Specifications

A Principled Technologies test report 3
Hardware upgrades to improve database, SharePoint, Exchange, and
file server performance with the Intel processor-powered Dell
PowerEdge T630
WHAT WE FOUND
Mixed workload performance vs. a legacy server
When we ran our mixed workload on the legacy server solution simulating 200
Exchange, SharePoint, and file server users and a heavy database workload, the server had
considerably higher latencies in Exchange and SharePoint, and lower IOPS and orders per
minute (OPM) for the file server and database workloads. Figure 1 shows how the Dell
PowerEdge T630 powered by Intel Xeon E5-2660 v3 processors delivered better
performance across the board in the baseline configuration when compared to the HP
ProLiant ML350 G6.
Dell PowerEdge T630
HP ProLiant ML350 G6
Percentage win over
legacy HP
Exchange latency (ms)
1.67
81.04
97.94
SharePoint latency (sec)
0.16
0.22
27.27
Iometer IOPS
123.60
53.29
131.94
DVD Store instance 1 (OPM)
16,014
3,068
421.97
Figure 1: Total performance results for the two systems and win percentages for the PowerEdge T630. For latency,
lower numbers are better, and for the benchmarks, higher numbers are better.
Mixed workload performance with upgrades
Figure 2 shows the increased number of users delivered by upgrading components
supporting Exchange, SharePoint, and file server users while supporting additional SQL
database workloads.
Figure 2: Upgrading RAM and
drives increased the number
of Exchange, SharePoint, and
file server users by 100
percent while supporting 12
times the number of
database VMs for the Dell
PowerEdge T630.
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
Dell PowerEdge T630
(base configuration)
Dell PowerEdge T630
(upgraded RAM)
Dell PowerEdge T630
(upgraded drives)
Percent increase in supported users and
SQL instances by component upgrade
SharePoint users File server users SQL instances