Dell PowerEdge 2650

Got a new toy @ work today. A new server to be the new home of MS Exchange. It's a Dell PowerEdge 2650. Havent' turned it on yet, but have a few tid bits to share.

First, the rails are not as adaptable as the old rails. They don't extend as far, and are about 1mm too short to fit in the racks that have available space. They only fit in the Dell or Blackbox racks. Which are all full. EOL'ing a machine Wednesday on one of the BlackBox racks, so I have to wait until then and put this in it's place. Sucks to wait, but I've no shortage of other shit to do.

Second, the internals are way different. No longer are there SCSI ribbons connecting the backplane to the on-board SCSI or PCI RAID card, as was the case for the 2450 and 2550. If you have any of those, you know those ribbons were a pain to deal with. Instead, there is a plug at the base of the backplane which plugs directly into the edge of the MoBo. This concerns me a bit, as I like to run the system disks off of the PCI RAID card. But I'm limited to the DC3/I on-board RAID controller. Not a killer, but still a single point of failure. Seems silly to not at least have an OPTION to use a different controller.

Third, things are layed out wonderfully. There isn't a tight space to be found. The fattest of fingers could pull anything out. A tremendous improvement over the 2450 layouts.

Fourth, I hate the cover. The 2450 and 2550 both had a divided lid that folded out towards the sides. This wasn't a problem area. But now it's a single plate that is thumbscrewed from the front, must be slid back an inch, and lifted off. Gives better access, yes. But with the improvements to the MoBo layout, it wasn't needed. I dont' expect it to be as easy to slide out of the rack and get access to the innards as the older 2x50s. Maybe I'll grow to love it.

The front panel looks cool. New drive bays are much better for airflow. Has an LED panel, but since I haven't plugged it in yet, I don't know what it does. Can't see it in the photos on Dell's site, since they have the cover on. The rear panel is also much better logistically. KVM are all right next to each other. NICs are in the middle, as are the serial ports. Very clearly marked, and accessable.

I'll bring the camera in tomorrow and get some shots of the MoBo. It's worth looking at. Well, Rick might dig it. Not sure anyone else reading would care. :)

Posted by danisaacs at August 18, 2003 03:42 PM | TrackBack