycle, but it is still beneficial.

My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been acceptable, with no complaints.

I have considered switching to other solutions that do the same as Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series does not play a role in my company's AI initiatives, and I do not see it being able to do that someday as well.I do use an Intel processor with Dell PowerEdge R-Series. The Intel processor handles my workloads well compared to what I expected. I do not have a comment on any specific pieces of the Intel processor, but it does have high compute density and good memory bandwidth.I have evaluated other systems powered by other CPU vendors. I do not have a comment on what stands out with Intel. I do not have a comment on the differences or why I switched to Dell PowerEdge R-Series.I have no advice to offer to other companies that are considering this solution. I give this solution an overall rating of nine.

On-premises

An example of the use cases for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in my company is that we use them for virtualization platforms; currently, it's VMware, so the host that VMware sits on.

The most valuable feature of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for me, my team, and the company is iDRAC. It's more user-friendly than the HPE products, and we can access them remotely, which is very important when we have a global presence, especially at smaller sites where we don't have a person on-site. So, iDRAC really helps us to get into that platform and do maintenance and things like that remotely.

The reliability of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is another benefit I've realized from their usage. 

They look great, have a nice LCD on them, and are easy to manage and maintain in racks.

In thinking about how Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers can be improved, that's a tough one for me. I haven't had a problem yet. I don't have one additional feature I'd want to see on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers.

In terms of areas for improvement, maybe on the education side, working with third-party sellers on how easy their products are could probably help.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for three years.

To measure the success with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we use some monitoring software that tells us various different metrics of the server, and it doesn't ever go down, so it's been really good for us.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers scale really well with the growing needs of my company; we're not maxed out on the host servers we have now, so we could easily scale out from there and then get more servers if we need them.

I haven't had to use Dell's support yet, so I don't know for sure. They're really good, and we have a support contract for five years, however, we haven't had to use it.

Positive

Prior to adopting Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, we were using HPE servers. The factors that led me to consider a change were manageability, as I didn't enjoy the interface of HPE, and then Dell actually seeded us a server for free to use, which blew my mind; it was really a lot easier to do that, so I encourage them to keep that program going since that appraoch works.

My experience with deploying Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is that it's super easy; we aren't very automated yet. However, it was very easy to set up the iDRAC part and then go into setting up the hard drives for ESXi without having any problems.

Since we've only been a server customer for about three years, we haven't had it even depreciate off our books yet, so it hasn't been long enough to really calculate that ROI.

It is easier for me to get licensing and pricing for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers; the licensing, specifically on their competitor's websites, is very difficult to find. In contrast, for Dell PowerEdge, it's very easy on their website to figure out what SKU you need.

Before Dell PowerEdge, I looked at Lenovo. However, on the server side, they're not quite there yet; we do use Lenovo for laptops and things. Other than that, I went directly from HPE to Dell.

I don't use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers for my AI initiatives yet; primarily, we do that in the cloud right now. In terms of planning for AI on-prem, I have looked at all the AI factory stuff, and it's really appealing. In terms of AI in general, and how we could use it, we have scientific white papers that we go through, and it would be really good for scientists to be able to search through those and get really good responses versus trying to do it manually, which would save them a lot of time.

My advice to other companies considering Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is to go for it; it's a great product, and you won't be disappointed.

Overall, I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers as a ten out of ten.

My team manages four data centers where we use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers to host our customers. We also use them ourselves for internal purposes. We have certain software platforms that we build in-house, which are homegrown, that we use on a daily basis on those servers. We also have some third-party software that we host on them that we use within the team.

As an automotive dealer management system provider, we provide hardware and software to automotive dealers using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. We deploy a server on-site running Windows, and then our application along with the database. We can have it on-prem in the dealership, or if they prefer, we can host it, and we will do the same thing as a virtual machine in one of our data centers.

We really appreciate the security features that are built into the iDRAC within Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. They are modular, and we can build and request servers in the same way, whether it's now, six months from now, or a year from now. They're consistent. The user experience is consistent across them. It doesn't matter if you're logging into a T160 or a T350, or an older T330, that experience is the same across the board. Even with the new versions of iDRAC, technicians and our support teams are comfortable logging in and can navigate around easily enough without having to learn something new.

