Dell PowerEdge R350 8-Bay 2.5"
Configure Your System:
1 Processor Required
Every option in the family runs high clocks across a handful of cores, and that is the right shape for what an R350 does: a domain controller, DNS and DHCP, a small application server, a firewall or monitoring box, or the dependable utility machine at a branch site. These are jobs that want responsiveness, not core count, and the E-2300 series delivers current-generation responsiveness at an entry price.
The higher-core options in the family earn their step when the box will run a couple of VMs or a hungrier application; the entry chips cover single-purpose duty honestly.
A licensing note that works in your favor for once: Windows Server's 16-core minimum license covers this entire server with room to spare, so there is no license math to optimize here. Buy the chip that fits the budget.
Fair warning: if your plans include real virtualization density or a growing user count, the jump to the dual-socket platforms buys memory capacity and expansion this class simply does not have. The R350 is superb at being small and current; it does not scale into something it is not. We will tell you honestly at quote time if your workload has outgrown this class.
2 Heat Sink Optional
A compact single-socket chip in a 1U chassis is an easy thermal problem, which is also why the R350 is one of the quieter rack servers we sell: it rarely needs to work its fans hard. Keep the drive bay blanks and internal shroud installed so air goes where it should, give it reasonable ambient temperature, and it will run for years without a thermal complaint.
It tolerates office and closet life better than most rack gear, which is exactly the life most R350s live.
3 Memory (RAM) 4 DIMM slots, modules added in sets of 2 Required
Populate in pairs. The memory controller runs two channels, and a matched pair engages both; a single stick leaves bandwidth on the table for almost no savings. The configurator pairs DIMM speeds with what your processor supports.
Our honest sizing advice runs opposite to bigger servers: on the R350, fill it or nearly fill it now. With only 4 slots, the upgrade path is short and usually means discarding smaller sticks later. 16 GB (2x 8 GB) covers a single-purpose utility box, 32 GB (2x 16 GB) is our default and leaves two slots genuinely open, and 64 GB (4x 16 GB) and up is the play if this server will host even a couple of VMs, because memory is what this platform runs out of first.
As always, buy matched sticks together rather than mixing later; mismatched UDIMMs are a classic source of mystery instability on entry platforms.
4 RAID Controllers Optional
PERC H345 is the configurator default and the right controller for most R350 builds: it handles the RAID 1 mirror that is this server's natural storage layout, and simple arrays beyond it, without cache it would never use. For a utility box running a mirrored pair, it is the correct and complete answer.
PERC H355 is a modest step up for the same simple-RAID duty with newer internals; either serves the mirror life well.
PERC H755 (8 GB battery-backed cache) is real muscle, and on this chassis it earns its price only when the eight-bay version is running a parity array with genuine write load. It is not wrong on a smaller build, just rarely worth the difference; put the savings into memory instead.
Building ZFS or want drives passed straight through? Call us at 1-800-778-1545 and we will spec the right host bus adapter for that build.
Whatever you pick: on a server this size, RAID 1 is the layout. Two drives mirrored, dead simple, and either one carries the box alone. Save the exotic arrays for chassis with the bays to support them.
5 Storage Drives Select up to 8 drives (0/8 Slots Used) Optional
The 2.5" R350 gives an entry server eight hot-swap bays, which is more storage flexibility than most utility roles ever use, and that is a good problem. SSDs are our default: a utility server feels responsive or it does not, and the price difference at sensible capacities has collapsed. 10K SAS spinning drives cover bulk where capacity per dollar matters, and a mixed build, an SSD mirror for the OS and applications with spinning pairs behind it, covers a lot of real workloads.
Buy new. We steer you away from refurbished on drives specifically, and we say that as a company that sells refurbished servers all day. A used drive with unknown hours is a different bet than a burned-in chassis, and a rebuild is exactly when you do not want to lose a second one.
