Guild Companies

Dell on Monday announced two new additions to its PowerEdge line of servers with preloaded Windows or Linux operating systems. The low-end PowerEdge 600SC is a uni-processor tower that Dell has priced extraordinarily low--it starts at $599--in hopes of attracting small business customers, while the PowerEdge 2600, with up to two Intel Xeon processors, is geared toward workgroup and departmental computing.

Dell says its new 600SC server is twice as powerful as its predecessor, the PowerEdge 500SC, which debuted last summer for $100 more. For $599, customers can buy a PowerEdge 600SC with a single Intel Celeron processor running at 1.7 GHz. For $699, they can get an Intel Pentium 4 processor running at 1.8 GHz in their new box. Both configurations in the 600SC utilize a 400 MHz frontside bus, a vast improvement in piping over the 100 MHz bus featured in the 500SC. The 500SC ships with Pentium III or Intel Celeron processors running at speeds up to 1.4 GHz.

With four DIMM memory slots and four hard drive bays, the 600SC can be equipped with up to 4 GB of internal memory, twice as much as available in the 500SC. Dell has also added one more hard drive bay to the 600SC in upgrading the 500SC, bringing its total internal IDE storage capacity to 480 GB (or 292 GB with four 10K RPM SCSI drives). The 600SC, like the 500SC, can be configured with a full range of RAID controllers, tape drives, network cards, and modems, and it ships with either Microsoft Windows or Red Hat Linux operating systems.

A step-and-a-half up from the 600SC in terms of capability and pricing is Dell's new dual-processor PowerEdge 2600, which starts at $1,999 and which is a replacement for the PowerEdge 2500, prices for which have been cut to $1,399, according to the computer maker's Web site. The PowerEdge 2600 is Dell's latest addition to its performance tower server series, which are stand-alone servers that can also be installed in a rack with other servers (in this case, the bulky PowerEdge 2600 occupies a 5U form factor). Dell says this machine is suited for roles as a file, print, storage (SAN), or Web server for small to medium sized businesses or for departments or workgroups of larger organizations. It is also capable of handling small-scale database-driven applications, Dell says.

The PowerEdge 2600 features one or two Intel Xeon processors running at 1.8 GHz, 2.0 GHz, 2.2 GHz, or 2.4 GHz, with a frontside bus of 400 MHz. By comparison, the 2500 features Intel Pentium III processors running at 1 GHz, 1.13 GHz, 1.26 GHz, and 1.4 GHz, with a 133 MHz bus. The 2600 has six memory sockets, supporting up to 6 GB of main memory. Dell says the server's "hot plug splitable" backplane supports up to eight Ultra320 10,000 RPM or 15,000 RPM SCSI hard drives--six in standard bays and an additional two in the box's media bays--giving the server a potential total of 584 GB of internal storage.

Like the 600SC, Dell's PowerEdge 2600 can house RAID controllers and tape drives, and can be ordered with backup and recovery software from Veritas preinstalled. Dell gives customers a choice of three factory installed operating systems--Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advance Server, or Red Hat Linux 7.3--although the 2600 is also validated to run the Windows NT 4.0, Red Hat Linux 7.2, and Novell NetWare 6.0 operating systems.

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