IT Pro Verdict
The T710 is well designed and matches IBM’s x3500 M2 for storage capacity and expansion potential. It’s also better value and although its cooling system is a tad too noisy for small offices, it is well suited to a wide range of deployment scenarios. Dell’s management facilities are the measure of HP’s although if you want even more storage capacity then consider the ProLiant ML370 G6 which supports up 24 SFF drives.
Typical markets for the T710 are corporate workgroups in remote sites, mission critical apps and, of course, virtualisation. It's also offered as a server consolidation solution to businesses that either don't want to invest in rack cabinets or don't have the room for them.
The T710's chassis extends back nearly 70cms and Dell has put all this internal real estate to very good use. Storage options are particularly good as behind the sleek, gun-metal bezel you have a pair of drive bays each holding eight hot-swap SFF SAS and SATA hard disks.
The system came supplied with eight 146GB SAS drives in the upper bay and Dell offers options for a total of eight 3.5in. drives as well. We were advised by Dell that the T710 now supports the latest 6Gbps SAS hard disks.
RAID options start with the entry-level SAS 6/iR card which supports mirrors and stripes for up to eight SATA and SAS 3.5in drives. The PERC 6/i controller is required if you have more than eight drives, they are the SFF variety and you want RAID-5 and -6 array support.
The sturdy side panel is lockable and this stops the front panel being removed thus blocking access to both hot-swap drive bays. The server also comes as standard with an LCD display and keypad for setting the remote management network address along with views of power consumption and temperatures.
The cable-free design makes for a very tidy interior with easy access to all key components. The Xeon E5540 modules in the review system are mounted by large passive heat sinks and each is partnered by nine DIMM sockets allowing the server to support up to 144GB of DDR3 RDIMM memory.