Boot the right way: the BOSS card in the Add-Ons step carries a mirrored pair of M.2 drives dedicated to the operating system, keeping every front bay for data and separating a boot failure from a data failure permanently. Even on an entry server, it is the tidiest arrangement this platform offers.
Fair warning on capacity math: RAID overhead and filesystem headroom mean usable space lands well under the sum of the labels. Size for the usable number, and when in doubt, one drive size up is cheap insurance.
6 Remote Access Required
The dividing line is the remote console. iDRAC9 Enterprise gives you remote KVM and virtual media through a clean HTML5 interface: reach the server's screen, mount an ISO, and rebuild an OS from anywhere, even when the operating system is down. The lower tiers leave you walking to the server for any problem below the OS.
Here is the honest entry-tier take: R350s live two very different lives, and the license should match yours. If this box sits down the hall, the lower tier is genuinely fine; save the money and put it toward memory.
But a huge share of R350s are exactly the machines nobody visits: the branch office utility server, the remote site DNS box, the firewall at a location with no IT staff. For those, Enterprise is the difference between fixing a dead OS from your desk and driving, and one avoided trip pays for the license.
If you are deploying 5 or more units across sites, take Enterprise on all of them. Fleet management without remote console access does not work in practice.
7 Power Supply 2x included in build Required
What is worth knowing is which arrangement your chassis carries. R350s ship either with a single cabled supply, the lowest-cost arrangement, or with redundant hot-plug supplies, where either unit carries the whole server and a failed one swaps without a shutdown. If your build shows the redundant option, take it for any server the office feels when it stops; if it shows the single supply, you are accepting the classic entry-server trade: no redundancy, and a supply failure means downtime until the part is replaced. For a utility box with a good backup, that trade is usually fine.
Either way, two pieces of honest advice that cost almost nothing: put the server on a small UPS, because clean shutdowns during power events are most of what redundancy buys a box like this anyway, and if this server somehow becomes the machine the business cannot function without, that is your sign it has outgrown the entry class.
8 Network Cards Required
If a specific role needs more, a segmented firewall build wanting extra ports, or a small backup target that other machines push to on a schedule, a PCIe network card covers it, and the R350 has a slot for one. 10 Gb cards are available if the role genuinely calls for it.
If you go that route, match the port type to your switch: SFP+ ports take fiber or DAC cables, BASE-T ports are copper on ordinary RJ45, and they must simply match what you own.
Need a card added to your build? Call 1-800-778-1545 and we will spec it with the rest of the order.
9 Operating System Required
The good news on this platform: the R350 is current enough that every modern OS supports it fully, including Windows Server 2025, so the choice is about your environment, not compatibility.
Windows Server 2022 is the mainstream pick for domain, DNS, DHCP, and print duty, the R350's classic jobs, and 2025 is there if you want the newest platform. The licensing works in your favor here: the 16-core base license covers this server with room to spare, so there is no core math to do. On CALs, count your users and round up.
Fair warning on Evaluation Editions: free and fully functional for 180 days, then they expire. Right for labs and proof-of-concept, wrong for production.
Ubuntu Server LTS is the natural fit for the other half of R350 life: DNS resolvers, monitoring, small web services, and network utilities, with five years of free updates and no licensing conversation at all.
Proxmox VE runs well within this platform's limits if you want two or three small VMs on one box; just mind the memory ceiling when planning.
No OS is there for firewall distributions and appliance images, which R350s wear well.
Not sure which fits? Tell us the workload at quote time, or call 1-800-778-1545.
WServer Warranty
Dell PowerEdge R350 8-Bay 2.5" Drives [15th Gen] Detailed Review
The Dell PowerEdge R350 8-Bay 2.5" is the small-form-factor configuration of Dell's 15th-generation entry single-socket platform. It pairs a single Intel Xeon E-2300 (Rocket Lake) processor with eight 2.5" hot-plug SFF drive bays in a 1U chassis, on the same production-grade R350 internals as the 4-Bay: dual hot-plug redundant power supplies, three PCIe slots with a dedicated controller position, and a rear hot-plug boot card. The difference is the front bays. Eight small-format bays instead of four large-format trades capacity per drive for spindle count and SSD density, which is the right trade when I/O throughput and drive count matter more than raw terabytes.
