Dell PowerEdge R760XD2 Specs and Features
Purpose-Built for Massive Unstructured Data Storage
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Form Factor — 2U rack server, 16th Generation PowerEdge (Gen 16); Regulatory Model: E93S Series / E93S001
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Dual-Socket Intel Platform — Supports up to two 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (Sapphire Rapids); up to 32 cores per socket, 64 total cores
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High-Density Drive Architecture — Unique three-zone drive layout: 12 front LFF bays + 12 mid LFF bays + configurable rear bays; up to 28 × 3.5-inch drives total
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Maximum Raw Capacity — Up to 616 TB with 28 × 22 TB 3.5-inch drives — 7% more drive capacity than its Gen 15 predecessor
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Reduced Latency via NVMe — Rear bays support 2.5-inch NVMe or E3.S NVMe tiering for hot data while large-capacity SAS/SATA HDDs handle warm and cold tiers
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PCIe Gen4 Throughout — All expansion slots run PCIe Gen4, enabling NVMe SSDs and GPU/FPGA accelerators at full Gen4 speeds
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Dimensions — 86.8 mm H × 481.6 mm W × 837 mm D; fully loaded weight: 46.3 kg (102.07 lbs)
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OEM-Ready — Bezel, BIOS, and packaging are all customizable; APEX Flex on Demand available for flexible consumption
Engineered for Unstructured Data at Petabyte Scale
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File & Object Storage — Primary target workload; object storage technology designed to be easily configurable, serviceable, and scalable for explosive data growth
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Video Surveillance & Retrieval — High-capacity SAS/SATA bays with NVMe tiering support simultaneous capture and high-throughput playback across dozens of streams
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Content Delivery Networks (CDN) — Store massive media libraries close to the egress point; high drive density reduces the number of nodes required per rack
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Software-Defined Storage (SDS) — Validated configurations for Hadoop and SDS workloads; 28-drive configurations suit data lake deployments with minimal rack footprint
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Backup & Archive — Cost-efficient cold tier using large-capacity 3.5-inch HDDs, with NVMe rear bays as a fast landing zone for ingest bursts
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HPC Storage Nodes — Dual-socket Sapphire Rapids processors with PCIe Gen4 NVMe deliver the bandwidth and IOPS required by parallel file systems such as Lustre and GPFS
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Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) — Supports VMware vSAN and similar HCI platforms when paired with rear NVMe drives for caching and SAS/SATA tiers for capacity
4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable — Up to 64 Cores Total
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Socket — LGA4677; supports up to two 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable (Sapphire Rapids) processors; single-CPU supported only in Configurations 1, 2A, and 2B
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Max Core Count — Up to 32 cores per socket; 64 total cores in dual-socket configurations
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Processor Interconnect — Intel Ultra Path Interconnect (UPI), up to four links at up to 16 GT/s for increased multi-socket bandwidth
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PCIe Lanes — Up to 80 PCIe Gen4 lanes per CPU at 16 GT/s per lane; all expansion and storage slots benefit from Gen4 bandwidth
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Built-In Accelerators — 4th Gen Xeon includes new on-die accelerators for data analytics, networking, storage, cryptography, and data compression (Intel QuickAssist Technology optional)
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Memory Performance — 4th Gen Xeon delivers DDR5 speeds up to 4800 MT/s at 1 DIMM per channel (1DPC) and 4400 MT/s at 2 DIMMs per channel (2DPC)
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Heatsink — Standard 2U heatsink for all CPU TDP configurations; max CPU TDP supported up to 185 W under ASHRAE A2 air cooling in Config 3
16 DDR5 DIMM Slots — Up to 1 TB at 4800 MT/s
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DIMM Slots — 16 total (8 per processor); DDR5 RDIMM (ECC registered) only — DDR4 is NOT supported
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Maximum Capacity — 1 TB total (single or dual-socket); supports 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB RDIMMs
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Operating Speeds — 4800 MT/s at 1 DIMM per channel (1DPC); 4400 MT/s at 2 DIMMs per channel (2DPC)
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Voltage — 1.1 V DDR5 operation; lower power per bit versus DDR4
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Supported DIMM Capacities — 16 GB (1-Rank), 32 GB (2-Rank), 64 GB (2-Rank, x4 width)
