Dell PowerEdge R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" 8x NVMe
Configure Your System:
1 Processor Required
Step 1: Choose a series
Both generations drop into the same R740xd motherboard, so this is a price and features decision, not a compatibility one.
Intel Xeon Gen 1 (Skylake-SP, 4100/5100/6100/8100 series) is the value play. Mature, plentiful, and the best price per core in the lineup. Memory tops out at 2666 MT/s.
Intel Xeon Gen 2 (Cascade Lake-SP, 4200/5200/6200/8200 series) adds higher clocks per tier, 2933 MT/s memory support on Gold 6200 SKUs, and Optane PMem support on L-series parts. Worth the premium when per-core performance is load-bearing; otherwise Gen 1 does the same job for less.
Whichever series you pick, populate both sockets. A single-CPU R740xd loses half its memory channels, half its DIMM slots, and the PCIe slots that route through the second CPU, and a storage node needs those lanes for controllers and networking.
Step 2: Choose your CPU
A storage-first chassis does not need top-bin compute, but do not starve it either: vSAN, Ceph, and Storage Spaces Direct all burn real CPU cycles on checksums, erasure coding, and rebuilds.
Running Windows Server 2022 or 2025? Two 8-core Gold CPUs land exactly on the 16-core base license. Our pick is the Gold 6134 (8 cores, 3.2 GHz, 130W): high clocks per core, which Windows and Storage Spaces workloads reward.
Building a software-defined storage node on vSphere, Proxmox, or Ceph? The Gold 6230 (20 cores, 2.1 GHz, 125W) is the balanced default, and VMware's 16-core-per-socket license minimum makes the 8-core strategy pointless there anyway.
Silver covers backup targets and archive nodes where the drives do the work. Platinum rarely belongs in this chassis; if the workload needs that much compute, the storage probably belongs on a SAN.
Fair warning on any CPU above 150W: the high-performance heatsink and fan kit are required, not optional. Confirm they are in your build before checkout.
2 Heat Sink Optional
Standard heatsink covers CPUs up to 150W TDP in a straightforward front-bay configuration in a normal datacenter environment.
High-performance heatsink is required above 150W, and we also spec it on lower-wattage CPUs whenever the build includes mid-bay drives. The R740xd's internal drive trays sit directly in the airflow path between the fans and the CPUs, and a fully loaded chassis makes the processors work harder for their cooling. Dell's thermal restriction tables get strict on this platform for exactly that reason.
The practical rule: light front-bay build with mainstream CPUs, standard heatsink is fine. Loaded storage configuration or anything above 150W, take the high-performance kit. On a chassis you bought specifically to fill with drives, plan on the second case. The cost difference is small and it is a lot cheaper than a thermal event.
3 Memory (RAM) 24 DIMM slots, modules added in sets of 2 Required
There are two benefits. The first is performance: full population at 2 DPC keeps all twelve memory channels working at maximum depth, and on memory-bandwidth-sensitive workloads it consistently outperforms a partial population running at higher clock. On a storage node the memory is not idle either; vSAN, Ceph, ZFS, and Storage Spaces Direct all lean on RAM for caching and metadata, and every one of them performs better with room to breathe. The second is cost per gigabyte: 24 smaller modules hit the same capacity for meaningfully less than 12 larger ones, and 768 GB as 24× 32 GB is the best cost per GB in the lineup.
We know the instinct is to leave a few slots open for a later upgrade, and on paper that is sensible. In practice it rarely plays out well. One year from now you are hunting for DIMMs that match the rank and speed of what is already in the box, and a mismatch either clocks the whole server down or refuses to train. The server is in production by then, so adding memory means a maintenance window you have to schedule and justify.
Buy the capacity now, in one matched set.
