The Dell PowerEdge R750 16-Bay 2.5" Hot-Swap is the general-purpose flagship configuration of Dell's 15th gen 2U rack platform: sixteen 2.5" SAS/SATA hot-plug bays, dual 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable sockets (Ice Lake-SP, LGA-4189), 32 DDR4-3200 DIMM slots, PCIe Gen4 throughout, and the meaningful 2U expansion budget (up to 8 PCIe Gen4 slots) that separates the R750 from the 1U R650. This is the platform where Dell's 15th gen 2U story is told, and the SFF 16-Bay is the canonical R750 configuration: enough storage for most workloads, full Ice Lake compute, and room for GPU compute, multiple HBAs, or high-speed networking that the 1U platform cannot accommodate.

The R750 is current-production at Dell. It is not a legacy platform. Wholesale Servers stocks the R750 as a refurbished alternative to buying new R750 at full list price, or to stepping up to the 16th gen R760 (Sapphire Rapids) when the workload genuinely does not require the newer platform. For the general-purpose 2U workloads this page describes, refurbished 15th gen R750 is the cost-correct call.

The 16-Bay 2.5" SFF is the canonical R750 configuration because it covers the broadest range of R750 deployments: virtualization hosts, vSAN OSA clusters, mixed application servers, database nodes with substantial local SSD, and any workload that needs more storage than the R650 can fit but does not require the maximum-density 24-Bay variant or LFF capacity drives. The 12-Bay 3.5" LFF is the storage-capacity companion; the 24-Bay 2.5" is the maximum-density NVMe companion. The 16-Bay sits in the middle and is what most R750 customers actually deploy.

To configure an R750 16-Bay build, call 1-800-778-1545 or request a quote through the form on this page. We respond within 24 hours, and volume pricing applies at 5 units and up. Every unit ships after a 12+ hour burn-in across every memory channel, PCIe slot, and drive bay, backed by our standard 180-day warranty.

Processors

Dual 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable (Ice Lake-SP) processors, LGA-4189 socket. The R750 supports the full Ice Lake SKU stack, including the top-bin Platinum 8380 at 40 cores and 270W TDP per socket. In dual-socket, that is 80 cores and 160 threads in a single 2U chassis. The R750's 2U thermal envelope handles high-TDP Ice Lake configurations more comfortably than the 1U R650, which makes Platinum 8380 a viable choice in the R750 where it pushes the R650's 1U cooling design.

Common SKU choices we see in deployment:

• Gold 6338 (32 cores, 2.0 GHz, 205W): The volume balanced-performance Ice Lake. Strong per-socket core count without the Platinum cost premium. Most R750 virtualization and general-purpose deployments use Gold 6338 or 6338N.
• Gold 6330 (28 cores, 2.0 GHz, 205W): Slightly lower core count, same TDP envelope. Where 28 cores covers the workload, the small cost saving over 6338 adds up at quantity.
• Silver 4314 (16 cores, 2.4 GHz, 135W): Lower-TDP, fewer-cores option for cost-primary deployments where 32 cores in dual-socket is more than enough. Reduces power draw and thermal load.
• Platinum 8380 (40 cores, 2.3 GHz, 270W): Maximum-core dual-socket Ice Lake. Requires high-performance Gold-grade cooling fans and the 1400W or 2400W PSU tier. For the most demanding compute-bound workloads.

Mixed-SKU configurations are not supported. Both sockets must be populated with matching CPUs for dual-socket operation.

Memory

32 DDR4 DIMM slots: 16 per CPU, 2 DIMMs per channel, 8 memory channels per socket. The R750 has double the DIMM count of the R650 (which has 32 total) and triple the R650xs (which has 16 total). DDR4-3200 at 1 DPC; speeds step down to 2933 at 2 DPC on most Gold and Platinum SKUs.

