In our hands-on experience with dense 13th gen SSD storage builds, the refurbished Dell PowerEdge R730xd 24-Bay 2.5" + RFB is the maximum-density node in the generation: twenty-four 2.5" hot-swap front bays plus a four-bay rear flex bay (RFB), twenty-eight small-form-factor drives total in a single 2U chassis. It is the high-density counterpart to the R730xd 12-Bay 3.5", built on the same Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3/v4 dual-socket platform but optimized for SSD performance and drive count rather than large-form-factor bulk capacity.

In 2026 this is the cost-correct call when high-density SSD per node is the design driver and 13th gen acquisition pricing wins against 14th gen alternatives: vSAN OSA nodes at maximum per-node drive count, dense SQL Server, Oracle, or PostgreSQL on local SAS SSD, high-density virtualization hosts, and scale-out SSD storage clusters where twenty-eight SFF drives per 2U hits the capacity-and-IOPS target. The four-bay rear flex bay gives this variant twice the rear-tier flexibility of the 12-Bay build: a boot mirror plus a dedicated fast tier, or four independent fast-tier drives, all separate from the front array.

Wholesale Servers configures every R730xd to order and tests it before it ships. Each unit completes a 12+ hour burn-in covering every PCIe slot, every memory channel, and every drive bay, then ships with a standard 180-day warranty plus optional 1-Year, 2-Year, and 3-Year Premium coverage for the post-ProSupport period. Volume pricing begins at 5 units. To scope a build, call 1-800-778-1545 or use the quote form on this page.

When 24 SFF Bays Plus a 4-Bay Rear Flex Bay Is the Right Choice

This variant exists for one reason: maximum drive count in a 2U node. Twenty-four front 2.5" bays plus a four-bay rear flex bay is the densest configuration Dell shipped in the 13th generation. Choose it over the R730xd 12-Bay 3.5" + RFB when the workload wants SSD IOPS and spindle count rather than bulk NL-SAS terabytes, and over the standard R730 16-Bay 2.5" when sixteen bays are not enough and the extra eight front bays plus the four rear bays earn their cost. The platform underneath is identical to the rest of the R730 family; what is different here is the backplane, the drive count, and the resource sizing that dense SSD deployments call for.

Storage: 24 SFF Front Bays Plus 4-Bay Rear Flex Bay

Twenty-four 2.5" SAS/SATA hot-swap front bays carry the workload. The volume use case is dense SAS SSD. SAS HDDs are supported, but the SFF chassis is specified when SSD performance is the point; for spinning-disk capacity the 12-Bay LFF build is the right chassis.

Front 24 SFF bays

• 24 x 1.92 TB SAS SSD: The volume vSAN OSA configuration. Partitions cleanly into disk groups, for example six groups of one cache plus three capacity, or four groups of one cache plus five capacity.
• 24 x 3.84 TB SAS SSD: Higher-capacity dense virtualization datastore, roughly 70-80 TB usable at RAID 60 depending on layout. Strong for VM hosts with substantial local storage.
• 24 x 1.6 TB Mixed-Use SAS SSD: Write-intensive workloads at maximum density: SQL Server tempdb arrays, OLTP transaction storage, high-write log retention.
• 16 SAS SSD + 8 SAS HDD: A tiered build with an SSD performance tier over an HDD warm tier. Less common but supported.
• Up to 4 NVMe SSDs: Specific 24-bay backplane SKUs support up to four NVMe drives in the rightmost bays for a cache or hot tier alongside the SAS SSD capacity tier. Not all twenty-four bays are NVMe-capable; confirm the backplane at quote time.

Rear 4-bay flex (RFB)

The four-bay rear flex bay enables more flexible architectures than the 12-Bay build's two-bay rear:

• 2 x SSD boot mirror + 2 x SSD fast tier: Hardware RAID 1 OS boot plus dedicated fast-tier drives, all independent of the front array. The common performance-tier layout.
• 4 x SSD fast tier: For ZFS L2ARC/ZIL, separated transaction logs, or a dedicated metadata tier.
• 2 x boot mirror + 2 x hot spare: A boot pair with standby drives for rapid replacement.