384 GB (24× 16 GB) for a backup target or archive node where storage, not compute, is the job
768 GB (24× 32 GB) is our default for a vSAN, Ceph, or Storage Spaces Direct node, and for any host mixing storage with real VM duty
1.5 TB (24× 64 GB) for dense consolidation on top of the storage role
Past 1.5 TB you are into 128 GB LRDIMMs, which reach 3 TB but cost substantially more per GB. Most buyers are better served by a second node.
4 RAID Controllers Optional
If this node is running traditional hardware RAID, the bay count makes the controller choice for you.
PERC H740P (8 GB NV cache, battery-backed) is the default on this chassis, not the upgrade. A 12- or 24-drive array generates enough parity work and write traffic that the 8 GB non-volatile cache is the difference between an array that performs and one that merely functions.
PERC H730P (2 GB cache, battery-backed) is defensible on a lightly populated build with modest write load, but if you are filling the bays, spend the small difference on the H740P.
PERC H330 and S140 do not belong on this chassis. A no-cache controller in front of two dozen drives is a bottleneck you paid extra to install.
Whichever path you take, RAID 6 over RAID 5 on any large-capacity spinning array, and plan a hot spare; at this drive count the first failure is a when, not an if.
5 Storage Drives Select up to 24 drives (0/24 Slots Used) Optional
First: buy SSDs. No moving parts means the dominant failure mode of spinning disk is gone, and at this bay count the failure math compounds: two dozen spindles means the array is nearly always closer to its next failure than its last one. SAS SSDs are the production pick: higher endurance, dual-port connectivity, and sustained-write behavior that holds up under real load. SATA SSDs are the value pick for read-heavy volumes and capacity tiers. Where 10K SAS spinning drives still earn bays is bulk capacity on a budget: backup staging, logs, archives. We quote them for that role, and only that role.
Second: buy new. This is the one component category where we steer you away from refurbished, and we sell refurbished servers for a living. A refurbished drive arrives with unknown miles on its endurance budget, and on a node this dense, one tired drive can drag a whole pool. For production data, new drives are where your money belongs.
Mind the RAID math at this scale: RAID 6 over RAID 5 on any large array, hot spare mandatory, and keep a consistent drive model within each array. If this node is feeding vSAN, Ceph, or Storage Spaces Direct, skip hardware RAID and take the HBA330 (see the RAID step).
Our favorite move on this chassis: put the OS on a Dell BOSS card, available in the Add Ons section below. Mirrored M.2 boot drives keep all twenty-four bays free for what you bought this chassis to do.
6 Remote Access Required
The dividing line is the remote console. iDRAC9 Enterprise gives you full remote KVM and virtual media, meaning you can reach the server's screen, mount an ISO, and rebuild an OS from anywhere, even when the operating system is down. Express does not include the remote console, so any problem below the OS level means walking to the rack.
Our recommendation: Enterprise, and on a storage node it is closer to mandatory than optional. An R740xd typically holds a cluster's data, sits in a datacenter or colo, and gets touched rarely; that is exactly the profile where remote console, virtual media, and automated firmware updates earn their keep. Enterprise also adds two-factor authentication and secure erase, and secure erase matters on a chassis that will retire holding two dozen drives of company data.
Express is the right call only when the server sits down the hall and someone can physically reach it without ceremony.
If you are deploying 5 or more units, 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
A fully loaded spinning-disk chassis is the case to plan for: two dozen drives add hundreds of watts on their own, and spinning drives pull their peak current at spin-up, exactly when the server is also busiest bringing everything else online.
2x 750W covers moderate builds: mainstream CPUs with a partially populated backplane or an all-flash configuration, where per-drive draw is lower.
2x 1100W is our default for this chassis. A dual Gold build with a fully populated spinning-disk backplane lands comfortably inside it, with the 50 percent load target intact.
2x 1600W and above is for top-bin CPUs with every bay spinning, or any configuration adding GPUs to the storage role.
