This little server is an excellent value. It appears that Dell is shooting directly at the Lenovo TS140 market, and with this one they hit a bullseye!
Specific likes:
Comes well packed in a typical Dell shipping box.
Includes 4 GB ECC RAM (not that you will leave it that way, but it gives you a baseline and a way to make sure it posts straight out of the box)
Nice fit and finish, particularly at this price point.
Quiet!
Good internal cable management.
Decent expandability for a server this size, up to 4 3.5" drives with snap-in plastic caddies included and 2 2.5" drives, although there are only 4 SATA ports on the board, so you will need an add on card for 6 drives.
Good compatibility with Windows Server 2012 R2. No additional drivers were necessary during the install, it even recognized the Intel software RAID array.
Also worked fine with Ubuntu 16.04, no hardware detection issues. I didn't try the software RAID.
Flexible memory options. In critical usage, use ECC RAM, but for less demanding requirements plain DDR3L works fine.
Dislikes:
Only 1 NIC onboard. Not a big deal, since there are PCIe slots, but still.....
Funky power supply plugs. If you are going to use these in an importatant role you will need to either have a spare power supply on hand or an adapter cable, so you can swap out a bad supply quickly. To be fair, the Lenovo TS 140 also uses non-standard power supply connectors.
No hot-swap bays and no way to add any. Cold drive swaps only take a minute or so due to tool-less drive caddies though.
Overall, an impressive small server which in my view, pulls slightly ahead of the Lenovo TS 140 in overall value.
Wow. Cant beat this for a mini server. Here is what I have learned some the hard way. Don't waist you time with the newer T30. I went down this road already and ordered on from DELL and returned it. First off Dell is hard to deal with. the T30 is only as dual core vs. this 4 core although a bit faster I need the extra cores as I'm running VMware's ESXi and going to be running many apps so the more procs. the better for me. This has a DVD drive also and the T30 does not. Not that that is really a big deal though but handy. Plus this is about $50 cheaper and you get to get it faster from Amazon with no hassle if there is an issue.
A couple of lessons learned with this guy if your going to install VMware. You will need to add RAM as the built in 4Gb will only show up as usable 3.97Gb and VMware will not install(yes there are some work arounds for this but not worth the bother). I installed ESXi V 6.5. I bought 2 8 Gb Dimms to bring me up to 16Gb. Jettison the 4 Gb dim. I tried to use it with the 2 new 8Gb ones and it was recognized but it seemed unstable and was not worth the extra 4G. Also if your going to use VMware the built in raid controller will not be recognized. I learned this one the hard way too trying to add a drive to set up raid 1 for a little redundancy. I would need to spend another, what, $100 bucks. Ill just return the extra drive I bought since this is really for a lab anyways but for you if it is a production server you may consider doing that. I hear the built in raid will work fine if you just installing something like Windows Server.
The good stuff though is it runs super quiet, is really light weight and super affordable for my purpose. Running a combination of Linux and Windows server based apps on the VM. Took me a while to get every thing figured out but I'm super happy so far. Some have said this is just a glorified desktop but I have not seen any desktops with Xeon processors so this is a true server just super mini with some limitations but if you looking for something small and don't need extreme horse power its a steal. It is fast though for what it is. Hope this post will be helpful to someone as it would have to me. I'm not an IT Guy but do a lot of tinkering so don't give me to hard of a time:)
This is absolutely great mini-server for home use. I was considering Synology NAS with Raid10 configuration but ended up with this Poweredge toy for about one third the price intended for NAS.
It has 4 SATA ports on the board, if you need to expand storage you will have to install one of those add-on cards. I added a card with eSata port and hooked one of the RAID enclosures.
Ubuntu 16.04 installation was flawless. For some reason software RAID was performing better than a "hardware RAID" options. I am not an IT pro so I just measured power consumption with Kill-A-Watt with 6 simultaneous streams to TV and hand held devices (using Plex server). It was about 3-5% more efficient with "software" RAID option. Not a lot more, but if you have kids constantly streaming, then you can eventually save enough coins on electricity for a couple cans of beer.
One tip is definitely to upgrade RAM. Server comes with 4GB what is already ok, but if you want to boost performance, then definitely go for an extra RAM,
Overall, it is a perfect machine that you can configure to you needs.
This is a nice computer to use as an IP camera server and DVR. I was getting too many cameras on my main computer and the CPU was struggling to keep up. This server handles all of the feeds with ease. It's quiet too, so no loud fan noises when it's running.
The kit is missing the DVD drive cover so if you need to remove the DVD drive to make room for 2.5" hard drives, you will have a hole in the front panel to invite dust in. I tried to contact Dell via LIVE CHAT to see if I could get one (or to find out if it is well hidden in the case or shipping box somewhere) but was told my the first representative that the department that could help me in getting the would not be open for another two hours so I will have to try again at another time.
On a follow-up contact, I learned that a DVD drive cover is not available but the entire front panel for the case is for sale (under US$60.00) and it includes the DVD drive cover (it's the one for the other model without optical drive) so my advice for those maxing out internal storage is to place an order for a T20 without the optical drive and boot from USB flash drive when you need to install your OS.
The Windows USB/DVD Download Tool is great to rip an ISO file of your OS to a USB Flash drive. Another option is to use a portable USB drive such as the Pioneer Electronics USA Slim External Blue-Ray Writer (BDR-XU03) to install or burn data.
Feature Product
- Dell Poweredge T20 Mini-tower Server - 1 X Intel Xeon E3-1225 V3 Quad-core (4 Core) 3.20 Ghz - 1 Processor Support - 4 Gb Standard/32 Gb Ddr3 Sdram Maximum Ram - 1 Tb Hdd - Serial Ata Controller - 1 X 290 W
Description
small Office/home Office - An Excellent First Server, Packing Large Internal Storage Capacity And Capable Performance Into A Compact, Quiet Mini Tower Chassis That Delivers Efficient, Worry-free Operation.
This is a great entry to mid level server at a great price. As configured it is a decent entry level rig. It is also very upgrade-able. Buying this and upgrading is much cheaper than buying a custom configured PowerEdge from Dell's site.
I added a SSD for the system drive and database files.
I also added two more 1TB drives to create a RAID 5 array for files, images, and videos. This is all running off the built-in power supply. At the time of writing this review, the cheapest 1 TB Toshiba drives on Amazon are the same model that are included in this machine, if you want to buy matching drives for RAID.
I will be upgrading the RAM to 32 GB soon as we begin to host lots of remote desktop sessions in the upcoming months.
With 2-3 remote desktops hosted plus MySQL and files sharing with 10-15 users, this processor doesn't even go above about 10-20% usage. Memory is about 25% used. Performance has been great.
If you plan to install a server video card, check the power requirements. The built-in power supply is not very beefy.
Running Server 2016 Essentials. 20 GB RAM. Quality Server. Well made. Sexy case.
Our computer is back up and running! Arrived quickly and works well
Not a bad utility server or workstation. It does not have any of the diagnostic hardware in it that Dell's higher end PE's have.
Server came as specified. Easy to install an OS on. Additional Ram was very easy to install as well.
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