The Dell PowerEdge R750 24-Bay 2.5" Hot-Swap is the maximum-density SFF configuration of Dell's 15th gen 2U flagship rack platform: twenty-four 2.5" hot-plug front bays on backplane variants that support PCIe Gen4 NVMe, the full dual-socket Ice Lake compute architecture, 32 DDR4 DIMM slots, and PCIe Gen4 throughout. This is the R750 variant where the platform's NVMe story actually lives. The 16-Bay 2.5" backplane is SAS/SATA only, and the 12-Bay 3.5" is LFF capacity only. If your workload requires native front-bay NVMe at scale (vSAN ESA, NVMe-oF targets, all-flash Ceph clusters, large-scale NVMe database storage), the 24-Bay is the R750 chassis variant that delivers it.

The R750 is current-production at Dell. For high-density NVMe at 15th gen platform currency, refurbished R750 24-Bay is the cost-correct call vs. buying new at full list price. Stepping up to the 16th gen R760 (Sapphire Rapids, PCIe Gen5) makes sense only when the workload specifically benefits from Gen5 NVMe bandwidth or DDR5; for most 15th-gen-class NVMe workloads, refurbished R750 24-Bay is the right answer.

For full R750 platform documentation (dual-socket Ice Lake, 32 DIMM slots, PCIe Gen4 architecture, PERC H755, HBA355i, BOSS-S2, Optane PMem support, GPU options), see the canonical R750 16-Bay 2.5" page. This page focuses on what the 24-Bay chassis adds and where it earns its premium over the 16-Bay canonical.

To configure an R750 24-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 drive bay, memory channel, and PCIe slot, backed by our standard 180-day warranty.

What's Different About This Chassis

1. 24 SFF bays, NVMe-capable backplane. The defining R750 24-Bay differentiator. Dell ships two backplane variants for the 24-Bay chassis: a standard 24-bay backplane with 16 SAS/SATA + 8 NVMe bays (the most common configuration), and an NVMe-switched backplane where all 24 bays support PCIe Gen4 NVMe. Specify which backplane at quote time; they are not interchangeable post-purchase.
2. Aggregate NVMe throughput is the differentiator. At full PCIe Gen4 NVMe population (24 drives), per-drive sequential read at 7+ GB/s adds up to extraordinary aggregate bandwidth. In practice this is bounded by PCIe fabric layout, networking, and application concurrency, but the storage subsystem can sustain throughput that 8-bay and 16-bay platforms cannot reach.
3. vSAN ESA is the canonical workload. The R750 24-Bay all-NVMe is one of the highest per-node NVMe density configurations available for vSAN ESA in a standard 15th gen 2U chassis. ESA wants all-NVMe; the 24-Bay R750 delivers it. HBA355i pass-through required (ESA manages drives directly, no RAID controller in the data path).
4. Compute and memory architecture stay full R750. Same dual-socket Ice Lake, same 32 DIMM slots, same 4 TB RDIMM / 8 TB LRDIMM / 8 TB combined DDR4+PMem ceilings. The 24-Bay does not constrain CPU or memory.
5. PCIe slot count is reduced. The 24-Bay chassis trades rear PCIe slot budget for the additional front-bay storage; typical 24-Bay configurations have 4-6 PCIe Gen4 slots vs. the 16-Bay's up to 8. For GPU-heavy configurations alongside 24 bays, slot count is the constraint to plan around.
6. Higher PSU envelope required. 24 NVMe drives plus dual high-TDP Ice Lake plus 25-100 GbE networking puts the 24-Bay into the 1400W-1800W PSU territory standard, with 2400W for GPU + 24-NVMe combined configurations.

Storage - 24 SFF Bays with NVMe-Capable Backplane

Backplane variants

• Standard 24-Bay backplane (16 SAS/SATA + 8 NVMe): The volume configuration. Bays 0-15 are SAS/SATA only; bays 16-23 are NVMe-capable. Useful for mixed-protocol deployments: SAS SSDs in the larger SAS partition, NVMe in the dedicated NVMe partition. Most production R750 24-Bay deployments use this backplane.
• NVMe-switched 24-Bay backplane (all 24 NVMe): Specialty configuration where every bay is PCIe Gen4 NVMe-capable. For all-NVMe vSAN ESA, NVMe-oF targets, and any workload where partitioning the bays by protocol is undesirable. Higher backplane cost; specify at quote time.

