Compaq, Dell beef up servers
By Jim Davis and Michael Kanellos
Staff Writers, CNET News.com
November 2, 1998, 3:20 p.m. PT
Compaq and Dell pumped up their server lineups
today with systems that use up to four 400-MHz Intel
Pentium II Xeon processors, which until recently were
in short supply.
PC vendors hoping to move further into the high-end
and high margin "enterprise" computing market with
Intel's newest chips have suffered through various
holdups on the Xeon for four-processor servers,
including a flaw with the chips working in a four-way
configuration.
Intel, however, recently announced that it changed
the circuitry on the chip, which eliminated the
problem.
Tim Golden, director of
enterprise server
marketing at Compaq,
acknowledged that the
Xeons had been in short
supply for four-way
servers, but that supplies
were now increasing.
With chip issues
apparently behind it now,
Compaq introduced a new
ProLiant 6500 that is
available with up to four
Xeon processors and can
be linked with up to five other 6500s for corporations
running Oracle Parallel Server-based applications.
Meanwhile, Dell introduced a PowerEdge 6530 that
offers up to four Xeon processors in a space-saving
design.
A ProLiant 6500 system with a single 400-MHz
Pentium II Xeon and 256MB of memory is priced
starting at $12,784. A database center with six
servers running Oracle Parallel server is priced
starting at around $120,000, the company said.
Compaq said the new servers are designed to take up
less space in a rack mounted version than previous
models. The systems also include separate buttons
mounted on the server which turn off individual
expansion slots, enabling easier service of the
system.
Compaq said that its server efforts will continue next
year with eight-way Xeon servers in the first quarter,
as well as Alpha-based servers running Windows NT,
Golden said. Compaq released Alpha-based servers
in October, but these were designed to run Digital's
Unix and minicomputer operating systems.
Like Compaq, Dell's new PowerEdge 6350 servers
released today are focused on rack-mount density.
The PowerEdge 6350 server is priced starting at
$7,694 for a system with a single 400-MHz Pentium II
Xeon chip and 128MB of memory.
"It's the smallest and most powerful Intel server in the
marketplace," claimed Subo Guha, director of product
marketing for Dell. The PowerEdge released today
measures about 7 inches high, which is 60 percent
smaller than the PowerEdge 6300 design that the
6350 is based on.
The smaller form factor means that more servers can
be placed in a single rack, which is an increasingly
important consideration for customers such as
Internet service providers who have limited real estate.
Also, customers now are buying more servers and
using them for single functions, rather than buying a
few multi-function servers.
The shrink in chassis size was accomplished by
moving the power supplies inside the chassis and
reducing the amount of disk storage. The server only
contains three drive bays for storage of up to 27GB of
data, rather than the seven bays found on other
four-way Dell servers.
Users will likely use these servers with an
independent storage unit, Dell said. The new server
can be connected to up to three Dell PowerVault
storage systems for a total external storage capacity
of six terabytes (6,000 gigabytes) of data.
Today, Compaq also introduced the ProLiant 3000
and ProLiant servers. The 300-series servers can be
ordered with up to two 450-MHz Pentium II
processors and up to 4GB of memory. The system is
priced starting at $4,431 for a single 400-MHz
Pentium II processor and hot-swappable drives and
power supplies.
The ProLiant 800 entry level server is priced starting
at $2,283 for a single 400-MHz Pentium II processor
and supports up to 1GB of memory.
In other news, Dell has responded to the success of
Hewlett-Packard's entry-level workstation PCs with a
new system called the Precision WorkStation 210.
The system is priced starting at $1,997.
In addition, Dell cut prices on the Precision 610 by up
to 16 percent and up to 14 percent on the Precision
410 for customers in the United States. |
