Dell PowerEdge R540 2U 8-bay 2x Xeon Gold 5118 2.3GHz 12-core 256GB DDR4 8x 8TB SAS

Dell PowerEdge R540 2U Server

The Dell PowerEdge R540 is a 2U rack server built for data-intensive workloads. It ships with dual Intel Xeon Gold 5118 processors, each running at 2.3 GHz with 12 cores, and 256 GB of DDR4 registered ECC memory across eight 32 GB modules. Eight 8 TB 7.2 K SAS hard drives are installed behind the HBA330 storage controller. Dual 750 W redundant power supplies and iDRAC 9 Enterprise remote management come standard.

Virtualisation and database hosts needing dense

This configuration suits teams running virtual machines, databases or file services that benefit from 64 TB of raw SAS capacity in a 2U form factor. The HBA330 controller operates in pass-through mode only, so buyers who require hardware RAID acceleration should look elsewhere. Organisations needing GPU compute or more than two processor sockets will need a different platform. The fixed eight-bay chassis also limits expansion beyond the installed drives.

HBA330 pass-through storage controller

The Dell PERC HBA330 provides 12 Gb/s SAS and SATA connectivity without on-board RAID processing. This means the operating system or a software layer manages all redundancy and performance policies for the eight installed 8 TB drives. Confirm that your software stack can handle software RAID or JBOD before deploying this server.