Dependable Performance, difficult price
Written: Aug 21 '01 (Updated Aug 21 '01)
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Pros: Customizable, Fast, brand name hardware, rack mountable
Cons: cable issues, cable arm is weak, face plate is more useful when broken off
The Bottom Line: A great server that offers a mix of reliability, performance, support albeit at a high cost. Are the benifits worth the cost for you?
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| clocks's Full Review: Dell PowerEdge 6400 |
Having worked with 15 of these servers in the data center (having rack mounted, installed, and configured 8 of them over a 3 month period), I am very thankful for Dell's obvious planning, thought to real-life design, and comprehensive support or I am not quite sure where Manugistics would be today as far as Application Hosting is concerned.
The Dell PowerEdge 6400 is an enterprise application server solution for large businesses which have high processing and data storage requirements. Of the 15 Dell Poweredge 6400 Servers we have distributed amongst 3 racks and miscellaneous shelving, most follow the same configuration utilizing quad Xeon processors ranging from 700MHz to 1GHz each. Packed with 8 36GB hard drives, 4 gigabytes of RAM each, dual double-port NIC cards, integrated PERC 2SC or 2DC SCSI and RAID support. We usually set up the server so that volumes 1 and 2 are set up RAID 1 (mirroring), the next 5 set up as a striped set, and the last used as a hot-swappable drive. Though each chanel on the perc scsi controller can support 9 devices, one device is used by the controller itself so in reality you can only put 8 devices on a channel of the scsi controller.
Each of our servers has been leased for around $500 a month which is more cost efficient for our needs then paying the $10K+ price tag for each of our configured servers. Unpacking and phsyical installation is not much of a problem though rack mounting often requires two people due to the weight and complications of mounting the server on the Dell Rack kits. There are these little green and orange levers that have to be pushed to move the tray into place on the rack after you place the rivets into the designated holes on each side of the mounting tray sliders. This can sometimes be a difficult task, particularly when placing the server higher up on a rack.
Installation and configuration is a multistep process, first beginning with the installation of the Dell Utility partition. After that, you have to go into the bios and put the computer into install mode which limits the computer hardware from reporting more than 256 MB or ram which allows a windows nt or windows 2000 installation to proceed smoothly. You can then install the windows 2000 or NT installation. That is where you can encounter a small problem: because we have so many dell servers, each having some small difference in configuration due to either client preference or task customization, we have several hundred disks because each server ships with about 15 floppy disks with the drivers to load the SCSI/RAID drivers in Windows. Searching through these to find the right disk is time consuming and a pain.
When the installation is completed, then you can begin to take advantage of many of the features that a Dell Poweredge 6400 offers. After the Intel NIC drivers are loaded, a system administrator can configure the NIC load balancing to divide up the 4 nic connections either 4 subnets, 3, 2, or all to the same subnet. Which is nice if you have a server that needs to be accessed by more than one department. In addition, if the main use of the server is all to one logical area, you can run more than one NIC dedicated to that area in order to share the load between NICs and speed overall access.
Our Poweredge servers, to this point, have been extremely reliable workhorses for our company, providing application services with maximal fault tolerance and the minimum number of flaws out of the box. Out of 15 servers, you have a total of 120 hard drives, 15 SCSI controllers, 60 GB or RAM, nd 30 NIC cards. Out of all these servers, the only parts which were bad out of the box were two hard drives and one scsi controller which Dell replaced and shipped immediately.
Dell's service to this point has been excelent, providing comprehensive support for a multitude of degrees of support from administrator self-help via the web, to call in service for more advanced problems that cannot be solved immediately. Warrenty service has been excellent, they have covered all service that we have requested in the warrenty service contract's time period and have been competent and supportive. While sometimes there is a high traffic volume and you are unable to get through to support right away, dell offers a premiere support site at premiersupport.dell.com that I have used often, downloading drivers, searching the knowlege base, looking up warrenty information, getting system configuration information by sevice tag, checking on support status, among other things. Dell has gone to great lengths and expense to ensure that all of its workstations and servers are well and properly supported by the Dell company.
Working with these servers has not been all roses, however. There are several minor flaws in the actual server construction that one needs to keep in mind when considering using one of these servers. The first problem on a Dell server is that there are a large number of cables in the back of the machine that need to be dealt with. You have three power cables, 4 NIC cables, a cable each for keyboard, monitor, and mouse (we have KBM cables that condense these three), and any addon cables for SCSI drives, etc. Dell has built a metal cable management arm that comes with the server for the purpose of helping to organize these cables. While it does render some basic assistance, the cantilevered design and arm itself is too cheap and takes up more space that it is worth. It does more harm that good when one is trying to access the back of a server that needs to be looked at.
Besides the cable problems, the plastic covering on the front of the server which covers up the power and reset buttons, cdrom, and floppy drives is another cheap part which also does not stay shut. All it takes is a light brush against it for it to come open and clip you as you walk by. For that reason, we often just rip the cover off and keep it stored in case we terminate the lease and have to send the server back.
Another huge obstacle to be considered is that the Poweredge 6400, especially with the configuration that we have, is the not-so-proud owner of a mammoth price tag which will weigh down the annual budgets of many an IT department if your try to purchase the server outright. Even if you lease the server, $500 / mo is not exactly a bargain deal and can hurt an IT departments budget considerably.
This server offers its users a solid feature base, reliable performace, easy installation, and breakthrough service support but has a price tag that will be more than a formidible barrier for most. Unfortunately, the prohibitive cost is not an obstacle that can particularly be gotten around and for that reason, this server will only be used by true large enterprise networks which have a high need for application hosting capablilites.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
clocks
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Member: Wayne Frazee
Location: Panama City Beach, FL
Reviews written: 100
Trusted by: 50 members
About Me:
I am an IT Manager for a game development company in Panama City Beach, FL.
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