Dell Optiplex VS HP Compaq for a Blue Iris machine

Dasstrum

Dasstrum

IPCT Contributor
Nov 4, 2016
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Florida
Hey guys, I thought I would write a quick review on the differences between a Dell Optiplex and a HP Compaq if you are deciding to use them for a Blue Iris machine. While you may think at first... ehhh.. why do I care... it's just brand I will buy whatever is cheaper WAIT! You might just want to keep reading or you may be in for a surprised like I was!

First off I have purchased over 15 HP Compaq's for Blue Iris systems and they work great! But recently I decided to try out an Optiplex mainly because I got a killer deal on a i7-4770 to replace my struggling i5-3570 on my own setup. Here are my main highlights and pro's and cons between the two computers:



HP Compaq Elite:
s-l1600.jpg

Size: 17.6 x 7.0 x 18.0 in

Pros:
  • 2 easy to access 3.5" drive bay slots (3 bays if you decide to remove the CD Drive but will have a hole in the front of the case). More space for drives then the Optiplex SFF
s-l1600 (1).jpg

  • Readily available on ebay. 3rd gen i5's can be bought for around $100 (USD) with windows 10 -- 3rd and 4th gen i7's can be bought for around $200 (USD) with windows 10
12.jpg


Cons:

  • Larger form factor than a Dell Optiplex
  • If doing a fresh OS install, it's sometimes harder to find the correct drivers that work (at least in my experience)

Dell Optiplex (SFF):
s-l1600 (2).jpg

Size: 11.4 x 3.7 x 12.3

Pros:
  • Much smaller than HP
  • Dell computers seem to be more reliable and have better support then HP (open to debate)
  • You CAN add a SSD - But see Con #2
Cons:
 
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HP actually has better support. Their business support is US based unlike dell. I have seen no difference in reliability between dell and hp business machines.
 
fenderman said:
HP actually has better support. Their business support is US based unlike dell. I have seen no difference in reliability between dell and hp business machines.
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Thanks, I've used a bunch of HP machines and have no problems with them. It seems like I always need to hunt down the correct drivers to get the NIC to work on the HP. My recent Dell I bought I did a fresh OS install and the NIC worked right out of the gate for example.
 
Dasstrum said:
Thanks, I've used a bunch of HP machines and have no problems with them. It seems like I always need to hunt down the correct drivers to get the NIC to work on the HP. My recent Dell I bought I did a fresh OS install and the NIC worked right out of the gate for example.
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The drivers are available on the hp site. The dell is also a newer machine.
 
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The main thing I wanted to highlight is the lack of a second 3.5" drive bay (or power connector) on the Dell. I typically hijack the HP CD Drive sata and power connector to power another drive but was unable to do that on the Dell. I had to buy a splitter (which isn't that big of a deal) just wanted folks to be aware.
 
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Dasstrum said:
The main thing I wanted to highlight is the lack of a second 3.5mm drive bay (or power connector) on the Dell. I typically hijack the HP CD Drive sata and power connector to power another drive but was unable to do that on the Dell. I had to buy a splitter (which isn't that big of a deal) just wanted folks to be aware.
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Yes. The hp is my preferred design as well.
 
HP has, for me, always been held with the same low esteem as Toshiba for PC's . Both my previous HP & Tosh laptops made pretty poor frisbees yet still had better functionality as a frisbee than as a PC

Dell on the other hand have always been rock solid performers, either laptop or desktop

When I started out on my first Blue Iris home installation, Dell was my preferred choice, in fact it was my absolute sole preference

I now have a 6th Gen i7 Dell Optiplex SFF which performs as expected - perfectly
 
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My personal experience has been that I’ve personally also found my Dell to be slightly slower when comparing the same architecture and cpu. So I have a Dell and a Fujitsu desktop at home that I use, both have a 500gb WD blue drive and if I deploy an image to both the Fujitsu always finishes quicker.

Take my observation with a pinch of salt but this is just my experience.

Also in your review you might want to change 3.5mm to 3.5”
 
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BigFoot said:
HP has, for me, always been held with the same low esteem as Toshiba for PC's . Both my previous HP & Tosh laptops made pretty poor frisbees yet still had better functionality as a frisbee than as a PC

Dell on the other hand have always been rock solid performers, either laptop or desktop

When I started out on my first Blue Iris home installation, Dell was my preferred choice, in fact it was my absolute sole preference

I now have a 6th Gen i7 Dell Optiplex SFF which performs as expected - perfectly
Click to expand...
You cannot compare an HP business desktop to a home laptop. I have more of these hp's and service that I can count and have never had a failure except for a single hard drive that we both know HP does not make or design. You have a very small sample size. The HP ProBook laptops we use at the office have never had any issues. The the extra room in the HP systems make them a better value.
 
+1 for HP from me, I have an old i5-3470 HP that's never missed a beat to this day and I can't remeber the last time I turned it off. I have had a few minor hardware issues with optiplex machines over the years (I still own four personally though.... not sure what that says about me?). The HP internal arrangement is easier to work with as Dasstrum and Fenderman both mentioned too.
 
I’ve just last week purchased an HP 600 G2 i5-6500 and as per my reply in another thread I am really impressed.

It has 2 3.5” drive bays and 1 2.5” drive bay, has enough SATA power connectors for all the bays but it only has 3 SATA ports on the motherboard so for me with 2 hard drives and an SSD I’ve had to disconnect the DVD drive but that was never going to be an issue as I was planning on not having it connected.

The drive bays do use proprietary mountings and screws so I did have to raid my stash of screws to mount the additional drives but there’s enough slots and holes to be able to do this without using HP mounting trays/adapters.

Last thing is it is really, really quiet. I have a Dell and a Fujitsu small form factor desktops, the Dell is the loudest, the HP is the quietest.
 
HP is always good. I have a 4 year old HP z240 SFF. It was easy to upgrade and work on. I was able to update it with 64gb of ram and add a 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD without issue. It was all plug and play and upgraded an older computer.
 
Picked up one of the HP Elites off ebay with no cpu/hdd/ram and popped in an old 3770k and 16gb ram to move my BI server off of my gaming pc. It's been a champ so far after a month or so and it's pretty much silent compared to my poe+ switch. I do direct to disc recording for my five cameras with three of them being continuous recording.

828a3ddf7e6ff559953e936fe8474390.png
 
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Dasstrum said:
Cons:
Click to expand...

I have to add that there is a way to add an SSD to a Dell SFF pc without having to add a cable.

I purchased a HDD Caddy similar to the one pictured, it replaces the CD/DVD ROM Drive. Plugs right into the existing cable.

The only thing to watch for is the thickness of the caddy, between different DELL SFF models, there are two thicknesses of CD/DVD ROM Drives. 12mm or 9mm, I found out the hard way and purchased the wrong one first.

hdd_caddy_product.png


My DELL 7040 consists of a SSD for C drive and a WD Purple 4Tb for D drive. It has been running fine for over 6 months now.
 
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