This is a 15th-gen platform, and we sell it as Surplus New or Refurbished rather than factory-new. Surplus New means a genuinely unused unit drawn from excess channel inventory: never deployed, but outside Dell's current new-sales channel, which is why it is priced below Dell-direct new. Refurbished units are previously deployed servers we have tested and reconditioned. Both carry the Wholesale Servers warranty described below; tell us which condition you need at quote time and we price accordingly.
To spec a build, call 1-800-778-1545 and a technician will size the configuration with you: CPU, memory, drives, controller, and boot device. Every server we ship is bench-tested through a 12+ hour burn-in and backed by our 180-day warranty, and volume pricing is available once an order reaches 5 units. We quote configurations rather than selling fixed SKUs, so the hardware is sized to the workload instead of a box you have to design around.
When 8 SFF Bays Is the Right Choice
The R350 line has two chassis variants on identical platform internals. The R350 4-Bay 3.5" carries four large-format LFF bays for bulk local capacity; this 8-Bay 2.5" carries eight small-format bays. The choice is density versus capacity per drive: eight SFF bays give you more spindles and more room for an all-SSD or hybrid array, while four LFF bays give you more raw terabytes per drive. Choose the 8-Bay when drive count, IOPS, or SSD density is the priority, and the 4-Bay when bulk nearline capacity is.
Everything else about the platform is shared with the 4-Bay and with the rest of the 15th-gen entry line: one Rocket Lake Xeon E-2300, four UDIMM slots capped at 128 GB, redundant hot-plug power, and iDRAC9 management. When a workload needs more than eight cores, more than 128 GB of memory, or registered DIMMs, the single-socket tier is the wrong tier and the dual-socket R450 8-Bay 2.5" on Xeon Scalable is the step up. If two drives and a single power supply are all the role needs, the lower-cost R250 4-Bay 3.5" Hot-Swap is the appliance-tier option.
Storage - 8 SFF 2.5" Bays
The chassis carries eight 2.5" hot-plug SFF bays on a SAS/SATA backplane. Because the backplane is hot-plug, a failed drive in a protected array is replaced and rebuilt with the server still running. Eight bays open up wider RAID layouts than the four-bay chassis: RAID 10 across eight drives (four usable, fast rebuilds, strong write behavior), RAID 6 with two parity drives across a larger set, or multiple independent arrays. SAS or SATA SSDs are the usual fit here for an I/O-oriented build, with 10K SAS drives an option where a mix of capacity and speed is wanted. There is no NVMe on this backplane; the R350 front bays are SAS/SATA only, and any NVMe would come from an add-in card rather than the front bays.
Compared with the 4-Bay LFF, the eight small-format bays prioritize spindle count and SSD density over per-drive capacity: a 2.5" drive tops out lower in raw terabytes than a 3.5" LFF drive, so for bulk nearline capacity the 4-Bay still wins, while for IOPS, SSD density, and RAID flexibility the 8-Bay is the better chassis. For boot, the right device is the BOSS-S2 card: two M.2 SATA SSDs in a hardware RAID 1 mirror on a dedicated, rear-accessible hot-plug card. It keeps the operating system off the eight front bays, so all eight stay available for the data array. Note the R350 uses the rear hot-plug BOSS-S2 specifically; the non-hot-plug BOSS-S1 is the R250 part. IDSDM and an internal USB 3.0 port are also available for hypervisor or recovery media.
Storage Controllers
The R350 supports the entry PERC 11 controller family plus software RAID. With eight bays the controller choice is load-bearing, because it decides whether parity RAID is available and how well it performs:
- S150: chipset software RAID. Adequate for a boot mirror or a light, non-production array. No cache, parity is host-driven; not a production data-array recommendation, and not the right choice for an eight-drive parity set.