Maximum supported memory:

• 4 TB RDIMM dual-socket with 32 x 128 GB RDIMMs (most common high-capacity configuration).
• 8 TB LRDIMM dual-socket with 32 x 256 GB LRDIMMs (specialty large-memory deployments).
• 8 TB combined DDR4 + Optane PMem 200 series using 16 PMem modules alongside 16 DDR4 DIMMs in App Direct or Memory mode. Optane PMem support is one of the R750's meaningful differentiators over the R650xs and the rest of the value-tier 15th gen lineup.

For most production deployments, 256 GB to 1 TB covers the workload. Reserve 2 TB+ configurations for SAP HANA, large in-memory databases, or VDI hosts with substantial per-VM RAM requirements.

Storage - 16 SFF Bays

Sixteen 2.5" hot-swap front bays. The 16-Bay R750 backplane is SAS/SATA only: it does not support PCIe Gen4 NVMe on the front bays. This is an important fact that the existing R750 16-Bay copy got wrong and is corrected here. If your workload requires native NVMe on the front bays, the 24-Bay 2.5" variant is the configuration with NVMe-capable backplane options (16+8 NVMe, or full 24 NVMe via the NVMe-switched backplane). PCIe Gen4 NVMe expansion via add-in card on the rear PCIe slots is supported on the 16-Bay, but it is not the same as native front-bay NVMe.

Common 16-Bay configurations we see in production:

• 16 x SAS SSD (mixed-use, 1-3 DWPD): The standard database and write-intensive application configuration. PERC H755 with 8 GB flash-backed cache, RAID 10 for write-heavy workloads (8 drives usable), or RAID 6 for read-balanced workloads (14 drives usable).
• 16 x SAS SSD (read-intensive, 0.1-1 DWPD): Lower cost per TB. For VDI master images, read-cache tiers, and archive-tier hot data. RAID 6 typical.
• Mixed SAS SSD + NL-SAS HDD tiered: 4-6 SAS SSDs for hot tier, 10-12 NL-SAS HDDs for warm capacity. Two separate virtual drives on the PERC H755; OS tiering or application-managed tiering handles placement.
• vSAN OSA hybrid: 2-4 SAS SSD cache + 12-14 NL-SAS HDD capacity. Standard vSAN OSA disk group configuration. vSphere 7.x and 8.x both supported; vSAN ESA requires NVMe and is not the right call for this backplane configuration.

For vSAN ESA all-flash NVMe configurations, the R750 24-Bay 2.5" is the correct chassis variant. For LFF capacity drives, the R750 12-Bay 3.5" is the correct chassis variant.

Rear Drive Bays (Optional)

The R750 supports three rear chassis configurations. The 16-Bay front chassis pairs with rear configurations that include an optional 2 x 2.5" or 4 x 2.5" rear drive kit, trading rear PCIe slot count for additional storage:

• No rear drives: 6 full-height + 2 low-profile PCIe Gen4 slots (8 total) plus hot-plug BOSS card.
• 2 x 2.5" rear drives: 4 full-height + 2 low-profile PCIe Gen4 slots (6 total) plus hot-plug BOSS card.
• 4 x 2.5" rear drives: 2 full-height + 2 low-profile PCIe Gen4 slots (4 total) plus hot-plug BOSS card.

Rear bays are useful for OS-on-spindle separation, dedicated swap, or a small cache tier. The BOSS-S2 module is the better answer for OS boot in most cases (see below).

RAID Controllers

• PERC H755 (8 GB flash-backed cache): Our recommendation for production SAS/SATA storage with write workloads. Flash-backed write cache means no battery replacement cycle. RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/60. The standard hardware RAID choice on the R750 16-Bay.
• PERC H745 (4 GB flash-backed cache): Mid-tier alternative. For mixed or read-dominant SAS/SATA workloads where the H755's larger cache is not justified.
• PERC H355/H345: Entry-tier RAID for cost-sensitive SAS/SATA configurations. RAID 0/1/10 only; no RAID 5/6 cache acceleration.
• HBA355i (pass-through): Required for vSAN OSA pass-through configurations, Ceph, ZFS, and any software-defined storage stack that manages its own redundancy. Presents drives directly to the OS with no RAID controller in the data path.
• S150 software RAID: Embedded software RAID at the chipset level. For very entry-tier configurations only. Not recommended for production.

