PowerEdge Tower Servers are renowned for their robust build quality and impressive array of features, which make them a popular choice amongst businesses of all sizes. This is mainly due to their ability to scale with the demands placed upon them, which can be highly beneficial to corporate users.
It’s a rare case where a single piece of technology can be so versatile and offer such diverse benefits, but the PowerEdge range certainly comes close. While you might typically associate these devices with large businesses or organizations, there’s no reason why you can’t deploy a PowerEdge server in your own home either.
Key Facts About PowerEdge Servers
You’ll find many facts and figures associated with PowerEdge servers, but one in particular stands out – 94% of Fortune 500 companies use them. Those are some stats to think about, given the popularity of these devices in such high-profile industries. It’s easy to see why so many businesses choose to trust their critical IT systems to PowerEdge – they’ve built a reputation for themselves as the ‘smart choice’ for businesses that need long-term stability and reliability.
These systems also offer great value for money, with many popular models selling for less than $2,500. While that’s certainly a significant investment, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever need to upgrade your IT hardware that frequently, meaning that in many cases, it’s definitely a worthwhile spending money on.
How Do PowerEdge Tower Servers Work?
If you’ve ever worked with a business-class router, you’ll be familiar with how they work. Essentially, these devices operate at the core of a company’s IT infrastructure, routing all the traffic between various devices (such as desktops, laptops, and mobile devices) to the correct destination, and ensuring that no data is lost along the way. Their software-defined networking capabilities also allow them to quickly and easily adapt to changes, ensuring that the network remains functional at all times.
Tower servers are essentially large-scale versions of a business class router, with multiple management interfaces making them simpler to use than their smaller desktop counterparts. What’s more is that they require less continuous maintenance, reducing the overall time needed to manage and operate a PowerEdge network. Finally, their high-capacity storage makes them ideal for use by larger businesses, where every byte counts – they’re essentially self-managing file servers, keeping track of all the data and serving it up when needed, without overloading your own PC’s with unnecessary tasks.
Security And Scalability
The key to making any investment work for you is by understanding how the technology works. In the case of a PowerEdge server, that means securing the device and the data within it. These devices are essentially bulletproof when configured properly, making it much easier to guarantee the integrity of your information stored on them. The scalability of the device also means you can add on additional units as your IT infrastructure grows, without having to undergo an extensive hardware replacement cycle.
When choosing a device for your business, consider all the relevant facts and figures about it, such as its processing power, speed, and the amount of storage it offers. If you need to worry about the security of your data or want to use the device in a diverse set of environments then look for models that come with safeguards against overheating and security breaches.
A Quick Tour Of The PowerEdge Tower Server
A PowerEdge server takes a bit of a different tack when it comes to its appearance – the units are much thicker and heavier than typical desktop or notebook PCs, coming in at a whopping 17.8 cm thick. That’s around 70% thicker than a typical PC case. And it’s not only in terms of size, as these devices are also more than 3 times as heavy as a typical PC case. What’s more is that the majority of the devices have smooth polished edges, contrasting sharply with the traditional PCs of today. But despite its hefty dimensions, the PowerEdge server is not unwieldy and is still, in fact, rather easy to move around.
The device has four interconnected metal feet which are designed to support it on an uneven surface – this makes the PowerEdge tower slightly more stable than your average PC when placed on a table or desk top. Despite its robust build quality, the PowerEdge server is still designed to be portable – it has a handle that allows for quick and easy transport, be it by hand or with the use of pallets or cranes.
The front of the device is dominated by a circular head, featuring a large fan which keeps the internals of the device at a comfortable temperature. The unit itself is rather unremarkable on the outside, simply featuring a strip of blue LEDs on the front which display the remaining charge on the unit’s battery.
A Closer Look At The Features
Despite its plain exterior, the PowerEdge server is packed full of useful and innovative features – let’s take an in-depth look at some of them.
Thunderbolt 3
One of the more prominent features of the PowerEdge server is its inclusion of a full-size PCIe x16 slot, which can support a maximum of 32 GB of RAM. While some users might not need that much RAM, the fact that this hardware could be upgraded in the future, should the need arise, is certainly a welcome bonus. And given Thunderbolt 3’s high bandwidth, its support by the device’s motherboard, and the fact that it’s bi-directional, it means that both data and power can be transferred at the same time – ideal for high-performance computing scenarios.
Linux
These devices are designed to operate Linux-based operating systems, which provides additional versatility since it means they can be used in a diverse range of environments. What’s more is that since these are open source platforms, you have the ability to download and install updates and patches as and when they become available, keeping your device’s software up-to-date and secure.
5G WiFi
While many mobile devices support 802.11ac, the 5G WiFi standard is much faster – boasting theoretical speeds of up to 500 Mbps, with actual speeds commonly reaching that level in practice. And since most mobile devices operate on batteries that are charged once or twice a week, it’s important that the WiFi connections are as quick and efficient as possible.
As a result, many businesses opt for WiFi 6, which provides a significant performance boost over previous generation WiFi standards. In many cases, devices supporting WiFi 6 will also support 802.11ax, the successor to WiFi which provides even further performance gains.
Scalable Memory
A significant downside to today’s typical PC is that they can become slow and sluggish as their storage grows – even SSDs (Solid State Drives) struggle to keep up with modern day PCs when they reach the 2TByte (Terabyte) mark. The solution? Memory scaling – allowing the user to add more RAM, an important consideration since RAM is rapidly becoming cheaper, and the performance benefits are considerable.
The PowerEdge server offers users a whopping 128 GB of RAM, along with a generous 2 TB of storage – ideal for those needing a high-performance computing environment.
Virtually Eliminates Downtime
In many cases, businesses will opt for redundant backups in order to protect their data from disasters such as fire, water damage, or hardware malfunction. While traditional approaches such as hard drives and optical drives provide fast and easy backups, they do require a certain amount of maintenance, meaning that eventually, they will fail.
When it comes to protecting data, nothing beats a good old-fashioned tape backup – the process of restoring data from tape is both time-consuming and cumbersome, meaning that ultimately, it’s often avoided, with businesses resorting to more expensive and time-consuming approaches, like replication or synced cloud storage.
With a PowerEdge server, all that changes – since these devices are backed by a full-fledged disk drive and offer near-instantaneous backup and restoration speeds, along with the flexibility to store as much data as you need, virtually eliminating the need for tape backups and the associated downtime.
Where Can I Buy One?
If your corporate environment is still on the hunt for a robust, feature-packed file server, then consider the PowerEdge range – you’ll be impressed by not only what this device can do, but also by its affordability, given its many useful applications in today’s world.