There are cost benefits of using Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. Since we buy many of them, plus they're smaller, they're very efficient regarding CPU and power. We can max out that process on that RAM and have it run four or five years without worrying about having any issues or thermal problems.

There is essentially no learning curve. The iDRAC features are heavily used for our out-of-band management with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. Other servers have similar products, and having the license included with the server is beneficial rather than as an additional charge later.

We're working on implementing support agents and business intelligence work within the next year, currently determining our hardware needs and data storage requirements.

Due to the fact that we use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in both data centers and dealerships, we can move workloads seamlessly. If a dealership wants to move to a hosted environment, we can transfer that workload from the physical server directly to our data center, and vice versa.

New Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers consistently perform better as technology improves. The progression from 7200 RPM disks to 10K disks, 15K disks, and now to SSDs and NVMe storage has led to substantial improvements. As NVMe generations advance from Gen4 to Gen5, the throughput improves significantly. Newer servers with updated technology provide faster throughput, more IOPS, and less power consumption with solid-state storage. The newer Xeon processors are more power-efficient while handling increased workload.

I would prefer more flexibility when configuring Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. Some challenges we see when looking for a server include wanting a two CPU server without necessarily needing a larger server. Perhaps a smaller server with more processor choices would be beneficial. On some of the smaller ones, you might not be able to get a larger 16-core processor, only an 8-core. This forces you to go up to a larger server to get the desired processor, which increases the cost. There's no real benefit to having that bigger chassis just for the sake of that processor.

We use Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in both rack and tower configurations, and we have been using them for approximately 20 years.

When we encounter a performance issue with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers, it's typically due to the fact that we've overloaded that server, or if we're running a virtual machine, we haven't added enough resources to that virtual machine. 

We experience hard drives wearing out approximately every five years. However, we don't have many issues with Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and rarely call support for hardware issues. 

Occasionally, a power supply or hard drive will fail, maybe a fan (things that are moving) however, other components such as RAM and CPU remain reliable. We have servers that we've had for seven years that are still operational.

For most of our customers, if they start to grow, we can exchange their Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. If they started with something a T160, a smaller server, and they need to grow, we may just add hard drives into that box. If they need more RAM, we can add that in there. If they need a larger server, we can move their workload over to a larger server and replace it. The process is really straightforward.

We currently have 650 employees and are growing.

Dell support is great. When we call them, there's usually a wait when placing the initial call, possibly half an hour before receiving a callback, but once we have a case created and a tech involved, we can email them back and forth, and they respond really quickly.

In situations where we have a harder issue impacting the server, having a faster response time would be beneficial, as many of these servers carry production workloads. If a drive fails and the storage array is in a degraded state with reduced capacity, waiting half an hour for support feels much longer.

Dell support rates nine out of ten.

Positive

We have examined other competitors, however, with the volume we buy, we get such a great deal from Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers that it isn't financially viable to switch.

When examining a potentially new Dell PowerEdge Rack Server, we typically receive one on a loaner basis. We examine the disk IOPS, as our application is heavily database-driven. High IOPS is important to ensure we can move data in and out of the database quickly. We examine the CPU and clock speed as well. We typically put one of our workloads on that server, and we have built-in metrics in the software that run against it, along with other benchmarks such as PassMark, which provides data we can compare to other servers to determine if the new server gives us equal or better performance compared to previous models.

Due to our purchase volume, Dell provides excellent service. We utilize their deployment services. For larger cluster servers, we use their deployment services to help build, spec, configure, and install. Their support is excellent. If we have an issue with the server, using the secure connect gateways, that server will automatically call home to Dell, open a ticket, and notify us of detected issues, such as an imminent hard drive failure. They automatically dispatch parts and potentially a technician.

We have seen a return on investment in Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers baserd on our volume purchasing, though exact numbers are not known.

Since we purchase Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers in quantity, we receive a discount for buying many of them. As we replace aging servers with new ones, we return the older servers to Dell.

Specifically, when examining clustered servers, the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers solutions were superior overall. The benchmarks we ran showed higher scores on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers compared to competitive servers. It's not just about price; they actually perform better as well.