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ECC Protection — All DIMMs are ECC registered; suitable for mission-critical storage deployments where data integrity is paramount
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Memory Not Hot-Pluggable — System must be powered down to add or replace DIMMs; plan memory capacity at initial configuration for storage workloads
24 × 3.5" LFF Hot-Swap Bays — Front + Mid Tray
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Front Bays — Up to 12 × 3.5-inch SAS/SATA hot-swap LFF drive bays; max 264 TB from 12 × 22 TB drives
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Mid Tray — Up to 12 × 3.5-inch SAS/SATA hot-swap LFF bays inside the mid chassis tray; another 264 TB max
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Combined Front + Mid — 24 × 3.5-inch SAS/SATA LFF drives across both zones; up to 528 TB combined from these bays alone
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Supported Drive Types — 12 Gb/s SAS SSD, 24 Gb/s SAS SSD, 6 Gb/s SATA SSD, 7.2K/10K/15K SAS HDD, 7.2K SATA HDD
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Hot-Plug — All front and mid bays support tool-less hot-swap replacement (drives can be replaced without powering down the server)
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SAS Expander — Internal SAS expander enables the H755 PERC controller to manage all 24 front/mid drives and rear drives simultaneously from a single controller card
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Drive Blank Requirement — HDD blanks required in all empty bays in all configurations to maintain proper airflow and cooling
Four Rear Bay Configurations — Up to 88 TB or NVMe Tiering
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Rear Option A — 4 × 3.5" SAS/SATA — Adds 4 more LFF drives in rear; combined with 24 front/mid bays = 28 total × 3.5" drives; max 616 TB raw at 22 TB per drive
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Rear Option B — 4 × 2.5" NVMe (carrier) — Four 2.5-inch NVMe drives in 3.5-inch carrier adapters; max 30.72 TB; PCIe Gen4 speeds for hot data tiering; capacity restricted to 7.68 TB per drive
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Rear Option C — 2 × 2.5" NVMe — Two direct-attach U.2 NVMe SSDs; max 15.36 TB; smaller footprint for cache or hot-tier workloads
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Rear Option D — 4 × E3.S NVMe — Enterprise EDSFF Gen5 NVMe at PCIe Gen4 speeds; max 30.72 TB; highest per-slot bandwidth for NVMe-oF or tiered flash deployments
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Configuration Rules — Cannot mix same drive type in front and rear with 2.5" carrier adapters (Config 1); PERC H965e external RAID restricted to slot 3 in Config 2; DDR5 DIMM blank required in Config 3
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Total System Maximum — 28 × 3.5-inch SAS/SATA (24 front/mid + 4 rear LFF) = up to 616 TB raw capacity in a single 2U chassis
PERC 12 RAID + BOSS-N1 Dedicated Boot Module
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PERC H965i (PERC 12) — Premium PERC 12 controller; 24 Gb/s SAS + PCIe Gen4 NVMe; 8 GB NV-backed flash cache; RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/60; up to 16 drives per controller
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PERC H755 (PERC 11) — 12 Gb/s SAS + Gen3/Gen4 NVMe; 8 GB NV-backed flash cache; RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/60; supports SAS expander (up to 50 drives with expander)
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PERC H355 — Entry RAID; 12 Gb/s SAS; no cache; RAID 0/1/10; up to 32 drives; replaces H345 for entry-level RAID configurations
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HBA355i — Internal 12 Gb/s SAS HBA (non-RAID pass-through); ideal for software-defined RAID, SDS, or Hadoop deployments requiring direct drive access
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External Controllers — HBA355e (non-RAID SAS HBA, external); H965e (PERC 12 external RAID); both support PCIe Gen4 external storage enclosures; H965e restricted to slot 3 in Config 2
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BOSS-N1 Boot Module — Boot Optimized Storage Subsystem with NVMe M.2 interface; hardware RAID-1 mirrored pair; hot-swappable; occupies a dedicated rear slot — does not consume a PCIe riser or drive bay
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USB Boot — Internal USB 3.0 port (optional card) available as an alternative OS boot media option
Limited GPU Support — Up to 1 × 180 W Double-Wide (Config 3 Only)
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GPU Support Restricted to Config 3 — GPU and FPGA cards are only supported in the rear Configuration 3 (24 front/mid + 4 × E3.S or 2 × 2.5-inch NVMe rear) — not supported in the 28-drive all-SAS/SATA rear configuration
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Double-Wide GPU Option — Up to 1 × 180 W double-wide (DW) PCIe Gen4 GPU card; supports NVIDIA and AMD entry-level accelerators
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Single-Wide GPU Options — Up to 2 × 75 W single-wide (SW) cards; or 1 × 75 W SW + 1 × 150 W SW combination
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Thermal Restriction — GPU support requires ambient temperature no higher than 30°C (86°F) regardless of CPU TDP configuration; all GPU configs use standard fans and 2U standard heatsink