Two rules of thumb from our deployments. Size for roughly 50 percent load at your expected peak: a PSU running at half capacity runs at peak efficiency, runs cooler, and lasts longer than one working near its limit. And when your build sits between two tiers, size up; the price step is small. Watch the estimated TDP counter at the bottom of the page as you add components to see where your build lands.
One planning note: if more drives are coming later, size the PSU for the full backplane now. Drives arrive in twos and threes; a PSU swap is a second shipment.
8 Network Cards Required
Speed first, and on this chassis the storage role sets the floor. A node holding this many drives is almost certainly serving that capacity to other machines, and every byte leaves through this card. Quad 1 GbE (Intel i350 or Broadcom 5720) only makes sense if this is a self-contained backup or archive box that nothing else mounts. For anything serving storage (vSAN, Ceph, Storage Spaces Direct, NFS, iSCSI) treat 10 Gb as the floor: the 2x 10 Gb + 2x 1 Gb combo cards cover production traffic with 1 Gb left for management, and quad 10 Gb (Intel X710, X550, Broadcom 57840S) is the right architecture when production, replication, and management each get their own links. Rebuild and resync traffic is the hidden load here; when a node re-enters a cluster, the network is what determines whether recovery takes hours or days.
Then port type, and this is the one that catches people. SFP+ ports take fiber or DAC cables and talk to datacenter-grade switches. The -T models (X540, X550) are 10GBASE-T copper on ordinary RJ45. Neither is better; they must simply match your switch. Order SFP+ against a copper-only switch and the server racks up with nothing to plug into.
Need 25 GbE for an all-flash cluster fabric, or additional PCIe network cards beyond the NDC? Both are in the Add Ons section below, or call 1-800-778-1545 and we will spec the whole path.
9 Operating System Required
Windows Server 2022 is the version to buy today; 2019 belongs on a new build only when an application vendor requires it. Standard licensing is per core with a 16-core base, which is why our processor guidance steers Windows buyers to two 8-core CPUs: the 16-Core license covers that build exactly. Past 16 total cores, you need the 24-Core option. On CALs, count your users and round up. One xd-specific note: Storage Spaces Direct requires Datacenter edition, not Standard, so if this node is joining an S2D cluster, budget accordingly.
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. If the server is going into service, buy the license now.
VMware ESXi 8.0 is the one to deploy; 6.7 and 7.0 are past end of support and only belong on hosts joining an existing cluster. Licensing is yours to bring, and vSAN licensing applies on top for storage clusters.
Proxmox VE is what we increasingly quote for buyers done with VMware licensing costs, and the R740xd is arguably the best Proxmox and Ceph node in our lineup: open-source KVM virtualization with clustering and live migration, no per-core math, and a bay count built for Ceph OSDs.
Ubuntu Server LTS covers Linux storage and application duty with five years of free updates, and it is the standard base for standalone Ceph deployments.
No OS is there for teams imaging from their own deployment infrastructure, including TrueNAS builds, which this chassis handles well.
Not sure which fits? Tell us the workload at quote time, or call 1-800-778-1545.
10 Add-Ons Optional
WServer Warranty
Dell PowerEdge R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" 8x NVMe [14th Gen] Detailed Review
Hybrid backplane: 16 SAS/SATA + 8 NVMe. This page is the R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" with the 8-bay NVMe flex-zone backplane: sixteen hot-swap SAS/SATA bays on the SAS expander plus eight PCIe-attached U.2 NVMe bays. The configurator caps NVMe drives at 8 on this page. Need twelve NVMe bays? Use the 24-Bay 2.5" 12x NVMe companion. Need all-NVMe? Use the 24-Bay 2.5" 24x NVMe page. Only four NVMe bays needed? The 24-Bay 2.5" 4x NVMe page is the lower-cost option. The platform notes below are shared across the 24-Bay 2.5" family.
