"Best" Brand Of Servers

consider this:-

HP supply good equipment.

Dell supply good equipment

HP has some duds available as well.

Dell has some duds available as well

HP's does occasionally break

Dell's does occasionally break

HP . . . . .

Dell . . . . .

etc etc

What you should do is to meticulously list your needs , locations , restrictions at locations , preferences regarding service and support and other relevant information and put out an open tender.

Verify and validate and base your decision on the result , or leave the decision to the bean counters to have someone to blame in case of failure.

recently the major server makers have discovered huge data flow increases that follos from SSDs, (solid state drives)

servers and SSD use

I would buy the best quality components available that you need for your application, and not all the bells and whistles that you don't need, and then build them your self - or have your IT group or an IT specialist do so.

building a high speed server is quite complex, with special control cards and high speed drives and software and special antihacking methods.

Server farms are there for rent, it is called 'colocation'. They live on high speed internet connections and have very robust antihacking measures in place.

I suggest you consider this.

server colocation

Colocation is great for a single facility, but if you rely on this exclusively you would want multiple colocated services for a worldwide company.

A variant on this suggestion would be to hire space on server farm(s) via the so-called "cloud". If you choose a sophisticated supplier with suitably distributed facilities, redundancy will normally be distributed so that the data is available (so far as predictable) close to locations of use. Links may not always be fast enough - in which case you would need to supplement via colocation and/or on-site facilities.

For a moderately-large user, apparent costs per unit of stored data and per unit of process look relatively high for colocation; on the other hand, lower cost of peak loads and savings in hidden support costs will make the system cheaper for for all but the very largest users.

Whatever approach you take, and whichever suppliers you select, careful analysis of requirements, checking of specific products/capabilities and negotiation are all essentials if you are to provide a reliable system at an appropriate price.

Two final notes:
So far as security is concerned, the user remains the weakest link. Invisible-to-the user site, machine, and system passwords etc. can help, but personally-supported user training remains critical.
There are some remarkable offers out there - if it looks too good to be true...

Most co-location vendors have multiple sites around the globe and they analyze the hit patterns and adjust accordingly. That said, some are single sites.

One thing missing from your comment is the size of servers you might be in need of. If the company is expanding to 20 employees you can use one of the mentioned companies here in this discussion. If your talking of 100 or more then I would contact someone from IBM. They're new blade units are sized for these applications.

Good Luck

I don't know where you are in the world, but I wouldn't use either one.

I would use IBM or ASL.

IBMs are energy efficient and are extremely reliable.

What would be the major factor in deciding; cost, value or reliability?

You have only one option..IBM

This is not really a question that can be answered in full here, you will only get an idea on which company to contact.