Dell PowerEdge T110 II review

Dell’s PowerEdge T110 II is aimed squarely at small businesses looking for their first purpose-built server. Prices start at only £332 exc VAT for a basic system, with a dual-core Intel Pentium processor, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard disk, no operating system and a one-year on-site NBD warranty.

As with all Dell systems, however, there’s a huge amount of flexibility when it comes to specification. The top-of-the-range system we tested ships with a quad-core 3.4GHz Xeon E3-1270 and 32GB of RAM, increasing the cost to around £1,500 exc VAT.

You can cut costs by purchasing without an OS, but Dell sells the entry-level T110 II with Windows Server 2008 R8 Foundation for £325, or the same system with 8GB of RAM and Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 Standard for £895.

Foundation has some limitations: it supports a single processor socket and a maximum 8GB of RAM, and supports a maximum of 15 Windows user accounts. As we explain in our guide to Small Business Server 2011 Standard, it has many obvious benefits to small businesses.

The T110 II is small enough to fit under a desk, although it’s best kept off the floor where it will suck up dust. The side panel is removed by pushing back a locking lever on the top panel, and this can be padlocked shut. The hole on the locking tab can accept a security cable, to stop the server itself being stolen.

The internals are tidy, with good access to all key components. Up to four hard disks can be mounted in a cage at the front, with each drive fitted in an easily removable plastic carrier. Dell provides combined power/interface cables next to each bay.

Drive controller options start with the embedded PERC S100 controller, which requires the hard disks to be cabled directly to the motherboard’s SATA interfaces. This supports striped, mirrored and RAID5 arrays, and is sufficient for most small businesses. More demanding enterprises can opt for the PERC S300 PCI Express card included in our test system, which costs £73 exc VAT and supports 3Gbits/sec SAS, near-line SAS and SATA hard disks, or the H200 PCI Express card (£90 exc VAT) that supports high-performance 6Gbits/sec SAS drives, but not RAID5.

The processor sits in the centre of the motherboard under a large passive heatsink. This and the four memory sockets above are covered by a plastic shroud with a fan at the rear, and the airflow also cools the hard disks. The large cooling fan makes very little noise.

Connectivity-wise, there’s a single Gigabit Ethernet port along with an eSATA port for extra storage and six external USB 2 ports. Inside, there’s room to expand through three empty PCI Express slots and a spare 5.25in drive bay.

Management options are more basic than with Dell’s higher-end PowerEdge servers, as the motherboard only has an embedded BMC (baseboard management controller). It shares access with the network port and can be accessed remotely using Dell’s IPMISH command line utility, but this only lets you control server power.

You also get the Windows-based OpenManage Server Administrator, which provides local and remote web browser access. It doesn’t have features such as KVM-over-IP remote control or power usage monitoring, but you can view temperatures, voltages and cooling fan speeds. It can also issue alerts when problems are detected.

With a low-power Xeon E3 in the driving seat, the T110 II is easy on the power. We clocked the review system drawing only 38W when idle, rising to 110W under pressure. With figures like that, the T110 II is a worthy candidate for a first server. It’s well built, has plenty of room to expand and deserves its slot on the PC Pro A-List.

AUTHOR: Dave Mitchell

This is a shortened review, adapted from the original published in PC Pro, issue 205. To view the original, visit http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/servers/369607/dell-poweredge-t110-ii