Advantages and disadvantages of Dell Optiplex as a cheap server for SMB.

 

pros:
1. considerably cheaper, more affordable
2. small size
3. later can be re-used as usual workstation

cons:
1. not so reliable as a real server
2. weak redundancy
3. not supported by vmware and so on
4. no real RAID, only fake intel matrix raid.
5. not so high quality of internal parts and so on
6. if to compare with Dell PowerEdges – no lifecycle controller, idrac and so on (poor remote management)

But what justifies such compromise approach:
1. i7 cpu is not so good as recent Xeon, but very close by performance (good enough for most tasks)
2. used RAM memory performance is also very close (surely server’s one is more reliable)
3. full support of vPro/amt can be enough instead of iDRAC.