The overall rating for Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is ten out of ten.

On-premises

Other

In my role of using and managing Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I head the IT department, so it is my responsibility to manage everything.

My main use of Dell PowerEdge R-Series is that we are a data-heavy company, so we use it mostly for all of our internal development, management, and testing. We primarily use all of it for these purposes because our solutions are normally in production at the customer's site. We conduct all the development, testing, and everything else at our infrastructure.

The features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series that I value most are stability and the configuration mix that it can provide. Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers has helped to reduce unplanned production downtime because the environments have been very stable, which is a significant advantage for us. Running on-premises makes it very difficult to manage all of the complexities, whereas when it is on the cloud, it is much easier. However, with Dell's technology, it has been very easy for us to manage, whether it involves the switching or the servers.

Regarding how Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved, we are currently working with Dell on enhancements. The hardware is performing excellently, and we are happy with what we are getting out of the servers. Our biggest challenge right now is delivery timelines, so some improvement in that area would be very helpful.

I have been working in my current field for twenty-two years.

Initially, whenever we had to scale out, we were considering moving to the cloud. Now with the entire system in place using Dell PowerEdge R-Series, we are able to slice and dice hardware to help with development, testing, and production stability testing. All of that has become much easier and more cost-effective for us. Scalability on demand is achieved because the clusters are so large that we can partition them effectively, which is very helpful.

I would evaluate customer service and technical support as wonderful. We have had very good experiences, and I believe that this has been one reason why we have scaled more with Dell, because their support is phenomenal.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerEdge R-Series, we were using AWS and Hetzner, which is a hardware service server provider in the EU. We were mostly on these two platforms, and we are now looking at migrating to Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

I have seen ROI because we were running workloads on the cloud and then on other service providers. However, we have now seen a significant cost advantage running it on Dell servers.

The benefits I have seen from running AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers is that it has been cost-effective, which is one of the biggest advantages we see, and that is the primary reason why we are mostly on this platform now.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers has affected the overall flexibility of my operations and business positively. Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers has helped reduce my total cost of ownership significantly because we were running most of these workloads on AWS, which charged us on an hourly basis. Running it on-premises has reduced our costs significantly and given more compute to the users.

The benefits I have seen from running AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers include the flexibility of the configurations, which has been a major advantage because people are able to run much larger workloads on the cluster rather than doing things on the cloud, which would have cost us considerably more.

The impressions of Dell PowerEdge R-Series that impact our organization's sustainability goals are that we are mostly on Dell APEX, so our footprint is much smaller compared to other options. Dell APEX is a significant advantage for us to maintain our sustainability goals, and recycling and similar matters are mostly taken care of by Dell.

My experience with pricing, cost, setup, and licensing reveals that I think costing was somewhat higher than expected, but we did see reliability and partnership as the primary reasons for moving forward. I would rate this product and experience as nine out of ten.

My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is end-user compute. When I say using compute, I am running applications on Dell PowerEdge R-Series. I am currently running VDI workloads on Dell PowerEdge servers because of the type of business that we run. We are just now implementing AI on some of the PowerEdge servers.

The best features that Dell PowerEdge R-Series offers are that it is easy to implement, has good customer service, and is reliable. What makes it easy to implement is that Dell Manage is easy to use.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series has had an incredibly beneficial impact on my organization with speed and reliability. The speed and reliability have benefited my organization by providing more billable hours.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is good as is and does not need improvement.

I have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series for 12 years.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series is stable.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series' scalability is easy to scale and add extra nodes to our cluster.

The customer support has been acceptable so far, with no issues.

I did not previously use a different solution.

I did not use Dell Deployment Services, an integrator, reseller, or consultant for the deployment.

I have seen a return on investment with time saved, as it was easy to deploy and easy to manage.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that pricing was volatile, but licensing was acceptable.

Before choosing Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I evaluated other options, specifically HPE and Lenovo.

Using PowerEdge servers has not affected the overall flexibility of my operations or business. The benefits we have seen so far from starting to run AI workloads on PowerEdge servers include reliability, as we've had reliability without any downtime.