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Use Case for GPU in this Server — Storage analytics, data compression offload, or lightweight AI inferencing co-located with the storage tier; this is a storage-first platform, not a primary GPU compute server
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FPGA Support — FPGA cards with cooling Tier 5 or lower (300 LFM at 55°C) are supported in Config 3 with the same thermal restrictions as GPU cards
Up to 5 PCIe Gen4 Slots — Multiple Riser Configurations
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Total PCIe Slots — Up to 5 PCIe Gen4 slots in rear riser configurations; Slot 5 is dedicated to the internal PERC RAID card
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Slot 1 — x16 Gen4, Low-Profile Half-Length (LP/HL); shared with OCP and network expansion
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Slot 2 — Flexible: x8 (x16 connector) Gen4 LP/HL, or x16 Gen4 Full-Height Full-Length (FH/FL), or x16 Gen4 Full-Height Half-Length (FH/HL) — depending on riser config selected
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Slot 3 — Flexible: x16 Gen4 LP/HL, or x16 Gen4 FH/FL, or x16 Gen4 FH/HL — PERC H965e external controller must use this slot in Config 2
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Slot 4 — x16 Gen4 LP/HL; general expansion slot for HBAs and network cards
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Riser Options — Config 3 FH/FL Riser and Config 3 FH/HL Riser available for full-height card support (GPUs, FPGAs, high-speed NICs)
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OCP 3.0 Slot — Separate PCIe Gen4 x8 slot for the OCP 3.0 NIC card; does not consume one of the 5 riser PCIe slots
2 × 1 GbE LOM + OCP 3.0 — Up to 25 GbE
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Embedded LOM — 2 × 1 GbE rear-panel ports (LAN on Motherboard); standard on all configurations
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OCP 3.0 Slot — One optional OCP 3.0 Small Form Factor (SFF) card slot; PCIe Gen4 x8 interface; supports up to 25 GbE multi-port cards
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OCP 1 GbE Options — Broadcom or Intel Base-T 4-port 1 GbE cards
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OCP 10 GbE Options — Broadcom or Intel Base-T 2-port or 4-port 10 GbE cards; ideal for iSCSI/NFS storage traffic
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OCP 25 GbE Options — Mellanox, Broadcom, or Intel SFP28; 2-port or 4-port options at 25 GbE; supports up to 100 GbE OCP based on OCP 3.0 spec
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OCP Features — NC-SI (Network Controller Sideband Interface), SNAPI, and Wake-on-LAN (WoL) supported on all OCP 3.0 cards
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Dedicated iDRAC Port — Separate 1 GbE rear Ethernet port for out-of-band iDRAC9 management; does not share bandwidth with data traffic
Up to 2 × 1800 W Titanium PSUs — Five Wattage Options
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1800 W Titanium — 200–240 VAC or 240 HVDC; 96% efficiency at 50% load; C15 power cord; hot-swap redundant; highest-wattage option for fully loaded multi-GPU configurations
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1400 W Platinum — 100–240 VAC or 240 HVDC; 94% efficiency at 50% load; C13 power cord; hot-swap redundant; broadest voltage compatibility for international deployments
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1100 W Titanium (AC) — 100–240 VAC or 240 HVDC; 96% efficiency at 50% load; C13 power cord; ideal for most storage-only configurations without GPUs
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1100 W LVDC — −48 to −60 VDC input; 92% efficiency at 50% load; for telecom and HVDC-powered data center environments
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700 W Titanium — 200–240 VAC or 240 HVDC; 96% efficiency at 50% load; C13 power cord; suitable for lower-density drive configurations
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1+1 Redundancy — Up to two hot-swap 60 mm PSUs; auto-sensing and auto-switching; PSU wattage must match when two are installed; mismatch triggers iDRAC warning
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Low-Line Operation — 1100 W Titanium and 1400 W Platinum support low-line (100–120 VAC) at 1050 W; 1800 W and 700 W require high-line only
Smart Air Cooling — Up to 6 Hot-Swap Standard Fans
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Fan Configuration — Up to 6 Standard (STD) hot-swappable fan modules; no liquid cooling option; all R760xd2 configurations are air-cooled only
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Smart Cooling Technology — Optimized chassis, fan, and baffle design managed by Dell OpenManage Power Manager for intelligent, sensor-driven thermal regulation
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ASHRAE A2 — Continuous operation at 10–35°C (50–95°F) ambient; supports CPUs up to 185 W in Config 3; standard across all mainstream configurations
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ASHRAE A3 — Extended ambient support 5–40°C (41–104°F); 35–40°C limited to 10% annual runtime; broader environmental compatibility
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ASHRAE A4 — Hot-aisle/cold-aisle support 5–45°C (41–113°F); 40–45°C limited to 1% annual runtime; for sealed, high-ambient data center environments
