z12 or poweredge r250

[sean-n]

Hi

Have a customer that we are looking to supply a z12 to. They mainly need the power for the public wifi as there may be 1000 users. A dell poweredge r250 with a xeon cpu intel i350 quad nic and 3 year warranty comes in about 2/3rd of the price is the z12 worth the extra or would the dell preform the same ? I need 5 nics so would have to use one of the broadcom nics on the dell or get another quad intel nic
Thanks in advance

Sean

[sky-knight]

Appliance vs Server boils down to PCIe lanes and NIC chipsets. I'm not saying the Poweredge won't do the job, I am saying the Poweredge likely has limitations in the throughput department that can eat your shorts.

So the decision boils down to one simple fact. Are you ready to take on the burden of hardware support? If yes, roll your own hardware. If no, buy an appliance from Untangle or get a comparable system from one of their partners.

[donhwyo]

Power consumption may be a factor too.