Review: Dell PowerEdge T310 Tower Server

Another day, another server to review. This time I’m looking at a tower server that is likely more of a small business powerhouse. This time, I would be replacing another Dell server that was long on years and short on reliability. While reviewing the PowerEdge T310 server, I’ll let you know what I liked, what wasn’t so great and provide any suggestions I have for Dell for general improvements.

As shipped, here are the specifications of the server:

CPU: Intel Xeon Processor X3440 (8M Cache, 2.53 GHz)
Physical Drives: 3 x 1 TB SATA
RAM: 8 GB RDIMM
RAID Configuration: RAID 5
No Operating System (Server 2003 Planned)

The Good

• Based on what I was doing
• I wanted to use Windows Server 2003 R2. I checked the Drivers page for the server and found driver support for 2003 - so, naturally I expect the install CD to include support for 2003 Server, and it did.
• The build CD worked as expected, including this kind of thing with a server saves allot of time looking for controller drivers for setup.
• The T310 was tasked with running an older version of SQL Server (2000 SP4) and the speed of the DBMS was noticeably faster on this server. I was more than mildly impressed with how nice the T310 performed across the board.

Annoyances

• The system build CD was included, but the system didn’t boot to it immediately. because there was no OS, I had to change the boot order or select the CD
• There were two virtual disks setup in the BIOS - one 64 GB and one of 1.7 TB - the 64 GB (Boot) was the second drive.. I wanted to do this the other way around and had to swap the virtual disks in the BIOS.
• At times the server was quite loud. The back case fan seem to be the main culprit for the noise, but I would think Dell had found a way to keep this kind of noise under control.

Ideas

• One thing I thought would be cool is if Dell created some kind of short link to the Driver and Downloads page for ever machine. What about just http://dell.com/%SERVICECODE% - this could really speed the process of setting up a machine and making sure all drivers and BIOS updates are setup.
• Another thing I’m not fond of is that the build CD requires a very specific version of operating system - right down to the service pack. If you want Server 2003 x64 - you’ll need the R2, SP2 CD, there is no flexibility there. Though the CDs aren’t hard to get - more options or compatibility with a wider range of Operating System versions would be helpful.

Final Thoughts

The PowerEdge T310 is definitely a capable and powerful server for the Small Business looking to replace a production server with more power and reliability. Despite some annoyances, I found the server to be a smooth setup process and, once configured, runs well enough to handle an office of up to 30 users without issue.