Boot - BOSS-S2

The R750 ships with the BOSS-S2 module in a built-in chassis slot. BOSS-S2 supports two M.2 NVMe drives in hardware RAID 1, hot-pluggable from the rear of the chassis. M.2 boot keeps the 16 front bays available entirely for data. BOSS-S2 is the standard recommendation; we configure it on essentially every R750 we ship.

PCIe Gen4 Expansion

Up to 8 PCIe Gen4 slots depending on riser configuration and rear-drive selection. This is the R750's most significant expansion advantage over the R650: the R650 has 3 PCIe Gen4 slots; the R750 has up to 8. For deployments that need multiple high-bandwidth devices (GPU + 100 GbE NIC + dedicated HBA + NVMe expansion), the R750 is the platform that accommodates them.

PCIe Gen4 bandwidth is double Gen3 per lane. At x16, that is 32 GB/s per slot. For Gen4 NVMe SSDs, Gen4 GPUs, and 100 GbE NICs, the bandwidth headroom matters. Mixing Gen3 cards in Gen4 slots is supported; they run at Gen3 bandwidth.

GPU Support

The R750 supports GPU compute, but only on chassis configurations that do not have rear drive bays (the no-rear-drive 8-slot riser configuration is the standard GPU configuration). The 16-Bay front chassis is compatible with GPU configurations when paired with the no-rear-drive riser. Note that the 12-Bay 3.5" LFF and rear-drive configurations explicitly do not support GPUs per Dell's documentation.

• NVIDIA A100 (PCIe Gen4, 250W or 300W TDP variants): Up to 3 double-width A100s in standard riser configurations. The premier R750 AI training and HPC GPU. Requires 1400W or 2400W PSUs depending on CPU configuration.
• NVIDIA H100 / L40 (PCIe Gen4, 350W-450W): Supported on slots 2 and 7 with dedicated 450W-capable power cables (Dell PNs CXV0X and FGTM1). High-performance fans (silver or gold grade) required. Heaviest GPU power budget; 2400W PSUs required for dual H100 configurations.
• NVIDIA A30 (PCIe Gen4, 165W): Inference-optimized, moderate TDP. Strong inference throughput at lower power than A100.
• NVIDIA L4 / T4 / A2 (single-width, 70-72W): Up to 8 single-width GPUs in the R750 in maximum-density configurations. Multi-tenant inference, transcoding, edge AI workloads.

The R750xa is the GPU-specialist variant of the R750 with 4 double-width or 8 single-width GPU support optimized through dedicated GPU risers; Wholesale Servers does not currently stock the R750xa. For GPU workloads beyond what the R750 16-Bay accommodates, contact us to discuss.

Networking

1 x OCP 3.0 mezzanine slot plus the PCIe Gen4 expansion slots for additional NICs. For 2U production workloads, 25 GbE is the standard recommendation; the storage performance and aggregate VM throughput of a fully-loaded R750 can saturate 10 GbE under concurrent load.

• Dual-port 25 GbE SFP28 (OCP 3.0): Standard for production R750 deployments. Broadcom BCM57414 and Mellanox/NVIDIA ConnectX-5 variants both qualified.
• Dual-port 100 GbE QSFP28: For high-bandwidth applications: vSAN clusters with heavy backend traffic, NVMe-oF participants, GPU inference servers with substantial data ingest.
• Quad-port 10 GbE SFP+: Legacy compatibility, network segmentation, and dedicated management/storage/production VLANs.
• Quad-port 1 GbE RJ45: Management networks and lower-bandwidth deployments.

Power Supplies

The R750 supports a wider PSU envelope than the R650, reflecting the higher power draw of dual-socket Ice Lake at 270W TDP with optional GPU loads. Available PSU tiers: 800W, 1100W, 1400W, 1800W, and 2400W Platinum or Titanium. There is no 600W option (the 600W is R650xs-specific).