- PERC H355: hardware RAID, no cache. It does RAID 0, 1, and 10 only - like the H345 and H350, it does not do RAID 5, 6, 50, or 60. Across eight bays the H355 supports RAID 10, which is a strong choice for an SSD array, but it cannot deliver parity RAID.
- PERC H755: hardware RAID with battery-backed cache. The controller to quote when an eight-drive array needs RAID 5 or RAID 6, or when parity write performance matters. On the R350, parity RAID means the H755; there is no other path to RAID 5/6 on this platform.
- HBA355i / HBA355e: pass-through HBA, internal and external, for software-defined storage or a host that wants raw disk access. This is the right choice for a small vSAN or other software-defined node.
What the R350 does not take is the older PERC 9/10 line: no H730, no H740P. Those are 13th and 14th-gen Mini-PERC parts, and the 15th-gen entry board does not carry them forward. The correct 15th-gen equivalents are the H355 (RAID 10 and below) and the H755 (parity RAID).
Processors
The R350 is a single-socket Rocket Lake platform on socket LGA 1200 with the Intel C256 chipset. It takes one Intel Xeon E-2300 processor, up to eight cores and sixteen threads, in roughly the 95W class. SKUs run from the lower-power E-2314 and E-2334 up to the 8-core E-2378 and E-2388G; Pentium options exist for the lightest roles but give up cores, cache, and turbo headroom. On an SFF build doing real SSD-backed I/O, the 6-core E-2336 or 8-core E-2378 is the sensible center of the range: enough threads to drive a multi-drive array, an application server, a small database, or a handful of light virtual machines.
One platform fact worth stating plainly, because it surprises buyers: the integrated graphics on the Xeon E-2300 are disabled on Dell servers. Console video comes from the Matrox G200 in iDRAC9, not from the CPU iGPU. That has no effect on a headless server role, but the on-die graphics are not a usable display path here. This is Rocket Lake (Cypress Cove), the Xeon E-2300 generation. It is not Ice Lake-SP; Ice Lake-SP is the Xeon Scalable silicon in the R650 and R750, a different socket and a different platform entirely.
Memory
The R350 has four DDR4 UDIMM slots across two memory channels, two DIMMs per channel. Memory is unbuffered ECC only: no RDIMM, no LRDIMM, and no persistent memory. Some older catalog copy lists the R350 as taking UDIMM or RDIMM; that is wrong, the platform is unbuffered ECC only. Maximum capacity is 128 GB using four 32 GB unbuffered ECC modules. Rated speed reaches DDR4-3200 on the Xeon E-2300 SKUs; a Pentium caps lower at 2666, and a fully populated dual-rank, two-DIMM-per-channel configuration steps to 2933 under Intel's population rules.
The 128 GB ceiling holds across every R350 chassis including this 8-Bay. For an SSD-backed application or storage role 128 GB is comfortable headroom, but it is still an entry ceiling and there is no registered-memory path. A buyer who can already see a deployment growing past 128 GB of memory, or running a dense virtualization host on this many drives, should size up: the dual-socket R450 8-Bay 2.5" with sixteen registered DIMM slots is the platform that scales.
Networking and PCIe Expansion
Onboard networking is a Broadcom 5720 dual-port 1 GbE LOM plus a dedicated iDRAC management port. There is no Network Daughter Card or OCP mezzanine on this platform and no onboard 10 GbE: the R350 networks at 1 GbE on the motherboard. An eight-drive SSD array can easily outrun a 1 GbE link, so on an I/O-oriented 8-Bay build a 10 GbE or 25 GbE add-in NIC is usually part of the configuration; plan for it.
