DELL PowerEdge R730xd 2U Rack Server 2x Xeon E5-2680 v3 2.5GHz 12-Core 64GB DDR4 24x 300GB SAS H730

Dense 2U Storage Server

The Dell PowerEdge R730xd packs 24 hot-swap 2.5-inch drive bays into a 2U rack chassis. Dual Xeon E5-2680 v3 processors deliver 24 cores at 2.5 GHz with 3.3 GHz turbo, backed by 64 GB of DDR4 ECC memory across four 16 GB modules. A PERC H730 controller with 1 GB cache manages RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60 for the 24 installed 300 GB 10K SAS drives. Quad-port networking adds two 1 GbE and two 10 GbE SFP+ links, while iDRAC 8 Enterprise and dual 750 W platinum supplies complete the platform.

Suited For High-Capacity Workloads

This configuration targets databases, virtual desktop infrastructure, data-warehouse nodes and other I/O-heavy tasks that benefit from many spindles in a compact rack footprint. The 24-bay layout and hardware RAID suit teams needing redundant local storage without external arrays. Buyers who need all-flash performance or GPU-accelerated compute should evaluate other platforms. Organisations requiring more than two sockets or memory beyond 1.5 TB will need a larger chassis.

24-Bay 2.5-Inch SAS Chassis

The defining constraint is the 24-bay 2.5-inch SAS backplane paired with the H730 controller. It fixes the maximum drive count at 24 and limits media to SAS or SATA drives with 12 Gb/s signalling. Any expansion beyond internal bays requires external enclosures. Verify that your workload fits within 300 GB per spindle and the 1.5 TB memory ceiling before committing.