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Dell Rolls Out New 4-way Servers

Dell Computer Corp. began taking orders today for a pair of four-processor, rack-optimized servers with enough memory capacity to max out the capabilities of Windows 2000 Advanced Server.

The new servers are the 7U PowerEdge 6400 and the 4U PowerEdge 6450, and each supports up to 8 GB of RAM. The new limit doubles the memory capacity of the servers’ four-way predecessors from Dell (www.dell.com), the PowerEdge 6300 and PowerEdge 6350.

By leveraging Intel Corp.’s (www.intel.com) Physical Address Extensions (PAE), Microsoft Corp. (www.microsoft.com) has surpassed Windows NT 4.0’s 4 GB memory limit. Windows 2000 Advanced Server includes support for up to 8 GB of RAM, while Windows 2000 Datacenter Server is expected to support up to 64 GB of RAM when it comes out.

In rolling out four-processor servers that can handle that much RAM, Dell is ahead of the majority of demand for that much memory, but just behind competitors IBM Corp. (www.ibm.com) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP, www.hp.com). IBM introduced support for up to 16 GB of RAM in the Netfinity 7100 and Netfinity 7600. HP supports up to 8 GB of RAM in its LH 6000 and LT 6000R, a pair of six-processor servers priced to compete with four-way models.

Dell positions the new servers as application servers or database servers. The internals of the two boxes are identical except for hard drive space. The 6400 sports up to 10 disks, while the 6450 can accommodate four disks. – Scott Bekker

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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