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GPU Thermal Restriction — All GPU/FPGA configurations require ambient temperature ≤ 30°C (86°F) regardless of CPU TDP; no GPU support above 30°C
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Altitude Support — Operational altitude up to 3,050 m (10,006 ft); temperature de-rated above 900 m (A2: 1°C per 300 m, A3: 1°C per 175 m, A4: 1°C per 125 m)
Front & Rear I/O — Dedicated Out-of-Band Management
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Front I/O — 1 × USB 2.0 Type-A; 1 × iDRAC Direct Micro-AB USB (management only); 1 × VGA; Power button; Health/ID LED indicator button
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Rear I/O — 1 × USB 2.0; 1 × USB 3.0; 1 × VGA; 1 × dedicated iDRAC9 Ethernet port (1 GbE, out-of-band management only)
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Internal USB — Optional internal USB 3.0 card (40 × 16 × 8 mm dongle) for bootable OS media; supported in Configs 1, 2A/2B/2C, 3A/3B/3C
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Video — Integrated Matrox G200 graphics; supports resolutions up to 1920×1200 at 60 Hz reduced blanking; both front VGA and rear VGA available simultaneously
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iDRAC Direct — Front-panel Micro-USB port connects a laptop directly to iDRAC9 for direct debug and management access without a network connection
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System ID Button — Located on both front and rear panels; activates blue ID LED for physical server identification in dense rack environments
Cyber Resilient Architecture — Zero Trust from Silicon to Software
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Silicon Root of Trust — Hardware-anchored boot integrity; every firmware component cryptographically verified from silicon before execution
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Cryptographically Signed Firmware — All firmware updates must carry a valid Dell digital signature; unsigned or tampered updates are rejected
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Secure Boot — UEFI Secure Boot prevents unauthorized OS or bootloader execution at system startup
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TPM 2.0 — FIPS 140-2 and CC-TCG certified; China NationZ TPM 2.0 available as a separate country-specific SKU
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Secured Component Verification — Factory-to-site hardware integrity assurance; detects unauthorized component substitution during shipping or staging
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Data at Rest Encryption — Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs) supported with local key management or external key management (SEKM) via Dell Secure Enterprise Key Manager
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Secure Erase — Cryptographic storage wipe via iDRAC; removes all data from drives before redeployment or decommission
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System Lockdown — Prevents configuration drift and unauthorized changes (requires iDRAC9 Enterprise or Datacenter license)
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Multi-Factor Authentication — MFA and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) supported for iDRAC access, enforcing Zero Trust operational principles
iDRAC9 — Autonomous Lifecycle Management
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iDRAC9 — Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller 9; iDRAC Direct (Micro-USB front panel), iDRAC Service Module, and dedicated rear Ethernet port; Express license standard on 600+ series
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iDRAC RESTful API + Redfish — DMTF-standard open API; integrated with Red Hat Ansible Modules, Terraform Providers, BMC Truesight, ServiceNow, and VMware vCenter/vRealize Operations
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Zero Touch Provisioning — Automated server discovery and configuration without manual touch; embedded in iDRAC for lights-out data center deployments
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Dell Lifecycle Controller — Embedded OS-independent management for firmware updates, OS deployment, BIOS/iDRAC configuration, and RAID setup
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OpenManage Enterprise — Centralized one-to-many management console; Power Manager plugin for energy insights and carbon footprint reduction; Update Manager and CloudIQ plugins
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Protocol Support — IPMI 2.0, RACADM CLI, ACPI v6.4, UEFI v2.7, SMBIOS v3.3.0; Dell System Update and Dell Repository Manager for firmware lifecycle
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Integrations — VMware vCenter, Microsoft System Center (SCOM), Windows Admin Center, ServiceNow, Nagios, Tivoli, Microfocus third-party connectors
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OpenManage Mobile — iOS/Android app for server management; works with Bluetooth/NFC Quick Sync 2 module (optional) on the front panel
Certified for Leading Enterprise OS, Hypervisors & SDS Platforms
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Canonical Ubuntu Server LTS — Tier-1 certified; popular for object storage (Ceph, MinIO), data analytics, and containerized workloads with Kubernetes