The R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" is the SFF density companion in the R740xd family and the only R740xd variant that meaningfully supports GPU. Twenty-four hot-swap 2.5" front bays via a SAS expander backplane, optional mid-bay or rear flex bay expansion, flex-zoning to bring 8 to 12 NVMe drives into the SAS/SATA front bays as a hybrid mix, and the GPU envelope the LFF variants do not have. The Intel Purley dual-socket compute platform is identical to the 12-Bay 3.5" reference page; what's different is the front backplane (SFF + SAS expander instead of LFF direct-attach) and the riser layout that opens up GPU support.
For the IT director sizing a vSAN OSA all-flash node, a Ceph all-flash OSD node, a database server with a local SSD tier, a VDI host with vGPU, or any high-IOPS SDS deployment where SSDs are the right drive class, this is the R740xd configuration we reach for. For bulk LFF capacity at lowest cost-per-TB the 12-Bay 3.5" reference page is the cleaner spec; for all-NVMe across all front bays the 24-Bay 2.5" 24x NVMe companion is the dedicated NVMe specialist. The variant decision usually comes down to drive class and GPU requirements; the When 24-Bay 2.5" Is the Right Choice section below covers it.
To configure a build, call 1-800-778-1545 for our account team. Every R740xd we ship runs through a 12+ hour burn-in across every memory channel, every PCIe slot, every drive bay including mid-bay positions if equipped, and every GPU slot under load for GPU-equipped builds. Every unit ships with a 180-day standard warranty and 1-Year, 2-Year, and 3-Year Premium options at quote time. Volume pricing applies at 5 units and above; tell us your workload and quantity and we will steer you to the right R740xd variant or to an adjacent platform if the data supports it.
When 24-Bay 2.5" Is the Right Choice
The 24-Bay 2.5" earns its place in the R740xd family on three things: SFF density (24 SSDs front, expandable to 28 with rear flex bay), GPU support (the only R740xd variant that has it), and drive-class flexibility (SAS + SATA + flex-zone NVMe in one chassis). We pick it for high-IOPS workloads, for SDS at scale on flash, and for any 2U deployment where compute density matters as much as storage density.
Pick the 24-Bay 2.5" when:
- The workload is random-IOPS sensitive and the 12-Bay 3.5" with NL-SAS will not deliver the IOPS profile
- You need GPU support on an R740xd-class chassis (1-3 double-width 300W GPUs, or 1-6 single-width 150W GPUs)
- You want a hybrid SAS/SATA + NVMe mix via flex-zoning (typically 16 SAS/SATA + 8 NVMe, or 12 + 12)
- Your single-chassis SFF capacity target is 100 to 180 TB raw (24 x 7.68 TB SAS SSD = 184 TB; 15.36 TB SSD ladders push higher)
- You are building vSAN OSA all-flash, Ceph all-flash OSD, large database servers with local SSD tier, or VDI with high user density
Pick a different R740xd variant when:
- Bulk capacity at lowest cost-per-TB matters more than IOPS (the 12-Bay 3.5" with NL-SAS is the right call)
- You need all-NVMe across all 24 bays with native PCIe-attached backplane (the 24-Bay 2.5" 24x NVMe companion is the dedicated NVMe specialist)
- You need 28 SFF in a single chassis with rear bays (the + 4-Bay RFB companion is the maximum-SFF-density variant)
Storage - 24x 2.5" SFF Front Bays
Twenty-four hot-swap 2.5" front bays. On this page sixteen run SAS/SATA on the SAS expander backplane and eight are PCIe-attached NVMe. The SAS expander routes the SAS/SATA bays through a single PERC connection, which is more efficient than direct-attach but adds the expander firmware as a troubleshooting layer if you hit obscure bay-enumeration issues; we firmware-check the expander as part of burn-in.
