Processing Power

This server supports memory speeds of up to 1866 MHz. Dell’s patented Fault Resilient Memory creates a protected memory zone on the hypervisor without dedicating half the system’s available memory. DPAT, Dell’s Processor Acceleration Technology minimizes the effect of Intel’s Turbo Boost transitions, which can increase mechanical latency, and allows administrators to fix the number of active processor cores providing smoother performance. In addition, Dell’s PERC RAID controller with the CacheCade feature improves overall read operations for significant improvements in performance.

CacheCade v1.0 enables greater performance and accelerates read intensive applications and is supported on the PERC H710p and H810 cards with 1GB of memory. With CacheCade you can create as many drives as you want and IOPS read rates increase dramatically compared to systems with no CacheCade drive. Currently, Dell’s CacheCade v1.0 only allows read operations to be cached. Version 2.0 promises increased functionality and performance.

The entire family of Xeon E5 2600 and E5 2600 v2 processors are supported enabling administrators to choose between Advanced, Standard, and Basic models depending on budget and performance needs.

Advanced I/O Capabilities

The Dell R720 supports 24 DIMM modules in a two processor configuration. With all 24 DIMM sockets fitted with 32GB memory modules, a maximum of 764GB of memory is available. Six hot-swap fans keeps the system running cool. It also supports Dell’s Fresh Air initiative allowing systems to run reliably at higher temperatures of up to 45 Centigrade or 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Other manufacturer’s systems are typically only designed to operate reliably up to 35 degrees centigrade or 93 degree Fahrenheit. The Fresh Air Initiative can help customers significantly reduce their heating & cooling costs, carbon footprint, and the risk posed by thermal climb after a power failure.

To maximize I/O and storage, the system can house up to 16 internal hard drives. Seven integrated PCI-e Gen 3.0 expansion slots are available and can support two double wide GPU cards to accelerate your most demanding data analytics delivering faster, more efficient compute performance.

Different chassis configurations

The Dell R720 is available in several different chassis configurations depending on your storage and performance needs.

• 2.5″ Chassis with up to 8 HDs
• 2.5″ Chassis with up to 16 HDs
• 2.5″ Chassis with up to 8+8 HDs and 2 controllers
• 2.5″ Chassis with up to 8 HDs and 4 PCIe SSD Drives
• 3.5″ Chassis with up to 4 HDs and Software RAID
• 3.5″ Chassis with up to 8 HDs

Systems Management Tools

Integrated and optional management tools help you get the most out of your system. For local management, OpenManage monitoring and management software is compatible with other third-party systems management solutions to allow for a single point of control over your network environment.

Remote management is handled by Dell’s integrated iDRAC 7 Express Level Management Technology which comes standard negating the need to install additional software. Upgrading to iDRAC 7 Enterprise allows you to maintain complete server control and access your server from any remote location using a browser. 8GB and 16GB vFlash media offer optional upgrades to your remote management.

In Summary

Featuring a complete internal re-design compared to the R710 model, the Dell PowerEdge R720 server is a stand out performer when used for typical compute server applications. However, Dell’s adoption of the latest Express Flash technology significantly increases performance and separates this platform from other comparable products on the market.