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Microsoft Windows Server + Hyper-V — Full certification including Windows Server roles and Hyper-V virtualization; OpenManage Integration with Windows Admin Center
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) — Tier-1 certified; OpenManage Enterprise integrations including Ansible automation for large-scale fleet management
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SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) — Tier-1 certified; favored for HPC storage clusters running GPFS, BeeGFS, and Lustre parallel file systems
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VMware ESXi — Certified hypervisor; full integration with OpenManage Integration for vCenter and vRealize Operations Manager; supports vSAN with NVMe rear drive caching
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Full Compatibility List — See Dell.com/OSsupport for the current certification matrices, kernel versions, and driver packages
Standard 2U Rails — Full Extension for Service Access
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Rail Kit — Standard sliding rail kit; inner rails attach to server chassis; intermediate rails extend for full access to all front, mid, and rear drives without removing the server from the rack
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Rack Compatibility — 19" EIA-310-E standard square-hole and unthreaded round-hole 4-post racks; threaded round-hole racks also supported
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Blue Slide Release — Pull blue slide-release lock tabs forward or backward on both rails to slide the system into or out of the rack; tool-less operation
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External Rail Feature — New external rail access design reduces service costs when swapping hot-plug drives and PCIe cards with the server partially extended in the rack
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Chassis Depth — 837 mm (32.95 inches) depth; 872.74 mm (34.36 inches) including PSU handle; verify rack depth before installing alongside deep cable management arms
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Chassis Width — Storage module: 448.0 mm (17.637 in); Compute module (CC): 434.0 mm (17.08 in) — unique two-value Xb measurement for this platform
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Compatibility Reference — Dell Enterprise Systems Rail Sizing and Rack Compatibility Matrix available at Dell.com for full 4-post rack compatibility detail
R760xd2 vs R750xd2 — Gen 16 vs Gen 15
| Feature | R760xd2 (Gen 16) | R750xd2 (Gen 15) |
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| Processor Generation | 4th Gen Xeon Scalable (Sapphire Rapids) | 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable (Ice Lake) |
| Memory Type | DDR5 RDIMM only, up to 4800 MT/s | DDR4 RDIMM/LRDIMM + Optane PMem 300 |
| Max Memory | 1 TB DDR5 (16 DIMMs) | 1 TB DDR4 + PMem capacity |
| PCIe Generation | PCIe Gen4 throughout all slots | PCIe Gen3/Gen4 mixed |
| Max 3.5" Drive Bays | 28 (12 front + 12 mid + 4 rear LFF) | 26 front + mid + rear |
| Max Raw Capacity | 616 TB (28 × 22 TB) | ~528 TB |
| Rear NVMe Options | 4 × 2.5" NVMe, 2 × U.2, or 4 × E3.S Gen5 | 4 × 2.5" NVMe only |
| Boot Module | BOSS-N1 (NVMe M.2 HWRAID, hot-swap) | BOSS-S2 / BOSS-S1 (SATA M.2) |
| RAID Controller (Premium) | PERC H965i (PERC 12, 24 Gb SAS, 8 GB cache) | PERC H755 (PERC 11, 12 Gb SAS) |
| Max PSU | 1800 W Titanium (DC option available) | 1400 W Platinum |
| Processor Interconnect | Intel UPI up to 16 GT/s (4 links) | Intel UPI up to 11.2 GT/s |
| On-Die Accelerators | Built-in QAT, crypto, compression (Sapphire Rapids) | None (software-only) |
| Security | Silicon Root of Trust + Secured Component Verification | Silicon Root of Trust (no SCV) |
| Chassis Depth | 837 mm (32.95 inches) | ~878 mm (34.57 inches) |
Frequently Asked Questions — Dell PowerEdge R760XD2
The Dell PowerEdge R760XD2 supports up to 1 TB of DDR5 ECC memory in a dual-socket 2U dense storage chassis — sufficient headroom for storage gateway, media ingest, and bulk archive workloads that require decent memory but prioritise raw drive-bay count above all else.
The R760XD2 is a dense storage powerhouse supporting up to 28 × 3.5-inch LFF drives in a 12+12+4 front/rear configuration — reaching up to 616 TB raw with 22 TB drives, purpose-built for cold storage, backup vaults, and media archives.
The R760XD2 supports 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (Sapphire Rapids, LGA4677) in a dual-socket configuration. The platform provides PCIe Gen4 bandwidth for RAID controllers and HBAs alongside the chassis’ primary mission: packing the maximum number of drives into a 2U footprint.
Yes. Express Computer Systems stocks professionally reconditioned Dell PowerEdge R760XD2 rack servers purpose-built for dense storage deployments. Shop refurbished R760XD2 servers at ECS.
The R760XD2 (Gen 16) replaces the R750XD2 (Gen 15) with 4th Gen Xeon Scalable vs 3rd Gen, DDR5 vs DDR4, PCIe Gen4 RAID controllers vs PCIe Gen3/Gen4 mixed, and iDRAC9 management — delivering the Gen 16 platform upgrade while retaining the industry-leading 28-bay 2U dense storage footprint.
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