Common configurations

• vSAN ESA all-flash maximum density: 24 PCIe Gen4 NVMe drives on the NVMe-switched backplane, HBA355i pass-through, 100 GbE networking (ESA at 24 NVMe drives saturates 25 GbE quickly). vSphere 8.x ESA required. Per-node capacity is the design driver: maximum NVMe drives per chassis = maximum capacity per node = lower node count for a given cluster TB target.
• NVMe-oF target: 24 PCIe Gen4 NVMe drives serving multiple compute hosts via NVMe over Fabrics (RoCE or TCP). 100 GbE or InfiniBand for fabric connectivity. Sub-100 microsecond storage latency to client hosts.
• Ceph all-NVMe OSD nodes: 24 PCIe Gen4 NVMe OSDs per node on the NVMe-switched backplane. Bluestore on HBA355i pass-through. Memory budget: 4-8 GB per OSD plus headroom = 192-256 GB for well-provisioned all-NVMe Ceph nodes.
• Mixed SAS SSD + NVMe (standard backplane): 16 high-endurance SAS SSDs at RAID 10 on PERC H755 for write-intensive database tier, 8 NVMe drives for hot-tier transaction log or temp tablespace. SQL Server, Oracle, and PostgreSQL deployments where local SSD capacity at multiple performance tiers is the design.
• High-density SAS SSD database storage: 24 mixed-use SAS SSDs at RAID 10 = 12 drives usable at maximum write endurance. Large SQL Server, Oracle, or SAP deployments requiring substantial local SSD capacity without NVMe latency requirement.

BOSS-S2 module standard for OS boot. The 24-Bay configuration uses the no-rear-drive riser by default (the rear-drive riser variants exist but consume PCIe slot budget that 24-Bay deployments typically need for networking).

NVMe drive selection

• Mixed-use NVMe (1-3 DWPD): For ESA, write-intensive database, NVMe-oF, Ceph bluestore. Never use read-intensive drives for write-heavy workloads; the endurance mismatch causes premature wear and unexpected drive failures.
• Read-intensive NVMe (0.1-1 DWPD): For ESA capacity tier, read-dominant database, distributed object storage. Lower cost per TB with equivalent read performance to mixed-use.

Every NVMe drive we ship is assessed for remaining endurance via SMART before shipment. Drives with significant endurance consumption are disclosed and priced accordingly.

RAID Controllers

• HBA355i (pass-through): Required for vSAN ESA, NVMe-oF, Ceph, and any software-defined storage. The standard choice for the 24-Bay configuration when NVMe is the design driver. Presents all drives directly to the OS; no RAID controller in the data path.
• PERC H755 (8 GB flash-backed cache): For the 16 SAS/SATA bays on the standard 24-Bay backplane. Hardware RAID for the SAS partition; NVMe drives in bays 16-23 connect directly without the H755 in the path.
• PERC H755N (NVMe hardware RAID): Hardware RAID specifically for NVMe drives. Less commonly deployed (software stacks generally outperform hardware NVMe RAID), but supported where hardware RAID semantics are a customer requirement.

Networking

The 24-Bay R750 storage performance ceiling is the network for most deployments. A single PCIe Gen4 NVMe drive can saturate 25 GbE; 24 drives in aggregate can sustain throughput that requires 100 GbE to surface.

• Dual-port 25 GbE SFP28 (OCP 3.0): Minimum recommended for production. Acceptable for ESA clusters with modest east-west traffic.
• Dual-port 100 GbE QSFP28: Standard recommendation for the 24-Bay R750 in production. Required for NVMe-oF targets and high-throughput vSAN ESA clusters.
• Dual-port 200 GbE (where qualified): Specialty configurations for the most demanding NVMe-oF and HPC storage targets.

Power Supplies

Workload Patterns

vSAN ESA cluster nodes: The headline 24-Bay R750 deployment. ESA on R750 24-Bay with NVMe-switched backplane = highest per-node ESA NVMe density available in a standard 15th gen 2U chassis. vSphere 8.x cluster. 100 GbE backend network. HBA355i pass-through.

NVMe-oF target nodes: Disaggregated storage architecture. R750 24-Bay serves NVMe drives to multiple compute clients via RoCE or TCP fabric. Sub-100 microsecond latency. 100 GbE or InfiniBand client-facing fabric.

All-NVMe Ceph clusters: 24 NVMe OSDs per node. Bluestore. HBA355i. 256 GB memory for OSD processes. 100 GbE cluster network. Maximum OSD-per-node economics on a 15th gen platform.

Large SQL/Oracle local-SSD database nodes: Standard backplane configuration with 16 SAS SSDs at RAID 10 and 8 NVMe at the data hot tier. 1 TB+ memory for database buffer pools. The 24-Bay enables database deployments where local SSD capacity is substantial enough to displace SAN.

When to Pick a Different Chassis

• Don't need NVMe / 16 bays sufficient? → R750 16-Bay 2.5" (canonical, lower cost).
• Need LFF capacity drives? → R750 12-Bay 3.5" (LFF NL-SAS).
• Single-socket-optimized economics with 16 NVMe bays? → R750xs 16-Bay 2.5".
• 14th gen cost-primary procurement with 24 SFF bays? → R740xd 24-Bay (Cascade Lake, PCIe Gen3, lower cost).

