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It's not the fastest kid on the block, but is very economical.
In the midmarket rack optimized server market, performance and features are the battle cry, but Dell seems to have taken a different approach with its PowerEdge 2550 server. Price appears to be its differentiator. Dell packaged moderate performance and a respectable amount of features into a relatively economical package.
Dell began shipping the PowerEdge 2550 in March. It's a two-rack-unit, two-processor server that's a refresh of the older PowerEdge 2450 but with more PCI slots and a new motherboard. Since August, Dell has been shipping a 1.13GHz and 1.26GHz version. It also has a 933MHz model of the 2550.
Performance
The PowerEdge 2550 earned a respectable 4.2 for performance. This score lands the server in the middle of the performance battle between the faster Compaq DL380 and the slower Hewlett-Packard LP2000r. (See www.nwfusion.com, DocFinder: 5648 for the Compaq review, DocFinder: 5425 for the HP reviews).
The PowerEdge 2550's 1-GHz processors pushed it in front of the HP LP2000r, but were slightly behind the DL380.
Network performance was good as well. It clearly beat the HP LP2000r, but again came in behind the Compaq. The Compaq's 66-MHz 64-bit PCI slots likely helped it outpace the Dell box, which only has 33-MHz 64-bit PCI slots.
In file performance, the server came in behind HP and Compaq. The RAID hardware on the motherboard provides the convenience of RAID in an economical package, but it doesn't necessarily provide the best performance.
Features
The 2550 had an average feature set. Not great, but for the price, it's hard to argue. The Dell unit costs a little more...