Flex-zoning for NVMe: The 24-bay SAS/SATA backplane supports flex-zoning where some bays are routed off the SAS expander and onto PCIe-attached NVMe controller cards. Common configurations:
- 16 SAS/SATA + 8 NVMe: This page. Typical for SQL Server with NVMe hot tier and SAS SSD warm tier, or for vSAN OSA with NVMe cache and SAS SSD capacity
- 12 SAS/SATA + 12 NVMe: Maximum NVMe in flex-zoning on this chassis, sold on the 12x NVMe page. If you need more than 12 NVMe drives, route to the dedicated 24x NVMe companion.
Flex-zoning NVMe drives are not on the PERC; they are direct PCIe-attached and present individually to the OS. Hardware NVMe RAID is not available on 14th gen (the H740P does not RAID NVMe). For NVMe RAID, the options are Intel VROC (chipset-level, BIOS-enabled, has its own configuration constraints), ZFS / mdadm / Storage Spaces software RAID, or an SDS stack like vSAN that handles redundancy at the layer above the drives. We are direct about this at quote time: if hardware NVMe RAID is the requirement, 14th gen is not the platform and 16th gen R760xd2 with H965i tri-mode is the upgrade path.
Mid-bay expansion: Optional 4x 2.5" mid-drive tray adds four additional SFF bays inside the chassis, bringing front+mid to 28 SFF. The 2.5" mid-bay supports NVMe in the mid position. Critical constraint: mid-bay and full GPU support are mutually exclusive because the mid-bay assembly consumes the GPU riser slot. Pick GPU OR mid-bay, not both.
Rear flex bay (RFB) option: The 24-Bay 2.5" can be configured with a 4x 2.5" rear flex bay, bringing front+rear to 28 SFF total. That configuration is sold as a separate SKU; route to the 24-Bay 2.5" + 4-Bay RFB companion page if rear bays are in your spec.
Drive options we quote:
- SAS SSD Read-Intensive: 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB. Volume sweet spot for SDS deployments. 15.36 TB available at premium pricing; volume capacity buyers typically land on the 7.68 TB tier.
- SAS SSD Mixed-Use: 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB. For write-intensive workloads (cache tier, OLTP databases, vSAN cache disks).
- SATA SSD Mixed-Use: 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB. Cost-effective for general VM storage where SAS premium is not justified.
- 10K SAS HDD: 1.2 TB, 2.4 TB. For mixed deployments with moderate IOPS needs at lower cost per TB than SSD.
- U.2 NVMe (flex-zoning): 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB. Up to 8 slots on this page. RAID requires software (Intel VROC, ZFS, mdadm, or SDS layer).
RAID guidance for SFF SSD arrays: SSDs handle RAID 5 substantially better than spinning disk because the rebuild window is short (a 3.84 TB SSD rebuilds in 2 to 4 hours under load, versus 24 to 36 hours for a 16 TB NL-SAS) and the unrecoverable-read-error rate is lower. RAID 5 is acceptable for SSD arrays up to 6 drives. Above 6 drives we recommend RAID 6 for the second-failure margin during rebuild. RAID 10 is the right call for write-heavy workloads where the parity-write penalty is unacceptable. For SDS deployments (vSAN OSA, Ceph), use HBA330 in pass-through mode and let the SDS layer handle redundancy at its own level.
Boot: BOSS-S1 (Boot Optimized Storage Solution, dual mirrored M.2 SATA SSDs on a dedicated PCIe card, hardware RAID 1, cold-swap). Standard 14th gen boot device. We add it to every R740xd BOM by default; reserve all 24 front bays for the workload.
Storage Controllers
The full 14th gen PERC family is available on the R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" via the Mini-PERC slot. Controller selection is workload-driven: SDS deployments want HBA pass-through, transactional workloads want H740P, mixed and read-heavy workloads can sit at H730P. The controller manages the SAS/SATA bays only; the NVMe bays are PCIe-attached.
