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Dell enjoys a reputation for reliable and elegant hardware designs. Here's a close look at the Dell PowerEdge 1650 and 2650 third generation 1U and 2U servers.
All of my colleagues love Dell servers. I'm jealous because I always end up settling for commodity hardware, which is certainly cheap, but definitely lacking in elegance. On a recent visit to my alma mater, Sonoma State, I was shown a whole stack of Dell 2450s running Linux, serving pages for departmental Web sites. The staff told me that Dells are boring because they rarely break down. Building on such a reputation, this spring Dell shipped two zippy rack mounts-the PowerEdge 1650 (a 1U Web server) and the 2650 (a 2U). I decided to give them a whirl. The ones Dell sent me were preinstalled with Red Hat Linux 7.2 and its suite of popular open source server software.
Dell also offers Microsoft Windows 2000 options: Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Dell supplied a factory-install Windows NT Server 4.0 option for five years, but as of July 1, this option is no longer available. DNS and TripWire capabilities are available with Linux only. Dell adds a rapid deployment application and Web-based system management software to each operating system. If you actually read the instructions after opening the box, you can be serving pages in about ten minutes.
The 2650 is available with one or two Intel Xeons. The test unit had dual 2GHz CPUs. The 1650 uses one or two Pentium III processors, and our test unit had dual 1.13GHz CPUs.
the hardware
I've tested many rack mount servers based on generic commodity server parts, and I've noticed that system integrators usually have a hard time squeezing standard motherboards and power supplies into slim cases. Typically, they end up sacrificing features like redundant power or drive bay space.
Dell has historically worked around these limitations by designing its own motherboards and cases to integrate perfectly. With Dell machines, you don't need extra cables to connect drives and power supplies-everything snaps together. Dell's careful system designs result in hardware that's easy to work with.
Both servers cram an amazing collection of hardware features into a very small space. They both have removable Ultra SCSI drive...