DELL PowerEdge R730xd 2U rack server 2x Xeon E5-2680 v3 2.5GHz 12-core 768GB DDR4 24x 600GB SAS

Dense 2U storage server

The Dell PowerEdge R730xd packs twenty-four 2.5-inch drive bays into a two-rack-unit chassis. Two Xeon E5-2680 v3 processors deliver twenty-four cores at 2.5 GHz with 3.3 GHz turbo. Seventy-eight gigabytes of DDR4-2133 registered ECC memory fill all twenty-four DIMM slots. The PERC H730 controller manages the included six-hundred-gigabyte 10K SAS drives.

Sustained throughput under load

The H730 controller with its one-gigabyte battery-backed cache maintains consistent write performance across RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60 during extended operations. Dual 750-watt platinum power supplies share the load and keep the system running if one unit fails. The X520/I350 network daughter card provides two ten-gigabit SFP+ and two one-gigabit ports for steady data flow. iDRAC 8 Enterprise allows remote monitoring without interrupting the host.

Twenty-four bay capacity limit

This chassis accepts exactly twenty-four 2.5-inch SAS or SATA drives and cannot be expanded further. Buyers who need more raw storage must add external enclosures or choose a different platform. The LGA 2011-3 sockets are already populated with the maximum two processors, so CPU upgrades are not possible. Memory can grow to 1.5 TB if larger DDR4 modules are sourced.