Our Assessment

The R750 24-Bay is purpose-built for the high-end NVMe density extreme of the 15th gen 2U lineup. Workload profile is specific: large-scale vSAN ESA, NVMe-oF disaggregated storage, all-NVMe Ceph, and converged SAS SSD + NVMe database deployments where 24 SFF bays per 2U node is the right design point. For most R750 deployments, the 16-Bay covers the storage design at lower cost. The 24-Bay earns its place when per-node NVMe density is the design variable.

Where it falls short of the right answer: workloads where 16 SFF bays or fewer cover the requirement, where LFF capacity drives are the design driver, or where PCIe slot count for GPU/networking expansion is the binding constraint. The 16-Bay R750 trades 8 drive bays for additional PCIe slot headroom; for GPU-heavy plus moderate-SFF-storage configurations, that trade is usually the right one.

Bottom line: this is the 15th gen 2U platform for NVMe-density extremes. Step down to 16-Bay 2.5" or sideways to 12-Bay 3.5" or to R750xs when the deployment does not specifically need 24 SFF bays.

Workload Fit

Honest Limitations

• Two distinct backplane variants, specify at quote time. The 16+8 NVMe standard backplane and the all-24-NVMe switched backplane are different SKUs. Verify which configuration matches your design before procurement; they are not field-swappable in production.
• Reduced PCIe slot count vs. 16-Bay. 4-6 PCIe Gen4 slots typical vs. up to 8 on the 16-Bay. For deployments combining 24 NVMe with GPU and 100 GbE plus dedicated HBA, the slot budget can be tight; plan PCIe layout at design time.
• Storage performance ceiling is the network. 24 PCIe Gen4 NVMe drives generate aggregate throughput that 25 GbE cannot surface. Plan for 100 GbE minimum on NVMe-serving deployments; otherwise the storage subsystem is bottlenecked by the network.
• 2400W PSU territory for combined heavy configurations. 24 NVMe + dual Platinum CPU + GPU + 100 GbE pushes into 2400W Titanium PSUs and dedicated power cabling. Verify rack PDU capacity at quote time.
• NVMe drive endurance is a real procurement decision. Mixed-use (1-3 DWPD) vs. read-intensive (0.1-1 DWPD) costs differ significantly. Right-size endurance to workload; do not over-buy and do not under-buy.
• vSAN ESA requires NVMe-switched backplane for full ESA storage pool semantics. The 16+8 standard backplane can serve ESA on the 8 NVMe bays only, with the 16 SAS bays in a separate non-ESA disk group or unused. For maximum-density ESA, the all-24-NVMe backplane is required.
• Aggregate NVMe failure events are statistically more likely. 24 drives means 24 failure-domain components. RAID/redundancy planning matters more, not less; mirror or erasure-code the data appropriately for the failure model.
• Hardware NVMe RAID (PERC H755N) is rarely the optimal choice. Software-defined redundancy (vSAN, Ceph, ZFS, mdadm) generally outperforms hardware NVMe RAID controllers. Use H755N only where hardware RAID semantics are explicitly required.
• Full-loaded weight is significant. 24 drives + dual PSU + chassis exceeds 75 lbs. Two-person lift mandatory.

Generation Context

vs. R740xd 24-Bay (14th gen Cascade Lake predecessor): The R750 24-Bay delivers PCIe Gen4 NVMe (vs. Gen3 on R740xd), native NVMe via Universal Backplane (vs. add-in card paths on R740xd for many configurations), more PCIe slots, vSAN ESA support (vs. OSA only on R740xd), and active Dell ProSupport. For all-NVMe workloads specifically, the Gen4 bandwidth advantage is a real differentiator. For 14th-gen-class storage performance at lower cost, the 14th gen R740xd 24-Bay remains a valid option.

vs. R760 (16th gen Sapphire Rapids successor): R760 24-Bay brings PCIe Gen5 NVMe (~14 GB/s per drive, double Gen4), DDR5 memory, and CXL 1.1. For workloads that genuinely use Gen5 NVMe bandwidth (the application can drive 14 GB/s per drive sustained), R760 earns its premium. Most current NVMe workloads do not saturate Gen4 yet, so for refurbished 15th gen pricing, R750 24-Bay is the cost-correct call.

vs. R750 16-Bay (canonical R750): The 16-Bay is the general-purpose R750. The 24-Bay is the specialty maximum-density NVMe variant. If 16 SFF bays cover the workload, the R750 16-Bay 2.5" is lower cost. The 24-Bay earns its premium specifically when per-node NVMe density is the design variable.

vs. R750xs 16-Bay (single-socket-optimized 2U companion): For single-socket NVMe deployments at 16 bays, the R750xs 16-Bay delivers significant cost savings. Dual-socket + 24 bays is the R750's territory; single-socket + 16 bays is the R750xs's territory.

Ready to Configure?

24-Bay NVMe configurations benefit from upfront discussion on backplane variant (standard 16+8 vs. NVMe-switched all-24), drive endurance selection, network sizing, vSAN/NVMe-oF architecture, and PSU sizing. Tell us your storage architecture, drive endurance target, network speed requirement, 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 drive bay, memory channel, and PCIe slot. 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.