As part of the official Intel Xeon E3-1200 V5 release, Dell today released four new servers based on the Skylake Xeon E3. For rackmount applications there are the Dell PowerEdge R230 and Dell PowerEdge R330 13th generation servers. As for tower form factors Dell has released the PowerEdge T330 and T130. All of the servers seem to be based on the Intel C236 chipset, so Dell is not using the lower-end and lower cost Greenlow chipsets in their servers. This extends even to Dell’s cost optimized PowerEdge T130 servers.
Rackmount Servers
The Dell PowerEdge R230 is a successor to the PowerEdge R220 we previously reviewed. It is a 1U short depth rackmount server that can handle up to four 3.5″ hot swap drives.
The Dell PowerEdge R330 rackmount server is a higher-end Skylake Xeon offering that offers support for up to eight hot swap 2.5″ drives.
With the prominence of low cost SATA storage and the now 8x onboard SATA III ports the Intel C236 PCH provides, this allows for more 6gbps SATA drives without utilizing a PERC controller. That lowers overall system costs as well as power consumption over previous models.
Tower Servers
The Intel Xeon E3-1200 V5 series is well suited to provide low noise server platforms for small offices. With low power consumption, slower rotating fans can keep the server running cool and quiet. Dell has two new Skylake Xeon tower models, the higher-end of which is the PowerEdge T330 tower server. It has eight front hotswap 2.5″ drive bays which can accept hard drives or solid state drives. It also offers a wide array of expansion options.
In our opinion, the Dell PowerEdge T330 looks very sharp, although for our deployments we would opt for the rackmount versions.
Filling the gap for cost optimized platforms, the Dell PowerEdge T130 can be purchased for well under $550.
One can see nice features included such as the slim optical drive, front USB ports and and even a tool-less chassis locking mechanism on the left side of the tower.
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