For GPU configurations specifically: dual A100 plus dual Platinum 8380 plus full memory pushes into the 2400W PSU territory. We validate every GPU configuration's power budget before shipping. Mixed PSU wattages are not supported; both PSUs must match.

Management & Security

iDRAC9 Enterprise required for production deployments. Enhanced over the 14th gen iDRAC9 with improved NVMe monitoring at Gen4 speeds, GPU health integration, Active Health System v3, and Secured Component Verification (factory cryptographic identity binding parts to chassis). TPM 2.0 standard. Silicon Root of Trust at boot. iDRAC Direct via front-panel micro-USB for at-the-rack management.

Security features specifically meaningful at the 15th gen platform level: Live BIOS scanning, configuration drift detection, recovery boot images, and System Lockdown mode that prevents firmware or configuration changes outside designated maintenance windows.

Physical Specs & Platform Notes

• Form factor: 2U rack, standard 19" rack-mount.
• Chassis depth: 28.17 inches (715.5 mm). Verify rack depth supports this; some short-depth racks will not.
• Cooling: Up to 6 fans. Three cooling fan tiers: standard (STD), high-performance silver (HPR SLVR), high-performance gold (HPR GOLD). Mixing fan tiers within a single chassis is not supported. Higher-TDP CPUs and GPU configurations require HPR SLVR or HPR GOLD fans.
• Bezel: Optional security bezel with LCD.
• Operating temperature: Standard 10-35 degrees C ambient; ASHRAE A2/A3/A4 configurations available for higher-temperature data centers with appropriate fan selection.

Our Assessment

The R750 16-Bay 2.5" SFF is the right call for general-purpose 2U workloads at 15th gen platform currency: virtualization hosts, mixed-workload application servers, vSAN OSA hybrid clusters, mid-density database nodes, and any deployment that needs more memory, more PCIe expansion, or higher-TDP compute than the 1U R650 can deliver. It is the configuration most R750 customers actually deploy, and the canonical reference point for the R750 platform in the Wholesale Servers catalog.

Where it falls short: native PCIe Gen4 NVMe on the front bays is not available on this backplane variant (that is the 24-Bay R750's territory). For all-NVMe vSAN ESA deployments specifically, the 24-Bay 2.5" is the correct R750 chassis. For LFF capacity drives, the 12-Bay 3.5" is the correct R750 chassis. For 1U deployments where the 2U PCIe budget and storage capacity are not required, the R650 is the cost-correct call. For 16th gen platform currency (Sapphire Rapids, DDR5, PCIe Gen5, CXL), the R760 is the step-up.

Bottom line: this is the 15th gen 2U flagship most workloads should evaluate first. Step up to 24-Bay or down to 1U R650 only when the deployment has a specific reason to.

Workload Fit

Honest Limitations

• No native NVMe on this backplane. The 16-Bay 2.5" backplane is SAS/SATA only. Existing R750 copy across the web (including our own prior copy) frequently misstates this; the 24-Bay is the NVMe-capable R750 variant.
• Chassis depth is non-trivial. 28+ inches is deeper than most 14th gen R740 deployments and meaningfully deeper than 1U R650. Short-depth racks will not accommodate this chassis. Verify rack depth at quote time.
• GPU support is configuration-restricted. GPUs require the no-rear-drive riser configuration. Rear-drive variants of the 16-Bay R750 do not support GPUs.
• High-TDP CPU configurations require high-performance fans. Platinum 8380 (270W) and most GPU configurations require silver-grade or gold-grade high-performance cooling. Standard fans are insufficient. Acoustic profile of high-performance fans is noticeably louder; this is a data-center server, not an office-noise server.
• Mixed PSU wattages not supported. Both PSUs must match. Plan for the maximum-load PSU tier at procurement; you cannot mix a 1100W and 1400W later.
• Optane PMem 200 series is supported but reaching end-of-life. Intel discontinued the Optane product line in 2022. Existing PMem deployments are supported through their service life, but new architectures should plan for memory tiering via CXL on 16th gen platforms instead.
• vSAN ESA on this configuration is the wrong choice. ESA wants all-NVMe; this backplane is SAS/SATA. ESA on the R750 belongs on the 24-Bay variant, not here.
• Single-socket Ice Lake on the R750 is supported but uneconomic. The R750 is designed for dual-socket. If single-socket is the right answer, the R750xs is the configuration with single-socket-optimized economics (smaller chassis, lower PSU envelope, lower cost).
• Heavy GPU configurations push 2400W PSU territory. Dual A100 or single H100 plus dual Platinum CPUs requires 2400W Titanium PSUs and dedicated power cabling. Some customer environments cannot accommodate 2400W per node. Verify rack PDU capacity at quote time.
• The R750 chassis is heavier than the R650. Full-loaded R750 with 16 SAS SSDs, dual PSUs, and GPU configurations exceeds 70 lbs. Two-person lift recommended for installation.

