DELL PowerEdge R730xd 12LFF 2x Xeon E5-2699 v4 128GB DDR4 rack server

12-Bay 3.5-Inch Rack Server

The Dell PowerEdge R730xd is a 2U rack server built around a 12-bay 3.5-inch chassis. Two Intel Xeon E5-2699 v4 processors run at 2.2 GHz with 22 cores each and 55 MB cache. The system includes 128 GB of DDR4 ECC registered memory and a PERC H730 SAS controller for RAID management. Dual 1100 W power supplies and iDRAC8 Enterprise remote management come standard.

Suits Dense Storage Builds Not All-Flash Arrays

This platform suits buyers who need up to twelve 3.5-inch SATA or SAS drives behind a single hardware RAID controller. It also fits workloads that benefit from dual 10 GbE and dual 1 GbE network ports provided by the installed Intel I350 and X540 adapters. Buyers who want more storage bays than twelve, or who require direct PCIe-attached drive bays, should look at a different chassis.

Twelve 3.5-Inch Drive Bays Define Capacity

The single specification that decides fit is the twelve 3.5-inch drive bay count combined with the PERC H730 controller. That pairing fixes the maximum number of spinning disks or SATA SSDs the server can hold and the RAID levels available. If the required drive count exceeds twelve, or if the workload demands a controller the H730 does not support, this server will not meet the requirement.