Warm/hot Dell SC440 $199

Any idea how many hard drive bays this server includes, or if the motherboard supports RAID5?
 
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/pedge_sc440?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

Drive Bays
2 x 3.5" Non-Hot Swap for Hard-Drives
1 x 3.5" Floppy
2 x 5.25" for optional CDRW, DVD/CD-RW and Tape Backup

I/O
5 total I/O slots
3 PCI Express slots (one with x8 connector, one with x4 connector, one with x1 connector), all 2.5GHz.
2 32-bit/33MHz PCI slots 5V.
Slots can support full length or half length cards.

Chassis
Form Factor: Tower (Not Rackable)
Height: 17.6" H (44.8cm)
Width: 6.8" W (17.1cm)
Depth: 18.4" D (46.7cm)
Weight: ~ 39.0 lbs. (17.7kg)

Ports
Rear: 5 x USB 2.0, 1 x serial connector, 1 x VGA video connector, 1 x RJ-45 NIC connector(Gigabit Ethernet)
Front: 2 x USB 2.0

Power
Single power supply (305W)

Graphics
Integrated graphics
 
Not bad for someone that doesn't have loads of cash laying around for an upgrade. Wouldn't mind having one for my wife to do work on since she doesn't game at all.
 
Damn...only two. All the reviews I've comes across like the server, but I was hoping for three drive bays. Can't beat the price though.
 
You can put a 3rd HD in the floppy bay and a 4th in the second 5.25" bay with a 5.25" to 3.5" bay adapter. The motherboard has 4 SATA ports.

You can also upgrade this to a quad core and install a graphics card in the x4 slot (modification necessary). Here are pictures of the inside: http://www.trustedreviews.com/networking/review/2006/12/26/Dell-PowerEdge-SC440/p2

I'd order one but I already have a BTX desktop ready to finish building.
 
Any idea if the Intel chipset has been cut down to not allow RAID5 without adding in an expensive RAID card?
 
Depends on if you consider non "R" ICHx south bridges to be "cut down." :p Many Intel boards use a separate IDE/SATA chip to provide RAID functionality. No, the SC440 doesn't support RAID without an add-on card.

Not all PCI-E RAID cards are expensive, especially if you don't need RAID 5.
 
I've seen these entry-level servers for sale through Slickdeals, and they look like a great value for an almost complete system (they don't come with an O.S. or a monitor). My only real complaint is the lack of a x16 electrical slot (though I think x8 is still good for most graphics cards, looking at benchmarks). Still, these are nice for people who want a good workstation or otherwise just want a solid computer. Being made for server duty should make these sturdier than a normal desktop.
 
This is hot. +1 on the bummer of no free shipping, free shipping would make this mega hot.

Just ordered 5 as workstation upgrades. (there is a limit of 5 units for the $399 discount)

Im gonna try to order 5 more tomorrow to see if I can get the discount again.

Thanks to OP.
 
I bought one of these back in Jan - Feb time frame to run as my Windows Home server - Get a terabyte drive (or a 1.5 tb Drive) or two and go to town. Works GREAT for this purpose even though it IS a bit of overkill.
 
looks like a great deal. if only my paypal would let me grrr.
fe9fc289c3ff0af142b6d3bead98a923.jpg
thanks anyways.
 
Smoking hot.

Limit of 4 per order to get that discounted price.
 
Ockie said:
Smoking hot.

Limit of 4 per order to get that discounted price.
Click to expand...
The "terms" say limit 5. I ordered 5 and the confirmation email of the order was weird...

It had 4x of one item with a savings of 1,596.00 ($399x4)
and then one additional item with a savings of $399.

It did come out correct.

6 or more will def not get you the right deal.

Considering this is hardware meant to run in a server environment I consider it quite hot. Again, gonna try for more tomorrow.
 
Also -

The highlighted "dell recommended” ram upgrade is for 4x 512 sticks for 2GB, $29.
The previous option is also 2GB, but 2x1GB for $19, $10 cheaper. (and 2 free slots)
Is Dell retarded or just trying to be sneaky here?
 
hardware_failure said:
Also -

The highlighted "dell recommended” ram upgrade is for 4x 512 sticks for 2GB, $29.
The previous option is also 2GB, but 2x1GB for $19, $10 cheaper. (and 2 free slots)
Is Dell retarded or just trying to be sneaky here?
Click to expand...
yeah i noticed that too...

i'm thinking about hopping in for a few.
 
We have 2 of these at work.

From my understanding, these support a max of 4gb of ram, and no core 2 duo.
 
That's odd. Does anyone know what kind of chipset this has? (between the CPU thing and the 4 DIMMs recommended as being faster, it really seems like one of the server chipsets- but I guess the CPU thing could just be a BIOS limitation)
 
sc0tty8 said:
We have 2 of these at work.

From my understanding, these support a max of 4gb of ram, and no core 2 duo.
Click to expand...

They're available with a Xeon 3040/3050 in the spec. They're Conroe cores. Possibly just no 45nm. Maybe the ones you have use an older motherboard, or need a BIOS update.
 
MrMike said:
They're available with a Xeon 3040/3050 in the spec. They're Conroe cores. Possibly just no 45nm. Maybe the ones you have use an older motherboard, or need a BIOS update.
Click to expand...
The review at http://www.trustedreviews.com/ mention that the MB was based on the intel 3000 chipset. After doing some searches (not worth pasting links) it looks like boards with this chipset DO take core 2 duos, but only the 65nm flavors.
 
Not bad of a deal. If I hadn't already started on my file server build, I'd be on this.
 
The sc440 detects 8 gigs of ram ( 4 x 2 gigs) with a 64 bit OS and older quad-core processors (x3220, q6600) if anyone is wondering.

Zero problems with the two I have.
 
you can "fit" 4 hard drives in those.. (ask me how i know)..

anyways.. for $200 you can't go wrong.. unless you want to put a graphics card in it, which most people on the video[h]ardforum would want to do.. for basic tasks, or a cheap server.. why not?
 
i could send this to my dell rep and he will reply "i can only match the price" but i will get a mouse and 3 year warranty thrown in for free..
 
fuck i wanted this but no raid. i wanted to throw 4 tb in there and use it as a seedbox
 
almost bit, but ended up building an am2 server with those low watt chips that were like 30 bucks, i think total price on my homegrown comes to only slightly higher than this. Still, not bad for a quick all in one deal, but yeah lack of raid kills it for me
 
I have a SC420 with 3 HDDs (2 SATA and 1 IDE). The IDE shares the IDE port with the DVD drive. It comes with a set of spare drive rails but you might have to buy one extra set for the 3rd drive. Or use duct tape. Great system, been running (Win 2000 Server) for 3 years in my basement with nary a hickup, including the time a water pipe broke above it and gave it a sprinkling!

Won't take any kind of add on video, though. And Dell bugs the hell out of you trying to get you to extend the warranty.

-PP
 
You can mod the x4 PCIe slot by cutting out the bit of plastic keeping x16 cards out of the slot. The card will only run x4 PCIe speeds, but it's much better than the x1 that the other slots are limited to.

Decent deal, but as others have mentioned, a homebuilt of similar quality and fewer limitations is easy to match this.

The kicker is the 1yr warrenty and the fact that everything is put together for you. Great if it's actually going to be used as a server, but as a workstation, I'd say frankenstien from newegg.
 
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