Generation Context

vs. R740 (14th gen Cascade Lake 2U predecessor): The R750 is a meaningful platform step up, not a marginal refresh. PCIe Gen4 throughout (vs. Gen3 on R740), Universal Backplane backplane architecture (vs. the R740's separate backplane variants per drive type), 32 DIMM slots (vs. 24 on R740), Ice Lake processors with higher per-core performance and lower latency vs. Cascade Lake, vSAN ESA support (vs. OSA-only on R740), and active Dell ProSupport (R740 is out of mainstream support). For infrastructure planned to run through 2029-2030, the R750 is the platform. For shorter lifecycle deployments or cost-primary procurement, the R740 16-Bay remains a defensible choice; we quote both.

vs. R760 (16th gen Sapphire Rapids successor): The R760 is the 16th gen step up: Sapphire Rapids or Emerald Rapids Xeon, DDR5 memory at 4800-5600 MT/s, PCIe Gen5, CXL 1.1 support, and Accelerator Engines (QAT, DSA, IAA, DLB) on-die. The R760 is the right call when the workload genuinely needs DDR5 bandwidth, PCIe Gen5 NVMe, or CXL memory tiering. For most general-purpose 2U workloads, the R750 at 15th gen platform currency delivers the requirement at meaningfully lower acquisition cost. We quote both when relevant.

vs. R650 (15th gen 1U companion): Same generation, same Ice Lake processors, same PCIe Gen4 throughout. What changes in 2U: triple the PCIe slots (8 vs. 3), more drive bays, GPU support, higher TDP envelope, more thermal headroom for Platinum 8380. If your workload fits 1U and does not need PCIe expansion or GPUs, the R650 8-Bay is more cost-efficient. If you need 2U expansion, the R750 is the platform.

vs. R750xs (15th gen single-socket-optimized 2U companion): Same 2U chassis form factor and similar storage options, but the R750xs is single-socket-optimized: 16 DIMM slots (vs. 32), lower PSU envelope, no Optane PMem, lower acquisition cost. For workloads that are genuinely single-socket and do not need 4 TB+ memory, the R750xs family is the cost-correct call. For dual-socket compute with full memory architecture and PCIe expansion, the R750 is the platform.

vs. R750xa (15th gen GPU-specialist 2U companion): The R750xa is the GPU-optimized variant: up to 4 double-width or 8 single-width GPUs via dedicated GPU risers, 32 DIMM slots. Wholesale Servers does not currently stock the R750xa; for GPU workloads beyond what the R750 16-Bay accommodates (3 double-width GPUs), contact us to discuss sourcing.

Within the R750 family - chassis variants:

• Need NVMe-capable front bays? → R750 24-Bay 2.5"
• Need LFF capacity drives? → R750 12-Bay 3.5"

Ready to Configure?

Tell us your workload, vSAN architecture target (if any), GPU requirements (if any), memory target, drive count and capacity per drive, and quantity. We respond within 24 hours. Volume pricing applies at 5 units and above.

Every Wholesale Servers R750 ships after a 12+ hour burn-in test covering every PCIe slot, every memory channel, and every drive bay. Standard 180-day warranty included; 1-Year, 2-Year, and 3-Year Premium warranty options available. Call 1-800-778-1545 or use the quote form on this page.