DELL PowerEdge R740xd2 2U 26 Bay 3.5" 2x Xeon Gold 6230 2.1GHz 20C 128GB DDR4 26x 8TB HBA330 iDRAC9 2x 1100W

Dense 2U storage server

The Dell PowerEdge R740xd2 fits 26 front-access 3.5-inch bays into a 2U rack frame, making it a compact platform for capacity-heavy workloads such as backup repositories, media archives and software-defined storage clusters. Dual Xeon Gold 6230 processors deliver 20 cores each at 2.1 GHz with 3.9 GHz turbo, while 128 GB of DDR4-2666 ECC memory across eight modules provides a reliable base for data-intensive applications. The PERC HBA330 controller manages the installed drives in a JBOD or software-RAID configuration.

SATA throughput ceiling

Twenty-six 8 TB 7.2 K SATA drives share the controller's 12 Gbit/s SAS/SATA backbone, so sustained sequential performance is bounded by the 6 Gbit/s SATA link per drive rather than the PCIe bus. The dual-port 10/25 Gb SFP28 OCP 3.0 mezzanine card and dual 1 GbE LOM ports handle network traffic, but the storage path itself cannot exceed the SATA interface limit. Builders needing higher per-drive bandwidth would need a different drive technology or controller topology.

Twenty-six bay maximum

The chassis is populated to its full 26-drive limit, leaving no internal 3.5-inch slots for expansion without removing existing drives. Memory reaches 128 GB of the 1 TB maximum across 16 DIMM slots, and both LGA 3647 sockets are occupied by the Gold 6230 CPUs, so compute and capacity headroom depend on external enclosures or a larger chassis.