PCIe on the R350 is three PCIe Gen4 slots plus a dedicated controller position, all low-profile and half-length. The dedicated PERC slot means the H755 does not consume a general-purpose slot, leaving the three Gen4 slots free for a faster NIC, an external SAS HBA, or other expansion. For workloads that need more expansion than three slots or a second socket behind them, the 2U R750xs 8-Bay 2.5" is the larger-chassis step in the same generation.
GPU Support
The R350 is not a GPU platform, and we do not pretend otherwise. The 1U thermal envelope, the single-socket power and lane budget, and the low-profile PCIe slots leave no practical room for a compute accelerator; there is no x16 slot at the power and cooling a datacenter GPU needs. If a buyer lands here looking for GPU compute, inference, or transcode, this is the wrong box. For GPU-capable Dell hardware, look at the 2U PowerEdge R750, which has the slots, power, and cooling for double-width accelerators.
Management - iDRAC9 Generation
The R350 runs iDRAC9 with Lifecycle Controller, the same out-of-band management generation as the rest of Dell's 15th-gen line. iDRAC9 is licensed as Express, Enterprise, or Datacenter. Express covers basic remote monitoring and IPMI; for production you generally want Enterprise, which adds the full virtual console, virtual media, and the System Lockdown feature that prevents unplanned firmware and configuration drift. Datacenter adds telemetry features that matter more in dense fleets than on a single entry server.
On the security side the R350 carries Dell's silicon Root of Trust, Secure Boot, and cryptographically signed firmware, with an optional TPM 2.0 module for measured boot and compliance frameworks. For a branch or small-office deployment the practical value of iDRAC9 Enterprise is being able to reboot, reinstall, and recover the server remotely without a site visit, which on a remote box often pays for the license on the first incident.
Power and Cooling
Like the 4-Bay, the 8-Bay ships with dual hot-plug redundant power supplies. A power-supply failure does not take the server offline, and a failed unit is replaced without downtime. PSU tiers run in the 600W to 700W class, in Platinum and Titanium efficiency, with the exact tier confirmed per SKU at quote time; an eight-SSD build is well within the lower tier's budget. Redundant power is part of why the R350 is the entry server for roles that have to stay up.
Cooling is sized for the single-socket E-2300 envelope. The 95W-class processors here do not require the high-performance heatsinks that the higher-TDP Xeon Scalable platforms need, and there are no exotic thermal constraints to plan around at this tier; standard data-closet and small-rack ambient conditions are well within range.
Physical Specs & Platform Notes
- Form factor: 1U rack, approximately 558.9 mm deep, regulatory model E77S. Fits standard-depth racks and most short-depth cabinets.
- PCIe expansion: three PCIe Gen4 slots plus a dedicated controller position, all low-profile half-length. The dedicated PERC slot keeps the RAID card off the three general-purpose slots.
- Parts availability: strong. The R350 is a current 15th-gen platform; 2.5" drives, redundant power supplies, DDR4 UDIMMs, PERC 11 controllers, and BOSS-S2 cards are all readily sourced, and Dell platform support for 15th gen is active.
- Accessories we recommend: a BOSS-S2 boot card so the OS stays off the eight front bays; the Dell A12 1U sliding rail kit that fits the R340, R350, and R360 chassis; and a 10 GbE or 25 GbE NIC, which an eight-drive SSD array usually warrants.
- Platform notes: eight 2.5" hot-plug bays and dual hot-plug redundant PSUs, so drives and power are serviceable without downtime; no NVMe on the front backplane; CPU integrated graphics disabled with video via the iDRAC9 Matrox G200; rear hot-plug BOSS-S2 rather than the R250's BOSS-S1.
Our Assessment
Where it excels: The R350 8-Bay 2.5" is the right answer for a small-business or branch-office server that wants drive count and SSD density in a redundant, serviceable 1U box. An SSD-backed application server, a small all-flash or hybrid array, a database with its data spread across multiple fast drives, or a small software-defined storage node behind an HBA all fit comfortably inside its envelope. The eight bays plus the H755 give it real RAID flexibility, and the redundant PSUs and hot-plug drives make it appropriate for roles that have to stay up.
