Dell PowerEdge R815 review

No other server manufacturer offers this type of feature as HP and IBM still require boot media to load an OS. Along with a deployment wizard, the Dell controller also provides diagnostics and server update tools plus access to the servers’ settings.

There’s more as the iDRAC6 Enterprise management controller in the review system provides a dedicated network port and full remote access to the server. Dell also includes it Management Console software which provides automated discovery of all SNMP devices, inventory and system monitoring.

The R815 offers a completely tool–free internal design making for easy upgrades and maintenance. The motherboard has four banks of DIMM sockets and the front pair are accessed by releasing the hard disk bay and sliding it forward.

Cooling is handled by a row of six hot-swap fans in the centre of the chassis and the entire assembly can be removed after releasing clamps on each side. During testing we also found the R815 to be commendably quiet.

Expansion potential is very good as the server offers six PCI-e slots. You probably won’t need them all as the R815 already has quad embedded Gigabit ports and the RAID card has its own dedicated slot as well.

In the extensive server benchtests we ran in PC Pro we saw that AMD’s Opteron 6100 kept pace with Intel’s new 5600 Xeon and at the lower end of the market can hold its own against the 6500 and 7500 Xeons as well.

Add in the fact that the PowerEdge R815 costs less than half that of an equivalent Xeon 7500 server and you have a serious candidate for SMBs looking to consolidate their older servers.