Dell hits back at "HP FUD"

See HP rubbishes Dell's server strategy.

Thanks for an interesting article on our competitors FUD, now we know what to expect from the soon to be #2 computer manufacturer in the world.

However, there are some points I feel should make:

1. Availability:
Ordering - May 2002
Delivering - June 2002
We're shipping these [Poweredge 2650 servers] now, at least in EMEA. And I don't think our Texan colleagues are late either! Lead time is around five days.

2. Warranty and Support
yadayadayada.. (No, seriously: We know we have room for improvement, but who doesnt?)

Funny thing is, they don't menton that Dell has the most satisfied customers of all, according to TBR.

And I haven't seen any independent study showing anything else in HPs favour?

3. Weaknesses of the PowerEdge 2650

The Dell PowerEdge 2650 is a deep rack server, designed for Dell's 1000 mm deep racks. In fact, with a rack-mountable chassis of 3.375" (8.5725cm) H x 19.00" (48.26cm) W x 27.50" (69.85cm) D, the PowerEdge 2650 is over 2" deeper than the DL380 G2.

It will fit in all Dell, HP and Compaq racks, as well as most other "non-telco" racks. (2 and 4 post rails for 3rd party racks are available.)

4. The PowerEdge 2650 has 500-watt power supplies versus the 400-watt power supplies of the ProLiant DL380G2. Considering the DL380 G2 rarely comes close to 400 watts, the measurable power consumption difference is likely to be even greater, meaning that many customers would not be able to take advantage of this product's performance/density combination.

I'm no electrician, but a greater powersupply doesn't necessarily demand more power? And won't a owersupply that's running on near maximum capacity (400W) be more likely to fail due to the simple fact that it's closer to it's limit? Anyway, if you want a rack with 42 Xeon processors, you'll probably want to make sure you have enough power available to your server room.

5. The 2U machine does not support Sun Solaris or SCO UnixWare while the ProLiant DL380 G2 supports Windows 2000/NT, Linux, Novell Netware AS WELL AS Sun Solaris and SCO UnixWare.

Dell installs OSes according to our customers needs, please contact your Dell Representative and have him/her put you in touch with the Dell Custom Engineering Department. The SCO-Unix part is not correct, we will support Caldera v5, UW7 and v8 sometime during June/July.)

6. This is a new product for Dell. Historically PowerEdge Servers have tremendous problems after the deployment of new products in both the hardware and software resulting from inadequate testing. Dell depends on customer complaints to prompt patches and change the faulty design.

Dell's Direct model enables us to react promptly to customer feedback, however this doesn't meen that we have more issues than others, we simply react faster. (See #2 Warranty and Support)

7. Dell's PowerEdge 2650 has limited expandability. The 2650 only has a maximum of 5 drives, resulting in a limited amount of internal storage and uptime. The ProLiant DL380 G2 has a maximum of 6 drives.

True, but if it's that kind of storage capacity you need, perhaps we should look at the PowerEdge 4600? Or an external Disk enclosure? We build the servers according to the customers needs, and there are very few of them who use more than two drives in rack-dense servers. (RAID 1, some chose an extra pair for RAID 10 in disk intensive enviroments, but the raw disk capacity is usually not an issue in this segment of the market - just look at the number of 2550s we sold...)

8. Historically, the mechanicals on the PowerEdge servers tend to be sub-optimal. (For example, there are no full-length slots available in the PowerEdge 1550 if there are 2 processors installed). As a result, there is a good chance that the customer would have to sacrifice something to implement the battery-backed write cache. More information here as we have a chance to take a look first-hand.

I'll get back to you if they come up with something relevant. I can't believe they send this rubbish to customers, what are they thinking?

9. The Embedded Remote Access (ERA) is inferior to the Remote Lights Out Edition (RILOE) Card. The ERA has no seamless graphical remote console access. The graphical access requires drivers and is available only when OS is running. ERA is not supported on NetWare and Linux. ERA does not offer customizable accounts, has weak security, and no SSL for HTTP port and data stream encryption in remote console.

Some of this will be supported in a future (firmware) upgrade, based on customer feedback. (How come they don't mention the hopless refresh rate on their GUI, it's like working on an old passive matrix LCD...) Again: See #2...

10. Customers must purchase the memory and battery to enable the PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller (PERC 3/Di, embedded) at a cost of $299. The "embedded" controller solution on the PowerEdge 2650 is not transportable, and therefore, would not help in the event of a system board failure.

Why have a feature embedded if your customers don't need it? Some customers prefere not to have RAID on their servers, and since we build to order, we can accomodate their wishes as well as the ones who want RAID. Now: If you want RAID, you have the choice of a low cost, basic data protection, or a high end solution, with an high speed PCI solution.

11. Our preliminary testing has shown that the performance of the 2.2GHz Xeon processors used in the PowerEdge 2650 is similar to that of the 1.4GHz processors used in the ProLiant DL380 G2.

Yeah right... why will they even bother launching a Xeon based server in Q3 then? Anyway, take look at these pages to see some real tests of these t-processor systems: Dell PE2650: SPECweb99 = 4130
http://www.spec.org/osg/web99/results/res2002q2/web99-20020415-00188.html

Compaq Proliant DL380 G2:SPECweb99 = 3121 (1,13GHz - no newer tests - chickens!)
http://www.spec.org/osg/web99/results/res2001q3/web99-20010816-00135.html

HP server rp5470: SPECweb99 = 2507
http://www.spec.org/osg/web99/results/res2001q4/web99-20011210-00160.html

Compaq Alphaserver ES45 2-cpu:SPECweb99 = 2598
http://www.spec.org/osg/web99/results/res2001q4/web99-20011210-00159.html

I was unable to find a test of any two-way server (Intel & RISC) that could beat the 2650 - The king of the hill!

12. On-card battery is unreliable as it provides only 30-minute access and is prone to frequent failures.

Does the "Unreliable battery" feature also apply to the batteries on HP's RAID solutions, do HP have a pact with the battery producers of the world, or is it just desperation that makes them come up with this? I'd be very interested in some background facts about failing batteries on Dell Remote Access Solutions..

13. RILOE ships with an AC-adapter that provides 24X7 reliable access to server.

This doesn't eliminate the need for a battery, if the power fails, a solution with a battery will have time to send an error message to the administrator!

14. The Dell solution has batteries that are non-transportable, have only 48 hours of charge, and a life of 3 years.

The ProLiant DL380 G2 has a battery-backed cache that can protect data for up to 4 days with 72 hours of transportable charge.

See 10. (We have different solutions, for different customer needs, even RAID controllers with transportable RAM...)

The ProLiant DL380 G2 has 2 embedded 10/100 NICs, and Gbit capability can be added via one of Compaq's award winning PCI-based NIC solutions.

Yeah, but why pay extra for this feature? And what if you need those PCI slots for other purposes?