PERC H740P (8 GB NV cache, battery-backed): Production storage default for SAS/SATA workloads on this chassis. The 8 GB non-volatile cache and battery backing survive a power event without UPS dependency. For database servers, mixed I/O workloads, or any SAS SSD array where the controller cache is the performance differentiator, H740P is the right call. Note that H740P does not RAID NVMe on 14th gen; flex-zone NVMe drives must be on software RAID or pass-through.
PERC H730P (2 GB cache, battery-backed): Solid general-purpose choice for mixed or read-heavy SAS/SATA workloads where the 8 GB cache of the H740P is over-spec. Lower price point, same drop-in form factor. For general-purpose virtualization or file-server duty on SSD, H730P is often acceptable.
PERC H730 (1 GB cache, battery-backed): 13th-gen carryover via Mini-PERC slot compatibility. Viable on the R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" but generally a downgrade vs the H730P or H740P on Cascade Lake workloads. Quote when budget is the hard constraint and write performance on SAS/SATA is not load-bearing; quote H730P or H740P otherwise. Not a primary recommendation.
PERC H330 (no cache): Entry-tier hardware RAID. Not appropriate for production SFF density deployments on this chassis. Listed for completeness.
HBA330 (pass-through HBA): Required for software-defined storage stacks (vSAN OSA, Storage Spaces Direct, Ceph, ZFS). The HBA presents disks directly to the OS or hypervisor without any RAID abstraction. HBA330 is the correct controller for those deployments.
PERC H840 (external): For external SAS enclosure connectivity when scale-out beyond the internal bays is needed in a single chassis.
S140 (software RAID via chipset): Dev/test and light workloads only. Not a production recommendation.
Processors
The R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" supports 1st Generation Intel Xeon Scalable (Skylake-SP, 2017) and 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable (Cascade Lake-SP, 2019) in the same LGA 3647 socket. Drop-in compatible, no BIOS forklift if firmware is current. Same V1 / V2 socket compatibility story as the rest of the 14th gen family.
CPU selection is workload-dependent on this chassis more than on the LFF variants because the workloads run on the 24-Bay 2.5" tend to be compute-active rather than storage-throughput-bound. Our recommendations:
- Gold 6230 (20 cores, 2.1 GHz, 125W TDP): Sweet spot for general SDS and mid-density virtualization. Forty cores total in a dual-socket build covers most vSAN and Ceph deployments with headroom.
- Gold 6248 (20 cores, 2.5 GHz, 150W TDP): When the chassis hosts a database server with active OLTP or a high-VM-density VDI cluster. Higher clock speed than the 6230 for latency-sensitive workloads.
- Gold 6248R (24 cores, 3.0 GHz, 205W TDP): The high-clock, high-core option for transactional databases and per-core-licensed workloads (SQL Server Enterprise, Oracle). Requires the high-performance heatsink, see below.
- Platinum 8280 (28 cores, 2.7 GHz, 205W TDP): When core count drives the licensing or capacity planning. Most R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" workloads do not need Platinum-class; we quote it on specific request.
Heatsink mismatch above 150W is the trap. Any processor above 150W TDP requires the high-performance heatsink. The standard heatsink will thermally throttle under sustained load. Confirm the heatsink at quote time against the CPU TDP.
Single-socket disables half the platform. A single-socket R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" leaves the second CPU's 12 DIMM slots unreachable, half the PCIe lanes unavailable (which is particularly costly on this chassis given the flex-zone NVMe and GPU consumption of PCIe lanes), and the second NDC slot inactive. We will steer customers away from single-socket builds here in almost every case.
Memory
24 DDR4 DIMM slots: 12 per CPU, 6 channels per CPU, 2 DIMMs per channel. Supports RDIMM up to 128 GB per DIMM, LRDIMM up to 256 GB per DIMM. Maximum capacity 3 TB with 128 GB RDIMMs at 2 DPC, 6 TB with 256 GB LRDIMMs, up to 7.68 TB combined with Intel Optane PMem 100-series on Cascade Lake L-series CPUs.
