Dell PowerEdge T20 review

There are plenty of options for small businesses in need of shared storage, from subscription-based cloud services to all manner of NAS devices. However, when it comes to versatility, ease of upgrading and the ability to add software features, your own server is often the best of all worlds. The Dell PowerEdge T20 is an entry-level model, aimed primarily at small businesses that want to organise and consolidate their data into a single storage location.

The T20 is priced and specified accordingly, and is currently available from as little as £219, excluding VAT and delivery. That’s a low price, but you must think about the components you choose, as the base specification doesn’t include hard disks.

OPTIONS

Our review system is specified a little more highly. We specified two hard disks, for instance, so that we could create a RAID array and protect our data. If one drive fails the data will be preserved on the second. When you replace the damaged drive, its contents will be synchronised with the remaining disks in your array. If you’re using a server for important data and projects, RAID is a vital element in protecting you against data loss through hardware failure. Our server’s two 1TB hard disks can be combined into a 1TB RAID volume.

We also opted for a quad-core 3.1GHz Intel Xeon E3-1225 processor. A faster processor often produces faster file transfer speeds, and the Xeon E3-1225 opens up a wide range of options for use and the operating systems you can run smoothly. A quad-core processor, for instance, is ideal for virtualisation. If you install VMware ESX on your server, you can then run one or more virtualised operating systems so that you can run multiple virtual servers from a single machine. The ease with which you can move and copy virtual servers, which are hardware independent by definition, has made them increasingly popular.

Our review server is equipped with just 4GB of RAM, though, and we’d prefer more as 4GB isn’t enough memory to run ESX or even Microsoft’s Small Business Server comfortably. However, popular Linux server distributions such as Novell OpenSUSE and Ubuntu Server work well with 4GB. You can specify your server at the time of purchase with 4GB or 8GB of ECC RAM, and it can take a maximum of 32GB. Unlike regular desktop memory, ECC (Error Checking & Correction) memory can detect and correct single- and multi-bit errors that could potentially crash a server or corrupt data. ECC RAM is vital if you need your server to work as reliably as possible and stay working, so is probably worth the investment.

INTERNALS

The T20’s mini tower case looks very smart. It’s a free-standing server of essentially the same kind of chassis design as you’d find in a desktop system, but its near-silent rear and CPU cooling fans make it very quiet during most operations. Even the fans’ initial spin-up to full speed is just a muted whirr rather than the jet-turbine roar associated with many servers. The case echoes and magnifies the sounds of disk activity, but not to deafening a degree.

The interior is well laid out, but the finish on some of the case’s bare metal innards was a little rough. Instead of a couple of 5 1/4in drive bays at the top, there are two vacant 3 1/2in bays. There are another two 3 1/2in bays, each loaded with a 1TB hard disk, at the bottom. Optional mounting brackets are available if you specify 2 1/2in disks with your server, but not included by default. There’s also space for a slimline disc drive at the very top of the front panel.

Our review machine came fitted with a 1TB Seagate Barracuda hard disk and a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue disk. Neither is enterprise-class when it comes to durability, but one of the advantages of a RAID array is that you don’t have to worry too much about any one disk failing. It’s worth noting that Dell doesn’t guarantee any particular brand when you buy disks, though, just the quality and speed.

Although the case is deeper than your average desktop midi tower, the positioning of the MicroATX motherboard relative to the bottom drive cage means you won’t be able to take advantage of the extra depth. PCI-E cards have 265mm of space before they grind against the cage, which rules out full-length hardware telephony cards and using giant graphics cards to run high-speed calculations.

The E93839 motherboard has two PCI-E x16 slots, one of which is full speed and other of which runs at x4, as well as PCI-E x1 slot and a PCI slot. PSU is a basic 290W model, so bear that in mind before planning any power-hungry upgrades.

There are four DDR3 memory slots, one of which is in use, four SATA2 ports and two SATA3 ports. The mid-board USB3 header is connected to a couple of USB3 ports on the front panel. You’ll also find two more USB3 ports at the rear, along with four more USB2 ports. There are PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports for older peripherals. Importantly, there’s a single Gigabit Ethernet port, as well as a serial port, the latter being useful if you need your server to communicate with legacy hardware.

Graphics output is handled by a pair of full-sized DisplayPort connections and a legacy VGA port. Unless you’ve bought a high-end business monitor recently, you’ll want to use the VGA. There’s little point worrying about the display output, however, as once the T20’s set up you can access your server remotely. Dell’s standard warranty gives you one year of parts-only cover, but a range of extended warranty options are available, up to three years of next business day onsite support for £84.

TESTING

Although there are plenty of server operating systems available, we prefer Ubuntu Server. We initially installed Ubuntu 12.04, but encountered conflicts between the GRUB2 boot loader and the server’s UEFI BIOS. This required a number of inconvenient workarounds if you wish to set up a software RAID array and although the UEFI has a legacy mode, using it didn’t help. Fortunately, when we tested with the latest Ubuntu 14.04 our RAID configuration and installation went smoothly and the system booted first time.

Although the motherboard has a built-in Intel RAID controller, we prefer using software RAID in the absence of a dedicated RAID controller card. This eliminates the risk of not being able to find a replacement motherboard that can rebuild your array. You’re less likely to run into problems with server motherboards from a big manufacturer, but we prefer the security of using software RAID for servers in this price range nevertheless.

The primary business use of servers such as this one is to provide a more flexible alternative to a NAS, so read and write speeds are critical. In our standard SMB read/write test across a network, both read and write speeds in our large file test were 109MB/s, while the T20 wrote and read more challenging small files at speeds of 17.7MB/s and 25.9MB/s respectively. This compares well to heavy-duty business NAS devices such as the Seagate Business Storage 8-Bay Rackmount NAS (https://www.expertreviews.com/uk/network-storage/1306702/seagate-business-storage-8-bay-rackmount-nas-16tb) in terms of performance.

We also ran the same tests on an iSCSI target that we created on the server and mounted on a remote client as though it was a local disk. While SMB directories can be shared by multiple users, an iSCSI target can only be mounted by a single PC. Performance here is more dependent on the client machine’s processor power, which is an advantage if you’re using an underpowered NAS, but in this instance produced a slower large file average of 104.2MB/s, and a small file average of 45.7MB/s. During a 5GB file transfer, we got a sustained write speed of 113MB/s, pushing the in-practice limits of our Gigabit Ethernet network’s capabilities and saturating the server’s network port.

We’ve also introduced a multiple-access SMB transfer test, in which three client machines simultaneously perform read/write read operations on the server, and we measure the performance of one of them. In our large file tests, we got an average throughput of 39.8MB/s, while our small files wrote at 17.5MB/s and read at 23.43MB/s for an average of 20.47MB/s.

We also ran our standard application benchmarks, which primarily test the capabilities of the Xeon E3-1225 processor when it comes with single-threaded tasks. We got an overall score of 88, which indicates that this CPU is capable of far more processor-intensive tasks than simple storage. Add a bit of extra RAM, and it’s well equipped for use as a database server, even if you’re working with relatively large data sets.

CONCLUSION

Priced at just £444 excluding VAT, the PowerEdge T20 is compares well to the price of many business-oriented four-bay NAS devices. It’s also far more versatile, scalable and powerful. You’ll need to spend a bit longer configuring it than you would a NAS, but even if you just want to use it as a networked storage device, a small server like this is good value and destined to have a long lifespan. If you anticipate wanting a mail, database or telephony server in the future, then the ease of upgrading hardware and installing applications makes this small server an obvious Business Buy.