Refurbished Servers vs New: How DRAM Flipped the 2026 Maths
Memory used to be a rounding error on a server quote. In 2026 it is the line item that decides the whole purchase order. DRAM contract prices rose 90-…
OEM Hardware Support Programmes Compared: HPE, Dell, Cisco & More (2026)
Every major server, storage and network vendor sells a hardware-support contract, and on the surface they look interchangeable: a tier ladder, a respo…
VA vs watts vs amps: power factor explained for IT
Watts, volt-amps and amps describe the same electricity in three different ways, and the link between them — power factor — is where most UPS and circ…
ECC, on-die ECC and DDR5 RAS: what actually protects server memory (UK 2026)
A persistent piece of misinformation has spread since DDR5 launched: that because every DDR5 module carries on-die ECC, server-grade ECC is now redund…
NUMA explained: why server topology decides your real performance (UK 2026)
Two servers with identical core counts, identical memory and identical clock speeds can post very different real-world numbers, and the usual reason i…
HPE Apollo vs standard rack server density: the break-even analysis
A dense storage chassis like the HPE Apollo is not automatically the right answer just because it holds more disk. It carries its own costs and constr…
HPE Apollo as a backup repository target: capacity tier vs StoreOnce
When a backup estate outgrows its repository, UK teams face a fork: buy more of a purpose-built deduplication appliance, or build a high-capacity land…
HPE Apollo as an HPC cluster building block: cores, interconnect and density
Before the Apollo name became associated with AI and GPUs, its purpose was high-performance computing: packing as many CPU cores as possible into a ra…
HPE Apollo 6500 GPU server: the OEM-supported alternative to DGX
The HPE Apollo 6500 is HPE's answer to the question many UK teams ask once they decide they need serious GPU compute: do we have to buy an NVIDIA DGX,…
HPE Apollo 4200 storage server: a UK engineering view of a dense SDS host
The HPE Apollo 4200 is one of those servers that does exactly one job extremely well: hold an enormous number of disks in a single, conventional-depth…
Dell PowerEdge R670 buyer's guide: a single-socket 1U for edge and core roles (UK 2026)
The default server purchase is a dual-socket box, and for a great many workloads that default now costs more than it should. The Dell PowerEdge R670 i…
Dell PowerEdge R770 buyer's guide: next-gen Xeon 6 density and liquid-ready design (UK 2026)
The Dell PowerEdge R770 is the generation step, the 2U built around Intel Xeon 6 with the memory bandwidth, PCIe Gen5 lanes, EDSFF storage and liquid-…
Dell PowerEdge R760 buyer's guide: the 2U all-rounder for mixed workloads (UK 2026)
If the R660 is the dense default, the Dell PowerEdge R760 is the flexible one. Two sockets like its 1U sibling, but in 2U it gains what density costs:…
Dell PowerEdge R660 buyer's guide: the 1U workhorse for dense virtualisation (UK 2026)
The Dell PowerEdge R660 is the server most UK virtualisation estates are quietly built on: a dual-socket 1U box that packs two current Xeon CPUs, a fu…
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