RAID at 24-bay density

Twenty-four drives give real layout flexibility. RAID 60 (two RAID 6 sets of twelve, striped) is the volume choice for dense SSD: twenty data drives, four parity, strong fault tolerance with good efficiency. RAID 60 as three sets of eight trades a little capacity for faster rebuilds. RAID 10 (twelve mirrored pairs) suits write-intensive workloads at a 50% capacity cost. A dual-PERC architecture can run multiple separate arrays (a 16 + 8 or 12 + 12 split) for workload isolation. vSAN disk-group layouts have many valid combinations at twenty-four drives.

Storage Controllers at 24-Bay Scale

The same 13th gen PERC family applies, but at twenty-four drives the controller choice matters more, and dual PERC becomes a real consideration.

• PERC H730P (2 GB NV cache, battery-backed): The production default. RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/60. At twenty-four active SSDs the 2 GB cache works harder than on a 12-drive node; for sustained-write arrays we often pair two of them.
• Dual PERC H730P: Two controllers splitting the front bays (16 + 8, or 12 + 12) materially improve sustained write performance over a single controller fronting all twenty-four drives. Recommended for write-heavy or mixed dense-SSD workloads.
• PERC H730 (1 GB cache): The budget controller when the 2 GB cache is not load-bearing.
• HBA330 (pass-through): The choice for vSAN, Ceph, ZFS, or any software-defined stack that manages redundancy itself. vSAN OSA specifically wants pass-through, not hardware RAID.

The 8 GB PERC H740P is a 14th gen part and does not run on this platform; at 24-drive density its larger cache is exactly where the 14th gen R740xd pulls ahead.

Processors

Dual-socket on LGA-2011-3, accepting Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 (Haswell) and v4 (Broadwell), pin-compatible with a BIOS update, up to 44 cores and 88 threads dual-v4. Unlike the capacity-tier 12-Bay build, the dense-SFF variant is usually deployed for performance, so CPU sizing trends higher.

• E5-2680 v4 (14C, 2.4 GHz, 120W): The volume balanced SKU for dense virtualization and storage-plus-compute nodes.
• E5-2690 v4 (14C, 2.6 GHz, 135W): Higher clock at the same core count for frequency-sensitive workloads.
• E5-2697 v4 (18C, 2.3 GHz, 145W): For high-IOPS vSAN or VM-dense nodes where total core count drives the consolidation ratio.
• E5-2699 v4 (22C, 2.2 GHz, 145W): Maximum core count for the densest virtualization deployments.

Twenty-four active SAS SSDs at high IOPS benefit from cores for RAID processing and network handling, so the cost-floor 85W SKUs that suit a backup target are usually under-spec here. For full per-SKU detail see the 13th gen processor section on the R630 10-Bay platform page.

Memory

24 DDR4 DIMM slots: twelve per CPU, six channels per socket, two slots per channel. Maximum 1.5 TB with 64 GB LRDIMMs. 2400 MT/s at one DIMM per channel on v4 SKUs, stepping to 2133 MT/s at full population or on lower SKUs. No Optane Persistent Memory (a 14th gen feature); no mixed RDIMM/LRDIMM, no UDIMM.

Dense SFF nodes carry more memory than capacity-tier builds because VM density per node is higher.

• 256 GB: Entry point for dense storage with modest compute.
• 512 GB: The volume range for vSAN nodes and high-density VM hosts.
• 768 GB to 1.5 TB: For VDI, memory-intensive virtualization, or large in-memory working sets at the platform ceiling.

The 2400 MT/s ceiling is the platform's defining memory limit against the 14th gen R740xd at 2933 MT/s. For memory-bandwidth-sensitive workloads the delta is real; for IOPS-bound dense storage it is usually not the bottleneck.

