210-ACXU: Dell PowerEdge R730 server

The Dell PowerEdge R730 server, 210-ACXU, is a 2U rack server with two processor sockets and the Intel C610 chipset. It has 24 DIMM slots for DDR4 registered and load-reduced DIMMs, and unbuffered DIMMs are not supported. Four memory channels serve each processor, and each channel takes up to three DIMMs.

The front of the chassis holds hot-plug SAS, SATA and nearline SAS drives behind a removable bezel: eight 3.5-inch drives, eight 2.5-inch drives or sixteen 2.5-inch drives, depending on the backplane. The backplane is fixed when the server is built and cannot be changed or upgraded afterwards. The internal controller choices are PERC H330, H730 and H730P, with PERC S130 software RAID on the eight-drive 2.5-inch configuration and the PERC H830 as the external option. One slimline SATA DVD-ROM or DVD+/-RW drive is optional, and the R730 does not support Express Flash PCIe SSDs.

Expansion is seven PCIe 3.0 slots plus a dedicated PERC slot: one x16 full-length full-height slot, three x8 full-length full-height slots and three x8 half-length low-profile slots. Slots 1 to 4 need both processors installed. The R730 also accepts GPUs for compute work: two 300 W double-wide cards or up to four 150 W single-wide cards, which require two processors, an 1100 W redundant power supply and the GPU enablement kit.

Power comes from up to two hot-plug supplies in 495 W, 750 W and 1100 W AC ratings, plus an 1100 W DC supply. Management is handled by iDRAC8 with Lifecycle Controller, with iDRAC8 Express as the default and Enterprise as the upgrade, and the front panel carries an LCD control panel, a USB management port for iDRAC Direct and a vFlash card slot. ReadyRails sliding or static rails mount the chassis, which is 87.3 mm high.