IT Pro Verdict

Dell’s new NX3000 sets a high standard as it is offering a top quality hardware platform with plenty of room for capacity expansion. The OS doesn’t present much of a learning curve either so if you’re up close and personal with Windows Server 2008 then you won’t have any problems with WSS2008.

By Dave Mitchell

published 16 April 2010

in Reviews

Even though it was launched mid-2009 we've only seen a trickle of network storage appliances supporting Microsoft's latest Windows Storage Server 2008. Dell's new PowerVault NX3000 aims to rectify this and brings together Microsoft's storage software and merges it with a classy PowerEdge server platform.

The hardware for the NX3000 comes courtesy of a PowerEdge R710, which impressed us enough when we reviewed it for it to get a coveted IT PRO Recommended award. Dell offers the NX3000 in three configurations focusing on value, capacity or performance.

On review we have the optimal base unit which comes with a single 2.26GHz quad-core Xeon E5520 partnered by 6GB of DDR3 memory. The value model has 3GB of memory whilst the performance model adds the second processor and has memory boosted to 12GB.

Storage is handled by six 160GB Western Digital SATA hard disks and although the chassis can support them Dell won't be offering SFF drive options until their price/capacity ratio improves. The drives are fitted in sturdy hot-swap carriers and looked after by a Dell PERC 6/i RAID PCI-e controller.

The PERC 6/i is a PCI-Express card and comes complete with 256MB cache and a battery backup unit. The six drives in the review system have been split into a dual-drive mirror for the host OS and a quad-drive RAID-5 array for storage.

The NX3000 comes with WSS2008 Standard which has the same support for memory, RAID and storage capacity as Windows Server 2008 Standard. NAS support is standard and you also get Microsoft's iSCSI target software included. Updates for WSS2008 mean the target is now 64-bit only and initial support for 2TB LUNs has been increased to 16TB.

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Dave is an IT consultant and freelance journalist specialising in hands-on reviews of computer networking products covering all market sectors from small businesses to enterprises. Founder of Binary Testing Ltd – the UK’s premier independent network testing laboratory - Dave has over 45 years of experience in the IT industry.

Dave has produced many thousands of in-depth business networking product reviews from his lab which have been reproduced globally. Writing for ITPro and its sister title, PC Pro, he covers all areas of business IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, network security, data protection, cloud, infrastructure and services.