Dell PowerEdge R620 review

When Dell launched its PowerEdge R610, we rated it as the best-designed 1U rack server. In this exclusive review, we look at the 12th-generation PowerEdge R620, which crams even more processing power and features into the smallest of rack spaces.

The R620 is aimed firmly at virtualisation, but also has a sharp focus on HPC and workgroup applications. Along with support for the entire Xeon E5-2600 family of CPUs, it offers a high memory capacity, making it well suited to any of these tasks.

Virtualisation gets another boost with Dell’s optional dual SD memory card controller. It’s been redesigned, and fits into a slot at the back, where it keeps an onboard copy of the primary boot media in case of failure.

The base system supports four, six or eight hot-swap SFF hard disks and there’s a choice of SAS 2, SATA III, nearline SAS and SSDs. The ten-bay model has a deeper chassis of 756mm, and uses a small LED diagnostics panel on one side to make room for two extra bays. A third chassis offers four SSF drive bays and two hotplug PCI Express Flash SSDs. These are available in 175GB and 350GB capacities, and use a full-length PCI Express bridge card for connection to the server.

The RAID options start with an embedded PERC S110 controller. This low-cost option supports software-managed stripes, mirrors and RAID5 arrays in Windows for up to four SATA II drives. The review system came with the new PERC H710P Mini card. This snaps into a dedicated slot, has 512MB of cache and an integral battery backup pack, and supports up to RAID6 for 6Gbits/sec SAS and SATA drives.

Removing the lid reveals a cunning design, with not one iota of space wasted. The drive backplane is cabled directly to an eight-port SAS connector, tucked in next to the H710P RAID card. The processor sockets are fitted with small heatsinks, allowing Dell to include a total of 24 DIMM slots. Cooling is handled by a bank of seven compact hot-swap fan modules. Despite the packed interior, we found the server quiet.

The review system came equipped with a pair of 2.9GHz Xeon E5-2690 CPUs. These high-end eight-core beasts have a large 20MB of L3 cache, and support Intel’s Hyper-Threading, giving a total of 32 logical cores. They have a high 135W TDP, which revealed itself in our tests. With Windows Server 2008 R2 in idle, we measured a draw of 115W, but under maximum load from SiSoft Sandra, this rose to 420W.

The system was supplied with a pair of 750W hotplug supplies, but Dell also offers 495W models for lighter duties or high-power 1,100W supplies. Expansion options don’t disappoint, with three PCI Express Gen 3 slots free.

Network choices abound. At the rear of the motherboard is space for a daughtercard, and this can accommodate quad-port Intel or Broadcom Gigabit modules. Our review unit wasn’t as well equipped, with an Intel dual 10GBase-T/dual Gigabit module that includes fibre channel over Ethernet (FCoE) offload on the 10GbE ports. The 10GbE NICs generate heat, but Dell has this covered. The module has an onboard copper heatsink that extends to a radiator matrix for dissipating heat.

The new iDRAC7 remote-management controller and its slick web interface puts Dell ahead of HP and its iLO 3. Along with plenty of operational information, it provides improved power-monitoring features, with graphs showing current consumption in addition to historical data.

It’s all change with the iDRAC7 Enterprise upgrade, as the vFlash slot and dedicated management port are embedded. Previously, the iDRAC6 upgrade required a snap-in module, but all that’s required now is a licence key to activate remote control, the network port and vFlash slot.

Dell’s system setup interface has been spruced up. It’s separated into sections for configuring the server, the iDRAC7 controller, and other devices such as the network ports and RAID controller.

The PowerEdge R620 sets new standards for server design, offering an unbeatable range of features and remarkable expansion potential. The review system is great value, too; HP and IBM are going to have their work cut out to deliver a better 1U rack server than the R620.

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