Where to look instead: If bulk nearline capacity matters more than spindle count, the R350 4-Bay 3.5" carries larger LFF drives. If two drives and a single power supply are enough, the lower-cost R250 4-Bay 3.5" Hot-Swap covers the appliance case. If the deployment needs more than eight cores, more than 128 GB of memory, or registered DIMMs, the dual-socket R450 8-Bay 2.5" is the platform; for a larger 2U SFF chassis in the same generation, the R750xs 8-Bay 2.5" is the step up. GPU work belongs on the R750.
Bottom line: This is the SFF entry Dell. An organization that wants eight serviceable 2.5" bays, redundant power, and real RAID flexibility in a single inexpensive 1U server, and that knows it will stay inside one Xeon E-2300 and 128 GB of memory, gets exactly that here. The typical buyer is an IT generalist or a managed-service provider standing up a branch or small-office SSD-backed application or storage server where density and uptime matter more than raw capacity.
Honest Limitations
- Single socket, eight cores, 128 GB. A hard ceiling: no second CPU, no path past four DIMM slots, and no registered memory. Size for it or buy a higher tier.
- Unbuffered ECC memory only. The four slots take UDIMMs only, capped at 128 GB. No RDIMM or LRDIMM path exists on this platform.
- No NVMe. The eight front bays are SAS/SATA only; any NVMe is an add-in card, not a front-bay device.
- Lower raw capacity than LFF. Eight 2.5" drives hold fewer total terabytes than four large 3.5" drives; the 4-Bay is the capacity chassis.
- Parity RAID requires the H755. The entry H355 is RAID 0/1/10 only; RAID 5 or 6 needs the H755 controller.
- 1 GbE onboard networking. An eight-SSD array can outrun 1 GbE; faster networking is an add-in card.
- Not a GPU platform. No accelerator path; see GPU Support above.
Workload Fit
| Right for the R350 8-Bay 2.5" | Consider an alternative for |
|---|---|
| SSD-backed application or storage server with drive density | Bulk nearline capacity per drive (R350 4-Bay 3.5") |
| Small all-flash or hybrid arrays with RAID flexibility | More than eight cores or 128 GB memory (R450) |
| Small software-defined storage node behind an HBA | An appliance role needing only two drives (R250 4-Bay) |
| Branch or small-office SFF compute with redundant power | A larger 2U SFF chassis in the same generation (R750xs) |
| Roles that have to stay up and be serviced without downtime | GPU compute, inference, or transcode (R750) |
Where to Look Instead
- Same platform, LFF capacity: R350 4-Bay 3.5", four large-format bays for bulk nearline capacity instead of eight SFF bays.
- Lower cost, appliance tier: R250 4-Bay 3.5" Hot-Swap, the entry without redundant power.
- Up a tier for cores and memory: R450 8-Bay 2.5", dual-socket Xeon Scalable with registered memory beyond the entry ceiling.
- Larger 2U SFF chassis, same generation: R750xs 8-Bay 2.5", more drives and expansion in a 2U form factor.
- Previous generation: R340 8-Bay 2.5", the 14th-gen entry SFF predecessor on the Xeon E-2100 and E-2200.
- Rail kit: the Dell A12 1U sliding rail kit for the R340, R350, and R360 chassis.
Ready to Configure?
Tell us the workload, the drive type and capacity, the RAID level, the memory target, and the quantity, and we will build a configuration around it. Call 1-800-778-1545 to spec the CPU, memory, drives, controller, and BOSS-S2 boot card with a technician who knows the platform. Every R350 ships after a 12+ hour burn-in and a full inspection, carries our 180-day warranty, and is available at volume pricing from 5 units. We quote configurations rather than fixed bundles; request a quote and we return formal pricing, typically within one business day.
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