Networking and PCIe Expansion

Networking is via the OCP 2.0 rack Network Daughter Card (rNDC), which does not consume a PCIe slot, plus add-in PCIe NICs. rNDC options span 4 x 1 GbE, 2 x 10 GbE Base-T, 4 x 10 GbE, and 25 GbE through a PCIe ConnectX-4 Lx card. On a 24-SSD node, 10 GbE is the floor and 25 GbE is strongly recommended: twenty-four SAS SSDs can saturate a single 10 GbE link under heavy traffic, and vSAN or dense storage-tier deployments benefit directly from the headroom.

The 2U chassis carries up to seven PCIe Gen3 slots depending on riser. On a dense-storage node that budget commonly goes to a second PERC, a 25 GbE NIC, or an external SAS HBA. Specific slot mixes depend on riser choice at order time.

GPU Support

The 2U envelope can host an accelerator (a single-width NVIDIA T4 at 70W, or a double-width Pascal or Volta card such as the P40 or V100 at 250-300W with the right riser and 1100W PSUs), but with twenty-four front bays and four rear bays consuming the chassis, GPU plus full storage is a tight combination. If GPU compute is central, the standard R730 8-Bay 2.5" or a 14th gen R740 is the better-balanced platform. Modern Ampere and Hopper GPUs are not supported here.

Management: iDRAC8 Enterprise

iDRAC8 Enterprise out-of-band management: remote KVM, virtual media, remote power control, hardware health and predictive failure telemetry, Active Directory and LDAP integration, SNMP and email alerting, and Lifecycle Controller for firmware management. For a dense node that consolidates many workloads, reliable remote hands matter, and iDRAC8 covers day-to-day operation.

Against the 14th gen iDRAC9 it lacks the Silicon Root of Trust firmware-integrity chain and System Lockdown. For regulated workloads under firmware-integrity mandates, that points to the R740xd; for most dense-SSD virtualization and storage roles it does not bite.

Power and Cooling

Twenty-four active SSDs plus four rear drives plus dual high-TDP CPUs draw more than the capacity-tier 12-Bay build, and a fully loaded node can approach 900W under sustained load. 1100W is the volume PSU specification here, not 750W.

PSU options are 495W, 750W, 1100W AC, and 1100W DC for HVDC datacenters. Most 24-bay builds want 1100W for headroom; the smaller PSUs suit only lightly populated configurations. Cooling is handled by six hot-swap dual-rotor fans, and the denser drive population runs the fan profile harder than the 12-Bay build, so datacenter ambient temperatures matter.

Physical Specs and Platform Notes

• Form factor: 2U rack, standard 19" mount. The R730xd chassis is deeper than a standard R730 at roughly 775mm versus 684mm, to carry the 24-bay backplane and rear flex bay.
• PCIe expansion: up to seven PCIe Gen3 slots depending on riser, in a mix of full-height and low-profile.
• Parts availability: excellent through 2026-2027, with a deep secondary-market pool for CPUs, DDR4, 2.5" SAS SSDs, PERC controllers, PSUs, and rNDCs. Dell ProSupport on this generation has reached end-of-service; third-party maintenance is the standard production path.
• Accessories we recommend: the 2U B6 ReadyRails II sliding rail kit, the 13th gen 2U security bezel, and a cable management arm.
• Platform notes: confirm rack depth before ordering. There is no BOSS module on this generation; the rear flex bay is the boot device. Front-bay NVMe is limited to specific backplane SKUs. CPU hot-plug is not supported.

Our Assessment

Where it excels: Maximum-density SFF storage at 13th gen pricing is this variant's purpose. vSAN OSA hyperconverged nodes at full per-node drive count, dense SQL Server, Oracle, or PostgreSQL on local SAS SSD, high-density virtualization at high VM counts per node, and scale-out SSD storage clusters all map cleanly to twenty-eight SFF drives in 2U with a flexible four-bay rear tier.