To a colleague who is considering running AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge servers but is concerned about the cost, I would say that the cost will out-benefit the implementation and reliability. My advice to others looking into using Dell PowerEdge R-Series is that there are no issues, good customer support, good reliability, and good value. I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.

On-premises

I use Dell PowerEdge R-Series for CAE simulations, specifically for automotive CAE simulations. Currently, I am running brake system simulations on Dell PowerEdge servers.

The best features in Dell PowerEdge R-Series include the speed and accuracy of the solution. Dell PowerEdge R-Series has positively impacted my organization by making simulations easier and faster, reducing the solution solving time and the project delivery time, as well as the cycle time.

It helped me to reduce unplanned production downtime. The downtime has been reduced by 70% to 80%.

I am not the right person to talk about improvements for Dell PowerEdge R-Series because I am not related to the networking aspect; I am related to CAE. At my end, everything looks good for me.

In future updates, I would like to see better AI functionality in Dell PowerEdge R-Series product.

I have been working with Dell PowerEdge R-Series rack servers for a total of five years.

The technical support of Dell is very good, very helpful, with a quick response and fast part replacement if any failures occur. Recently, I faced an issue, and they replaced the part within 24 hours.

Negative

Deploying the product with Dell PowerEdge R-Series is quite easy.

The time required for deployment of Dell PowerEdge R-Series depends on the model size and the problem size; it is not a fixed time, generally taking a couple of hours, from one day to seven days.

The product was deployed in-house with the help of a third party. Two engineers are needed to deploy Dell PowerEdge R-Series solution.

If a colleague is considering running AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I would say if they are concerned about the cost, they should not worry because it is saving much. I did an analysis for the return on investment, and within one and a half years, I am getting a return on investment by saving the time.

Dell PowerEdge R-Series provides a return on investment in the long run; within one and a half years, it can be achieved, as per my analysis.

I have not yet run AI workloads on my Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers.

I do not have any colleague who can also share an opinion on Dell PowerEdge R-Series rack servers for now.

My review rating for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is 10.

My main use case for these solutions is for production and our data center. So essentially, at my site, we have two Dell PowerEdge R-Series, one PowerStore, and then we have a third Dell PowerEdge R-Series filled with disks as an on-site DR.

The benefits I have seen from using Dell PowerEdge R-Series specifically include scalability; it has allowed us to scale up when we need to. It also provides the throughput piece. We don't have to worry about our factory systems slowing down or coming to a halt. Dell PowerEdge R-Series is more than capable of supporting those systems, and that has been really important.

When it comes to how Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved, I honestly don't know as I'm not on the technical side anymore.

I have been using rack servers for probably over the last seven to nine years.

I would describe the stability and reliability of Dell PowerEdge R-Series as never having an issue over the last seven to nine years; we've never had one issue with them.

When it comes to scaling capabilities, scaling has always been absolutely fine. We've bought what we need with a scope to scale, and it has always met our requirements.

I would rate support as very good; from a hardware monitoring point of view, if there's an issue, we get alerted about it. If there's a drive to be replaced, it's sent out with an engineer, and the engineers contact us to get it sorted. If there are issues with firmware or OS upgrades, we can get on to Dell, and they help us through.

Positive

We were using HP; they were okay and had done the job, but I think the storage that we put with them wasn't up to scratch.

My experience with pricing, setup, costs, and licensing has been that pricing in general has always been very competitive. We do go to market every time we do a refresh; that's one of the things we have to compare with our competitors. We deal with Dell direct, so it's very competitive.

The vendors I have considered include HP; we look at NetApp, and really any other player, but normally it's HP, NetApp, and Dell.

The primary reasons I went with Dell PowerEdge R-Series over all of these competitors include sitting down with Dell, explaining my use case, and discussing the issues I've had in the past with other vendors or other hardware, leading to an agreement on a template for all our production facilities. I would rate Dell PowerEdge R-Series a 10 out of 10.

On-premises

Other

My main use case for Dell PowerEdge R-Series is virtualization.

What I like the most about Dell PowerEdge R-Series is the support.

Each server has a service tag number that is easy to locate and identify, and I can access chat support, so there is no need to look up contracts or deal with any of that; getting to support is very quick.

