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Best small business servers of 2020


If you’re looking for the best small business servers that will power your growing company, then you've come to the right place. In this article, we look at the best servers for small and medium sized businesses.

While it may be tempting to reply on cloud-based servers, especially when your business is relatively new, on-site servers that you operate yourself can still be the best way to go. It gives you much more control - and security - over your businesses' important information.

In this guide, we've picked the best small business servers that offer everything small and medium sized businesses need to get started, without costing too much money. The small business servers are easy to set up and maintain, and the manufacturers should also offer you support in case something goes wrong.

The best small business servers will be robust enough to be able to work under intense loads throughout the day, handling high numbers of users, and perhaps most importantly, they will also be expandable, so they can be upgraded as your business grows. So, we went ahead and curated a list of the 10 best SMB servers, ranging from those aimed at small businesses to the sort that bigger corporations need to survive. Without further ado, let’s dive into the best servers for small businesses.


1. Dell PowerEdge T30

  1. A Xeon dream with plentiful connectivity on offer

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1225 v5 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics P530 | RAM: 64GB | Storage: Up to six SATA HDD | Connectivity: 10 x USB ports, HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA, serial, PS2, Gigabit Ethernet | Dimensions (W x D x H): 17.5 x 43.5 x 36cm

  1. AU$1,900.02

  2. Fast quad-core Xeon processor

  3. Room for six internal disks

  4. Single Gigabit network port

  5. No hot-swapping of disks

There are so many different servers out there, and that means that you’ll sometimes have to sort through entire price lists in order to find the best small server for you. Just look at the Dell PowerEdge T30 – you can buy it either as a barebones or as a fully configured server. Aimed at the entry-level/SoHo market, the T30 manages to fit in a ton of expansion potential into a tiny, mini-tower-like chassis, and it even comes with a wealth of server features by default, which makes it a perfect alternative to an office workstation.


2. Dell PowerEdge T20 [barebones]

  1. Shows you how cheap a barebones server can get

CPU: Intel Pentium G3220 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics | RAM: 4GB | Storage: No drives included | Connectivity: Up to 12 x USB ports (4 x USB 3.0), 2 x DisplayPort, VGA, serial, 2 x PS2, Gigabit Ethernet | Dimensions (W x D x H): 17.5 x 43.5 x 36cm

  1. Very cheap

  2. Compact mini-tower with easy access to internals

  3. G3220 is more a desktop than server CPU

  4. No drives or OS

Servers do not have to be massive or expensive. Take the PowerEdge T20 for example; it has benefited from a wealth of knowledge derived from the 20 years of experience Dell has building servers. While the barebones version doesn't have a hard drive, it's certainly cheap – in the recent past, it has been priced at less than £100 (with cashback offers, that is – it’s always well worth keeping an eye out for these).

It has a Haswell-based Pentium processor that can clock up to 3GHz and supports up to 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM (note that this model comes with 4GB). Expansion capabilities include four SATA ports (32TB if you use 8TB hard drives), four I/O slots and 10 USB ports. Astoundingly for a PC of this price, you also get two DisplayPort connectors, a VGA one, two PS2 and one serial port. Other than a Gigabit Ethernet port, the other points of interest are a 290W PSU and an Intel-based RAID controller.


3. Lenovo ThinkServer TS150

  1. A Tower server offering quite potent performance

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v6 | RAM: Up to 64GB | Storage: Up to 40TB HDD | Connectivity: 8 x USB 3.0, serial, video, 2 x DisplayPort, audio, Gigabit Ethernet | Dimensions (W x D x H): 17.5 x 37.5 x 43cm Most affordable ThinkServer model

  1. Whisper quiet

  2. Not much to complain about

Lenovo took over IBM's x86 server range back in 2014 and has built on the best of the ThinkServer tradition. The TS150 is now the most affordable of the range and is a 4U enterprise-class server that competes with the Dell T20. It comes with support for RAID 0,1,10 and 5 (via an on-board controller). Like the competition, this one can accommodate up to four 3.5-inch HDDs in total, which means that it can go up to 40TB of storage when loaded with the relevant hard drives. The relatively-recent Intel Xeon E3-1200 v6 processor should be powerful enough for small and medium enterprises.

Lenovo also claims that the acoustics of the TS150 are even quieter than a typical library at 26 decibels. As is the case for the competition, you also get an impressive array of ports and connectors: eight USB ports, four PCI/PCI-e slots, three video connectors (including a pair of DisplayPorts), Serial, Gigabit Ethernet and three audio connectors.


4. HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen 10

  1. Powerful and versatile

CPU: Intel Xeon Scalable 4210 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics P530 | RAM: 16GB | Storage: No drives included | Dimensions (W x D x H): 18 x 65 x 47cm


  1. Scalable

  2. Decent design

  3. A hefty beast of a machine

  4. Doesn't come with hard drives

If you're after a robust, yet versatile, server for your small business, then the HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen 10 is an excellent choice. Packed with Intel Xeon Scalable processors, this offers a big performance boost over the previous models. You need to fit your own storage, but it supports a wide range of fast options, as well as wide support for graphics and compute options as well. While it starts out as a tower server, as your business grows, the HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen 10 can be turned into a rack server for an affordable way to keep your business going without having to buy a new server altogether.


5. Fujitsu Primergy TX1310 M1

  1. Fujitsu's reliability guarantee is second to none

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1226 v3 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics P4600 | RAM: 16GB | Storage: 2 x 1TB HDD | Connectivity: 5 x USB 3.0, 2 x Gigabit Ethernet | Dimensions (W x D x H): 17.5 x 42 x 39.5cm

  1. Today's best fujitsu primergy tx1310 deals Fantastic guarantee

  2. Has an optical drive

  3. No RAID 5

  4. Fujitsu isn't the first brand you'd think of

When you think about servers, Fujitsu is probably not the first vendor which springs to mind. And yet, the Japanese manufacturer is one of the very few (if not the only one) that can claim to be involved in anything from SMB servers to, well, supercomputers. The TX1310 is its entry-level, SMB-focused server and comes with some pretty solid credentials plus an unmatched, industry-leading reliability guarantee. If your server breaks down within the first year of purchase, not only will Fujitsu fix or replace it, the company will also refund you the amount you paid for the server.

Like pretty much everyone at this end of the market, it is designed to run silently 24/7 and offers RAID 0/1/10 but not 5. This model incudes an Intel Xeon E3-1226 v3, two 1TB hard drives and 16GB of RAM. We like the fact that it comes with an optical drive and has two Gigabit Ethernet ports for redundancy. With four DIMM slots and four storage bays, this server supports up to 32TB of storage and 32GB of memory.


6. HP Proliant Microserver Gen8

  1. A compact if slightly noisy server

CPU: Intel Celeron G1610T | Graphics: Matrox G200 | RAM: 4GB | Storage: No drives included | Connectivity: 4 x USB 2.0, 2 x USB 3.0, VGA, 2 x Gigabit Ethernet | Dimensions (W x D x H): 23 x 24.5 x 23cm


  1. Professional build quality with ease of access

  2. Compact size

  3. No hot-swap disks

  4. Could be quieter

One of the fastest growing segments of the server market is dominated by a single company. HP Enterprise's Proliant Microserver Gen8 has successfully managed to fend off competition – thanks to an attractive feature mix and plenty of discounts – and ultimately own this market. These tiny servers have found a market well outside their niche with prosumers buying them en masse and touting their obvious advantages over NAS (network attached storage).


Despite being very small (less than 13l in volume) and light (less than 7kg), this machine packs some impressive capabilities. We're talking support for Intel's Xeon E3 family, up to 16GB of RAM, on system management processor, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one PCIe slot, support for RAID 0/1/10, a DVD writer, up to four hard disk drives, an internal microSD card slot, an integrated Matrox G200 graphics chip and seven USB ports. It only has a VGA port, though, and has just two memory modules.



8. HP ProLiant ML350 G9 5U

  1. Extremely well-featured server offering plenty of power

CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2603 v3 | Graphics: Matrox G200 | RAM: 8GB | Storage: No drives included | Connectivity: 4 x Gigabit Ethernet | Dimensions (W x D x H): N/A

  1. Six-core Xeon CPU

  2. Three-year onsite NBD warranty

  3. It'll certainly dent your wallet

  4. Not much else to complain about

Pitching in the same category as the TS440 is the ML350. This is an expensive piece of kit but just look at the feature list and it actually seems like a very decent deal. Other than the fact that it has a dedicated, integrated graphics card (Matrox G200), it offers a three-year onsite next business day warranty, four Gigabit Ethernet ports and support for 12Gbps SAS (note that it takes only 2.5-inch drives).

But there's more – this server runs an Intel Xeon E5-2603 v3 processor (not the usual E3 CPU) and supports two CPUs. The E5 has six cores which makes it particularly well-suited for more taxing tasks. We're also impressed by the amount of memory slots (24) that it has, allowing it to hit 3TB of memory once 128GB LRDIMM roll out. Oh and other than a lockable front door and a storage controller, this server earns brownie points for having dual redundant, hot-swappable 500W PSUs.


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