Where to look instead: For bulk NL-SAS HDD capacity, the R730xd 12-Bay 3.5" is the right chassis. Where sixteen SFF bays cover the need, the R730 16-Bay 2.5" is lower cost. For vSAN ESA or NVMe-native architectures, or storage planned to run four or more years, the R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" brings iDRAC9, the 8 GB H740P, faster memory, and a longer support horizon.

Bottom line: This is the densest 13th gen SSD node available and the cost-correct call when drive count and IOPS per 2U are the design drivers on a two-to-four-year horizon. Spec it with higher CPU and memory than a capacity node, plan on 1100W PSUs and often dual PERC, and step up to the R740xd when platform currency, the larger cache, or a longer support window justify the premium. We will quote both side by side so the generation decision is grounded in current cost.

Honest Limitations

• 28 drives is the chassis ceiling. Twenty-four SFF front plus four SFF rear is the maximum in the generation. Higher density means external SAS shelves or a 14th gen platform.
• Front-bay NVMe is constrained. Up to four NVMe drives on specific backplane SKUs, not all twenty-four bays. For NVMe-dense architectures the R750 or R760 are the right platforms.
• vSAN HCL status for 13th gen is narrowing. VMware vSAN compatibility on E5-2600 v3/v4 is in transition; verify the HCL for your planned vSphere version at quote time. For long-term vSAN, 14th gen or newer is the longer-horizon investment.
• Sustained power draw is real. Twenty-four SSDs, dual high-TDP CPUs, dual PERC, and 25 GbE can exceed 900W; size rack PDUs accordingly and plan on 1100W PSUs.
• Cooling and acoustics run harder than the 12-Bay build. Twenty-four active drives generate more heat; datacenter ambient temperature matters.
• Configuration is complex. Twenty-four front bays, four rear bays, single or dual PERC, multiple RAID layouts, and vSAN disk-group math make BOM specification non-trivial; we walk through it at quote time.
• All 13th gen platform constraints apply. iDRAC8 rather than iDRAC9, DDR4 capped at 2400 MT/s, no BOSS module, no Optane, PERC tops out at the H730P, PCIe Gen3 ceiling, Dell ProSupport end-of-service. The R630 10-Bay platform page covers these in full.
• The deeper chassis does not fit every rack. At roughly 775mm, confirm rack depth before ordering.

Workload Fit

Where to Look Instead

• R730xd 12-Bay 3.5" + RFB: the same platform in a large-form-factor chassis, for bulk NL-SAS HDD capacity instead of dense SSD.
• R730 16-Bay 2.5": the dense SFF build on the standard R730 chassis, lower cost when sixteen bays are enough and the rear flex bay is not needed.
• R730 8-Bay 2.5": the general-purpose 2U platform page for full R730 PCIe, GPU, and PSU detail.
• R740xd 24-Bay 2.5": the 14th gen successor with iDRAC9, the 8 GB PERC H740P, faster memory, and NVMe-native backplane options, when the deployment justifies stepping up a generation.
• R630 10-Bay 2.5": the 1U platform page for full 13th gen processor, memory, and management detail.
• HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 24-Bay 2.5": the cross-vendor Gen9 equivalent for shops standardized on HPE.

Ready to Configure?

Tell us your workload (vSAN, dense virtualization, database, or scale-out storage), target SSD count and capacity, RAID requirement, single or dual PERC preference, the rear-flex-bay role (boot plus fast tier, or four-drive fast tier), CPU and memory sizing, networking speed (10 GbE minimum, 25 GbE recommended), and quantity. We respond within 24 hours.

For vSAN deployments, share your target cluster size, vSphere version, and HCL constraints; we will verify R730xd 24-Bay compatibility and size cache and capacity disk groups appropriately, and we will show this build next to the R740xd 24-Bay so the generation decision is grounded in current cost.

Every Wholesale Servers R730xd ships after a 12+ hour burn-in covering every PCIe slot, every memory channel, and every drive bay, and carries a standard 180-day warranty with 1-Year, 2-Year, and 3-Year Premium options for production horizons. Volume pricing applies at 5 units and above. Call 1-800-778-1545 or use the quote form on this page to start.