Thread: Dell - PowerEdge R410 review

There was a moment when servers were appealing much comparable, but no more. At the moment they're built to outfit particular markets, as with the rack-mount PowerEdge R410 which, according to producer Dell, has been intended with so-called High Performance Computing (HPC) in mind.

The HPC angle means fairly a few differences compared to an all-purpose server, starting with an astonishingly compact 1U chassis, a few three inches smaller than mainly rack-mount servers. Which is excellent as HPC servers be liable to be jam-packed jointly in high density data centres where all square inch of floor space, with the power as well as cooling to go with it, costs money?

As with all Nehalem-based systems, a few care is desired when it comes to denoting RAM. That's as the Xeon 5500 CPUs have self-determining memory controllers slightly than a shared frontside bus (FSB). As far as performance is anxious that means three memory channels for each CPU so the number of DIMMs built-in is an significant factor, the review server shipping with six 1GB DIMMs for utmost performance. Memory speed is also needy on the processors specified, with, for instance, the middle of the road L5506 Xeons in ours inadequate to 800MHz even though you can denote 1066MHz or else even 1333MHz RAM.

Management hasn't been abandoned, with Dell's innovative Lifecycle Controller, launched on the PowerEdge R610/R710 models, also built into the R410. Inclusive with devoted flash memory, this does away with the need for a setup CD-ROM, letting us to arrange the RAID controller on the review server as well as load up Windows without having to chase around for driver disks. A remote console is also included, with an advance to Dell's iDRAC6 management controller one more option. Plus there's a socket for an fixed Hypervisor, just like on larger Nehalem-powered PowerEdge servers.