Using Dell PowerEdge servers has helped reduce my total cost of ownership because of the support, and in terms of time savings, it probably saves me at least four hours a year.

The management of Dell PowerEdge R-Series seems a little convoluted.

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

Using PowerEdge servers probably has not reduced unplanned production downtime.

Flexibility has probably not changed with the use of PowerEdge servers.

I have been very happy with customer service and technical support.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I was using HPE to address similar needs.

I find that pricing was good, and we used the Flex on Demand program for the ones that we are currently running, and the pricing was aggressive.

We evaluated Dell, HPE, and Lenovo, and what stood out during the evaluation process was that the sales team at the time was very knowledgeable on Flex on Demand and was able to make that attractive.

We do not run AI workloads on PowerEdge servers.

On-premises

Dell PowerEdge R-Series serves as the main solution for a large hospital environment, and it is primarily used for VMware.

I appreciate that Dell PowerEdge R-Series is quite resilient.

The support from Dell is probably the best part of it. On the Dell side, support is excellent, and we are very happy with the uptime as well.

It has helped us reduce unplanned production downtime. I would rate this benefit as a nine on a scale from one to ten.

Regarding the overall flexibility of our operations, Dell PowerEdge R-Series is flexible.

In my opinion, I would like to see Dell PowerEdge R-Series become smaller in size so it can fit more servers in our available space and allow us to take advantage of the real estate.

I understand that the licensing can be confusing, and I would prefer to see that aspect become simpler.

We have been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series in the company for going on five years, long before I started.

I would evaluate the customer service and technical support as an eight or a nine. Occasionally, depending on what part of the world the support staff are from and the language they speak, there is a minor language barrier at times, but regarding their technical ability, I do not have an issue.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerEdge R-Series, I was using another solution to address similar needs for the company, as I have used HP, Cisco UCS, and Dell in other places as well.

When we switched vendors in the past, it was primarily for price comparison and reputation.

I do not have specific examples regarding total cost of ownership, or TCO, but I understand what TCO is, and I would say the benefits are definitely there.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series with the AI workload, I am not certain what series they are running on, but we have our own version of ChatGPT inside, and it helps us get answers much quicker.

We have seen benefits from this implementation.

I would recommend that organizations considering Dell PowerEdge R-Series definitely compare similar types of hardware with other vendors and always do your homework. I would rate this review as a nine overall.

On-premises

My main use cases for it overall are mainly for hosting servers and various applications.

The features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series I like the most are the remote access and the iDRAC, just being able to remote into the backend when something's not working.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series helps my company because it saves us having to drive to our data center. If something's down, we can just remote in from the management port. We don't have to drive there. This saves time and we can get applications up faster.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series has helped to reduce unplanned production downtime. I would say unplanned downtime has been reduced by approximately 80%. The servers themselves are already pretty stable, and when there's an issue, we can remote in immediately.

Using Dell PowerEdge R-Series has affected the overall flexibility of my operations positively.

I don't think there's much I can speak to regarding how Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved; I feel that they are sufficient as is.

I've been using Dell PowerEdge R-Series as long as I can. I've only been with the city for three years, so that's as far as I know.

I have experience with customer service or technical support from Dell in the past, but I haven't recently.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerEdge R-Series, my company did not use another product.

From my point of view, I don't see a return on investment when using this product because I don't manage that, and I don't do the numbers. I can say that every place I've worked at has Dell servers, and that's what you do because they're the most reliable and the warranty and support is the best. I can't speak to it numbers-wise, but from a subjective point of view, I feel that it's helped the productivity of the business and the profit by being reliable.

We don't run AI workloads on Dell PowerEdge R-Series.

I can't speak to how using Dell PowerEdge R-Series has helped reduce my total cost of ownership because I don't know the numbers.

I'm not privy to insights on how the new Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers affect energy consumption. I don't monitor the consumption or anything regarding that.

I don't know how Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers impact my company's sustainability goals. That's not really my field of expertise.

I would rate Dell PowerEdge R-Series as a nine out of ten.

I don't have any advice for other companies considering this product, except to just get an iDRAC if you get a Dell server.

On-premises

Other