***Bottom-Line***: If you are looking for a powerful, reliable, versatile, reasonably priced file server, the small-footprint Dell **PowerEdge 1850 **Enterprise-class** **application server will most certainly fit the bill.  A business, any business, runs on information, both gathered and produced for dissemination to clients and employees.  Increasingly this information is gathered and disseminated via the Internet and that means web application servers with all manner of hooks and add-ins that require raw processor power more than storage capacity.  These "Front-end" servers usually have at least two processors and up to 16GB of DDR Ram.  Enter the *Dell ***PowerEdge 1850** 1U rack mountable server. The *Dell* **PowerEdge 1850** is the follow-on the very successful **PowerEdge 1750** server box.  Like the **PowerEdge 1750**, the **PowerEdge 1850** is small; indeed the server is designed to fit into a 1U rack space, the smallest rack mountable footprint available.  As a result everything about the **PowerEdge 1850 **is compact, but amazingly easy to access; the top cover comes completely off the unit exposing the motherboard, processor assemblies, RAM slots, and other innards.  The Dell **PowerEdge 1850 **was designed as** **a general purpose application, highly available server, with an emphasis on power processing over storage capacity. The **PowerEdge 1850 **1U** **server supports dual 64-bit Intel Xeon (single and or dual core) processors with processor clock speeds of up to 3.8GHz with a 800Mhz FSB (Front Side Bus) and up to 2MB of L2 level cache.  The **PowerEdge 1850** features the Intel 7520 chipset that supports two 64-bit PCI-X slots, a maximum 16GB of DDR2 400 SDRAM in six slots and embedded single-channel RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Drives) with 128MB cache and battery backup. The **PowerEdge 1850 **is capable of housing only two hot-pluggable (swappable), one-inch SCSI Ultra 320 hard drives in sizes ranging from 36GB - 300GB for up to 600GB of storage.  This can further be broken down thusly: 36GB - 300GB (Ultra320 SCSI) at 10,000 rpm, and 18GB - 146GB (Ultra320 SCSI) at 15,000 rpm.    The server also features redundant hot-pluggable cooling fans, an optional hot-pluggable redundant power supply. The **PowerEdge 1850 **makes data fault tolerance (somewhat) effortless and affordable through the inclusion of RAID by providing an optional high performance embedded (single-channel) *PERC4e/Di RAID* subsystem that includes 128MB of battery backup cache which enhances availability.  The server can optionally be order with the *PERC4/DC RAID, PERC4/SC* embedded RAID adapters.  **My Viewpoint ** We have just started integrating the **PowerEdge 1850 **into our data center and we primarily utilize the servers as Storage Attached Network (SAN) and web application front-end servers, a role for which they are ideally suited.  However, because the **PowerEdge 1850 **is highly scalable, the box could just as easily be used as a departmental file, or specialized server such as a Windows 2003 domain controller, but the limited redundancy make this a risky proposition for an Enterprise.  However a small or medium sized company this functionality might be acceptable.    The dual core processors coupled with fast RAM and 15K SCSI hard drives make the **PowerEdge 1850** a performance star.  Actual, real world throughput (file transfers to and from the server), is outstanding, especially when it comes to serving up web pages and SAN Front-end performance.  The **PowerEdge 1850**'s in our inventory are at the top of the performance curve, and they are dependable and boost enough power to meet all of current and future application needs.  If you are looking for a reliable, versatile, powerful and reasonably priced application server, the small-footprint Dell **PowerEdge 1850 **Enterprise-class** **application server will most certainly fit the bill.

TheBard

Aurora, IL