Dell PowerEdge T710 review

General network systems management is handled by Dell's Management Console, which is based on Symantec's Altiris Notification Server. The Altiris agent can be pushed to selected systems and this provides enhanced inventory, system monitoring, remote management capabilities and extensive alerting facilities.

Power choices extend to single or dual 1,100W hot-plug supplies and we found power consumption was reasonably low with one fitted: our inline power meter recorded 10W in standby and 150W with Windows Server 2008 R2 running in idle. With SiSoft Sandra pummelling all 16 logical cores, this peaked at 296W.

Usefully, the server has power management features that include power capping, power inventory and power budgeting, which are configured from the iDRAC6 web interface.

The T710 is one of the largest pedestal servers on the market and offers exceptional expansion potential and good value. It's well built, well designed and clearly capable of covering a lot of bases.

Author: Dave Mitchell