Dell Unveils One-Socket Servers For Small Businesses

Dell on Tuesday introduced two one-socket small business servers that have additional memory capacity for larger companies looking for an inexpensive computer to run business applications in remote offices.

The PowerEdge R300 rack server and T300 tower computer are available with a quad-core Intel Xeon x5460, a 3.16 GHz processor that Intel says delivers a 38% improvement in performance per watt over Intel's previous generation, the 5300 series. The x5460 consumes 80 watts of power.

Both servers offer up to 24 GB of memory, which is three times the capacity of typical one-socket systems. The computers also include high-availability features, such as two hot-swappable hard disk drives and redundant power supplies. Hot-swap means one drive can be pulled out of the system if it fails and a new one plugged in while the main power to the system is still on.

Besides small businesses, the added memory and reliability features are expected to appeal to large companies looking for a remote-office server, Dell executives said during a teleconference with reporters. Dell has positioned the R300 against Hewlett-Packard's DL320 G5p and the IBM System x 3250. The T300 is expected to compete with the HP ML310 G5 and the IBM System x 3200.

Dell customer Reed Caldwell, founder and chief executive of hosting service provider ServInt, said the memory capacity and reliability of the new computers, along with the lower power consumption of one-socket servers, made them well suited for running some business applications for ServInt clients. "We want to achieve a low-energy footprint and the customer wants 100% uptime," Caldwell said.

Pricing starts at $1,249 for the R300 and $999 for the T300.

In terms of shipments, Dell was the No. 2 server vendor behind HP in the fourth quarter of last year, according to Gartner. IBM was third. Worldwide server shipments overall climbed 11% in the quarter and revenues were up nearly 3%.