Memory speed by population and generation:
- Skylake (V1): DDR4-2666 at 1 DPC, DDR4-2666 at 2 DPC (no penalty for full population)
- Cascade Lake (V2) Gold 6200 / 5222 SKUs: DDR4-2933 at 1 DPC, drops to DDR4-2666 at 2 DPC
- Cascade Lake (V2) other SKUs: DDR4-2666 at any population
NVMe bifurcation BIOS setting: Flex-zone NVMe and PCIe-attached NVMe carriers require bifurcation enabled in BIOS before the drives will enumerate. Default BIOS does not enable bifurcation. We set this at burn-in for any R740xd shipped with flex-zone NVMe; if you are commissioning a unit from another source, check the BIOS first.
Networking and PCIe Expansion
The R740xd uses Dell's Network Daughter Card (NDC) mezzanine standard. The NDC slot is dedicated and does not consume a PCIe slot. NDC options: 4x 1 GbE (management only), 2x 10 GbE + 2x 1 GbE, 4x 10 GbE (Intel X710 or Broadcom 57414), and 2x 25 GbE (Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx), our standard recommendation for SDS and NVMe-tiered workloads on this chassis.
PCIe expansion: Up to 8 PCIe Gen3 slots in the base configuration. On this page the NVMe flex-zone controller cards consume part of that budget; GPUs, 100 GbE adapters, and additional HBAs compete for the rest. NVMe flex-zone configurations limit GPU count to 2 maximum. We work through the slot map at quote time and tell you what does not fit.
Management - iDRAC9 Generation
iDRAC9 Enterprise is the production spec. Full remote KVM with HTML5 console, virtual media for ISO mounting, group management via OpenManage Enterprise, Lifecycle Controller for firmware updates without OS involvement. We spec Enterprise on every R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" BOM by default. Silicon Root of Trust, TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, signed firmware, and System Erase meet HIPAA, PCI DSS, CMMC, and federal civilian compliance requirements.
Power and Cooling
Hot-swap redundant Dell Flex Slot PSUs: 495W, 750W (Platinum and Titanium), 1100W Platinum, 1600W Platinum, 2000W, 2400W. A balanced build (Gold 6230, 384 GB, 16 SSD + 8 NVMe, no GPU) sits comfortably on 2x 1100W Platinum. GPU-equipped builds step to 2000W or 2400W; coordinate PDU sizing with the rack design at quote time. Cooling is the standard 14th gen 2U fan kit, hot-swap, N+1 redundancy; GPU builds get the high-performance fan kit by default.
Our Assessment
Where it excels: The hybrid page for buyers who want an NVMe hot tier without giving up SAS/SATA capacity bays: SQL Server and Oracle with NVMe log and tempdb volumes over a SAS SSD data tier, vSAN OSA with NVMe cache disks and SAS SSD capacity disks, and virtualization hosts that keep latency-sensitive VMs on NVMe. It keeps the GPU envelope (2 GPUs with NVMe flex-zoned) and the full 14th gen PERC family for the SAS/SATA bays.
Where to look instead: Fewer NVMe bays needed, the 24-Bay 2.5" 4x NVMe page costs less. More NVMe needed, the 12x NVMe page or the all-NVMe 24x NVMe page. Bulk LFF capacity, the 12-Bay 3.5". Hardware NVMe RAID, step to 16th gen R760xd2 with PERC H965i.
Ready to Configure?
Tell us your workload, target CPU class, memory capacity, drive configuration (SAS / SATA / NVMe mix, capacity per drive, RAID strategy), GPU requirements if any, network bandwidth, and quantity. Our account team will put together a tailored quote within 24 hours. Call 1-800-778-1545. Every R740xd ships with a 180-day standard warranty, runs through our 12+ hour burn-in with full SMART validation on every drive bay, and qualifies for volume pricing at 5 units and above. Request a Quote | Contact our account team
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