Dell PowerEdge R640 10-Bay | 2x Gold 6140 | 36 Cores | 1.5 TB RAM | H330 | 4x 12TB SAS

This is a fully-configured, ready-to-rack R640 — not a chassis waiting to be specced. It ships with everything installed, tested, and documented: processors, memory, RAID controller, and drives all in place. For procurement teams who need predictable delivery timelines and don't want to go through a configuration process, this is the path. The specific configuration is fixed; what you see in the specs below is what ships.

Why we offer fixed configurations alongside the Configure & Quote chassis: Not every procurement cycle has time for a design conversation. Sometimes you need a specific quantity of a known configuration on a fast timeline. These pre-built units go through the same testing and documentation process as our custom builds — the difference is the configuration is already done. Pricing is fixed; volume discounts still apply at 5 units and above.

Configuration Details

• Chassis: Dell PowerEdge R640 10-Bay 2.5" SFF, 1U rack
• Processors: 2x Intel Xeon Gold 6140 — 2.3 GHz base, 18 cores / 36 threads per CPU, 36 cores / 72 threads total, 150W TDP
• Memory: 1.5 TB DDR4 (24x 64 GB LRDIMM) — full 24-DIMM population, all six memory channels active per CPU at 2 DPC
• RAID Controller: PERC H330
• Storage: 4x 12 TB SAS HDDs
• Total raw storage: 48 TB (RAID 6 recommended — 24 TB usable with 2-drive fault tolerance)

What We Think of This Configuration

The Gold 6140 is a strong 1st Generation Xeon Scalable (Skylake-SP) processor — launched in 2017, 18 cores at 2.3 GHz base with a 3.7 GHz all-core turbo, 150W TDP. At 36 cores total in a dual-socket build, this is substantial compute for a 1U chassis. The performance profile is well-suited for workloads that benefit from high core counts: large vSphere hosts, mid-range database servers, and application environments with significant thread parallelism.

On the memory: 1.5 TB is a lot — and it's done correctly, with 64 GB LRDIMMs across all 24 slots for full channel utilization. This level of memory density in a 1U chassis is genuinely impressive and positions this unit well for memory-intensive virtualization (large VM counts, high consolidation ratios) or in-memory database workloads. Full 2 DPC LRDIMM population at this capacity isn't a cheap build — it's a deliberate configuration for workloads that need it.

On the RAID controller — fair warning: The H330 is a capable entry-level controller, but it lacks the non-volatile write cache of the H740P or H730P. For write-intensive workloads, this matters — the H330 doesn't provide the write latency protection that a battery-backed cache delivers. For this specific configuration where the drives are 12 TB NL-SAS HDDs (sequential-heavy, not high-IOPS), the H330 is an acceptable choice. For a workload that generates sustained random writes, we would spec an H740P instead — and we can quote that substitution if needed.

On the drives: 4x 12 TB SAS HDDs provide 48 TB raw capacity. NL-SAS at this capacity is purpose-built for sequential-heavy workloads — large file storage, backup and archive, cold data tiers, object storage. Random IOPS on NL-SAS at 7,200 RPM is modest (around 150–180 IOPS per drive). If this unit will serve high-IOPS random I/O workloads, we would recommend an SSD-based configuration instead. For capacity-first sequential workloads, 48 TB raw in a 1U chassis is exceptional density.

On generation: The Gold 6140 is 1st Generation Xeon Scalable (Skylake-SP), one generation behind the 2nd Gen Cascade Lake CPUs in most of our other R640 configurations. Performance difference is workload-dependent — Cascade Lake adds AVX-512 improvements, slightly better memory speeds, and hardware-level mitigations for certain speculative execution vulnerabilities that Skylake handles in firmware (with some performance overhead on affected workloads). For most enterprise workloads, the real-world performance delta is small. The price advantage of 1st-gen configurations is often significant.

Ideal Workloads for This Configuration

• Large vSphere hosts: 36 cores + 1.5 TB memory supports very high VM consolidation ratios. Strong choice for VDI environments or application consolidation where memory density per host is the primary metric.
• In-memory databases: 1.5 TB memory with full channel utilization is purpose-built for SAP HANA, large SQL Server in-memory configurations, or Redis/Memcached at scale.
• High-capacity file and object storage: 48 TB raw on NL-SAS with a 1U footprint. Sequential-heavy workloads only — not an IOPS platform at this drive configuration.
• Backup and archive targets: 48 TB raw with sequential write throughput suited to backup landing zones or tiered archive.

Where This Configuration Has Limitations

• Random I/O workloads: NL-SAS HDDs are not a high-IOPS storage platform. If random I/O is the primary workload driver, request a quote for an SSD-configured R640 instead.
• H330 write latency: No non-volatile write cache means write latency is bounded by physical disk performance. Acceptable for sequential workloads; suboptimal for high-concurrency random writes.
• 1st Gen Xeon (Skylake) spectre/meltdown mitigations: Skylake-SP processors running certain workloads with firmware-based speculative execution mitigations may see slight performance overhead compared to hardware-mitigated Cascade Lake CPUs. For most enterprise workloads this is not material — but it's worth knowing.

Refurbished Context for 2026

The R640 / Gold 6140 platform has been in production environments since 2017 — nearly nine years of deployment history. That maturity works in your favor: firmware is stable, failure modes are well-understood, replacement parts are abundant, and Dell ProSupport remains available. Every unit we ship goes through documented testing including CPU stress testing, memory validation across all 24 DIMM slots, RAID controller verification, and drive health assessment (SMART data reviewed and logged). The H330 configuration and NL-SAS drives are assessed for remaining useful life — we disclose any wear indicators before the PO is issued.

Workload Fit

Ordering This Configuration

This is a fixed-spec unit — pricing is set and delivery is faster than custom Configure & Quote builds since no configuration assembly time is required. Volume pricing applies at 5 units. If you need this configuration with substitutions (different RAID controller, different drives, additional memory), contact us and we will quote the modified configuration through the standard Configure & Quote process. Lead time for this fixed configuration: typically 3–5 business days to ship after PO receipt.