Tag Archives: VRTX

2022 – Year in Review

As my final blog post of the year, I always like taking a look into my 2022 metrics.   It’s fun to see what people search for, and where they come from, so here’s what I found. Before I begin, let me say thank you! I appreciate each and every one of you who take the time to read this simple little blog on blade servers. While I’d love to be the next ServeTheHome, I’m happy with continuing to provide blade server news as my little hobby. Continue reading

What You May Not Know About PowerEdge VRTX

We just learned this week that the PowerEdge VRTX, which was announced in June of 2013, will remain in the Dell EMC portfolio into 2021.  This is great news for customers who have invested into the “datacenter in a box” platform and opens up an opportunity for those who aren’t using it.  It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the PowerEdge VRTX platform, so here are a few things you may not know. Continue reading

Dell’s VRTX Gains New Storage Option

As I speak with customers about the Dell PowerEdge VRTX, one of the limits that often gets brought up is the fact that it”only” has 25 x 2.5″ or 12 x 3.5″ drive bays.  That is no longer the case.  In a quiet release in December, Dell began offering an extra option for VRTX which allows the chassis to connect with up to 2 x external MD storage arrays and share the storage with all servers.

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2015 in Review

As another year has ended, I have to take the time to thank you.  This blog was created for my own use, to be able to access blade information at any time; but it grew into something bigger.  For each of you that use this site, I give a sincere thank you.  This site is a personal site that I’ve maintained since Fall of 2009 and I get ZERO money to run it.  No advertising dollars or anything.  It’s a hobby, so your participation is greatly appreciated.  That said, I thought for my first blog post of 2016, I’d provide you with some insight into the numbers.  So here we go.

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Dell VRTX Now Scales Up to 50TB of Shared Storage

A few weeks ago Dell added a 2TB 2.5″ 7.2K RPM Near-Line SAS  drive to the list of supported drives.  This new addition not only increases the shared storage capacity of the Dell VRTX chassis from 48TB to 50TB but it also offers better performance.  Continue reading

A First Look at Dell’s FX Architecture

Today Dell announced a new server architecture that combines characteristics of both rack servers and blade servers into a new architecture, known as PowerEdge FX.  Today I’ll give you a first look into the platform.  First off – according to Dell’s Product Development team, this platform was not designed to replace Dell’s blade server portfolio.  Instead it was created to help bridge the gap between blade servers and rack servers.  As you look at this new infrastructure, you may ask is it really a “blade server?”  I’ve always claimed if it shared power, cooling and networking, it’s a “blade server” however I’ll let you form your own opinion. Continue reading

Why Dell’s PowerEdge VRTX is Ideal for Virtualization

I recently had a customer looking for 32 Ethernet ports on a 4 server system to drive a virtualization platform.  At 8 x 1GbE per compute node, this was a typical VMware virtualization platform (they had not moved to 10GbE yet) but it’s not an easy task to perform on blade servers – however the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is an ideal platform, especially for remote locations. Continue reading

A Detailed Look at Dell PowerEdge VRTX

PowerEdge VRTX - Front View with 2.5 DrivesWhat happens when you merge rack servers with blade servers? You get the newly announced Dell PowerEdge VRTX. Three years in the making, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX (pronounced “ver-tex”) is advertised as a revolutionary, easy-to-manage office-optimized data center that converges servers, storage and networking into a compact package. In the following post, I’ll give you a deep-dive look into the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution.

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An Introduction to Dell PowerEdge VRTX

An Introduction to Dell PowerEdge VRTX

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 15 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace.  Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization.  Kevin works for Dell as a Server Sales Engineer covering the Global Enterprise market.

Disclaimer: The views presented in this blog are personal views and may or may not reflect any of the contributors’ employer’s positions. Furthermore, the content is not reviewed, approved or published by any employer.