Dell PowerEdge R840 Review — Gen 14 4-Socket 2U In-Memory Server
The 4-Socket 2U Platform for In-Memory Databases, HPC, ERP, and Scale-Up Virtualization
In-Memory Database Servers — Four Xeon Scalable processors, 48 DIMM slots, and Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory support up to 15.36 TB of addressable memory in a 2U chassis; enables large-scale SAP HANA, Oracle Database In-Memory, and Microsoft SQL Server In-Memory OLTP deployments that require terabytes of fast memory without scale-out complexity
High Performance Computing (HPC) — Up to 112 cores across four Cascade Lake-SP processors with Intel AVX-512, Deep Learning Boost, and 3× UPI links between sockets deliver the parallel compute density for seismic processing, computational fluid dynamics, financial Monte Carlo simulation, and life-sciences genomics pipelines
Enterprise ERP and Business-Critical Applications — The R840's 4-socket NUMA topology with up to 6 TB DDR4 LRDIMM and 48 DIMM slots provides the memory capacity for large-scale SAP ECC, Oracle E-Business Suite, and Microsoft Dynamics deployments that cannot be split across multiple 2-socket nodes
Scale-Up Virtualization — Consolidate large virtual machine estates onto a single 4-socket host with up to 112 vCPU cores; Intel UPI inter-socket fabric reduces NUMA penalty for memory-intensive VMs in VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, and RHEL KVM environments requiring 3–6 TB of hypervisor RAM
Big Data Analytics and Data Warehousing — High memory bandwidth across four CPU sockets, 24 hot-plug NVMe PCIe SSDs, and up to 15.36 TB persistent memory capacity support large Hadoop HDFS nodes, Apache Spark executors, and columnar analytics databases like Vertica and Greenplum that scale with memory and NVMe throughput
GPU-Accelerated AI and Inference — Up to 2 × double-width 300 W GPUs in the 2U chassis enable AI inference acceleration, deep learning model serving, and visualization workloads running in parallel with the quad-CPU compute fabric without requiring a separate GPU appliance
Telecommunication and Cloud Infrastructure — Four-socket NUMA parity with Intel UPI at up to 3 links per processor makes the R840 suitable for virtualized network functions (VNF), carrier-grade cloud infrastructure, and OpenStack Compute roles requiring large NUMA domains and high CPU counts in compact rack footprint
Quad 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable — Up to 28 Cores Per Socket and 112 Cores Total
4 × LGA 3647 Sockets (2nd Gen Xeon Scalable) — Full quad-processor support across the complete 2nd Gen Gold and Platinum lineup; flagship Xeon Platinum 8280 delivers 28 cores at 2.7 GHz and 205 W TDP per socket; quad configuration reaches 112 cores / 224 threads for the highest core-count density in the Gen 14 2U portfolio
Intel Ultra Path Interconnect (UPI) — Up to 3 × Intel UPI links per processor for low-latency, high-bandwidth coherent inter-socket fabric in 4-socket topologies; UPI replaces the QPI of the prior generation, improving inter-CPU bandwidth for NUMA-sensitive database and analytics workloads
Intel C620 Chipset — PCH provides ACPI 4.0, PCIe 3.0 lanes, xHCI USB 3.0, Intel Active Management Technology, Trusted Execution Technology, VT-d, Rapid Storage Technology Enterprise, and Intel QuickAssist Technology for a comprehensive enterprise I/O baseline
Up to 48 PCIe 3.0 Lanes Per CPU — 192 total PCIe lanes across all four Xeon Scalable processors feed the R840's 6-slot PCIe expansion fabric, rNDC, and PERC controller simultaneously; critical for configurations combining GPU, NVMe SSDs, and high-speed networking without lane contention
Intel AVX-512 and Deep Learning Boost — AVX-512 FMA units accelerate matrix math, compression, and cryptography workloads; Deep Learning Boost VNNI instructions run INT8 vector neural network inference directly in the CPU for lighter AI inference models without requiring GPU offload
Six Memory Channels Per Socket — Each 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable processor drives 6 DDR4 channels with 2 DIMMs per channel for 12 slots per socket; four sockets populate all 48 DIMM slots in full dual-DIMM-per-channel configuration for maximum memory aggregate bandwidth across the platform
Single-CPU Configurations Supported — R840 operates in single, dual, or quad-processor configurations; unpopulated sockets require processor blank fillers for airflow compliance; PCIe slots on Riser 2 and system board slots connected to CPU2 are inactive in configurations without all four processors installed
48-Slot DDR4 — Up to 6 TB LRDIMM or 15.36 TB with Intel Optane DCPMM
48 DDR4 DIMM Slots — Twelve slots per CPU organized into six channels with 2 DIMMs per channel; all 48 slots active in full quad-processor configurations; single-DIMM-per-channel configurations achieve maximum DDR4 speed of 2933 MT/s with select 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable Gold and Platinum SKUs
Up to 6 TB DDR4 LRDIMM — 48 × 128 GB LRDIMMs achieve 6 TB total DDR4 system memory for in-memory analytics and large-scale virtualization platforms requiring maximum capacity without Intel Optane persistent memory
Up to 15.36 TB with DCPMM + LRDIMM — 24 × Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory 512 GB DIMMs combined with 24 × 128 GB LRDIMMs reach 15.36 TB total addressable memory — the highest memory capacity available in a 2U 4-socket server for SAP HANA scale-up, Oracle Database In-Memory, and SQL Server In-Memory OLTP deployments
Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory Modes — Memory Mode uses DRAM transparently as L4 cache for DCPMM capacity; App Direct Mode exposes DCPMM as byte-addressable persistent storage with data retention across power loss for PMem-aware applications; up to 6 DCPMMs per CPU socket for a maximum of 24 per system
NVDIMM-N — Up to 384 GB — Up to 24 × 16 GB NVDIMM-N modules (384 GB total) provide battery-backed DRAM-speed persistent memory for write-ahead logs, key-value stores, and metadata structures that must survive power loss without OS-level flushing
DDR4-2933 Peak Speed — 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable processors with a single RDIMM per channel achieve 2933 MT/s; dual-DIMM per channel configurations run at 2666 MT/s; DCPMM modules operate at up to 2666 MT/s in both Memory and App Direct modes
Advanced RAS: Mirroring, Sparing, and Fault Resilient Memory — Memory Mirroring duplicates writes across two adjacent channels for transparent failover; Single and Multi-Rank Sparing pre-allocates spare ranks for hot-swap error recovery; Dell Fault Resilient Memory protects VMware ESXi guests from DIMM faults without guest interruption
Up to 24 × 2.5-Inch Hot-Swap Drive Bays — NVMe, SAS, and SATA in the Same Chassis
24 × 2.5-Inch SFF Chassis — Maximum-density all-SFF configuration supporting 24 front-accessible hot-plug 2.5-inch SAS, SATA, or NVMe drives; ideal for database nodes, analytics clusters, and NVMe storage servers where drive slot count maps directly to IOPS capacity
24 × 2.5-Inch with 2 Rear Drives — Optional 2 × 2.5-inch rear drive bays (shared with Riser 2 PCIe slot; mutually exclusive with Riser 2) provide 26 total hot-plug drive positions for environments that need extra boot or tiering drives without sacrificing all front bays
8 × 2.5-Inch SFF Chassis — Mid-range SFF configuration for deployments where 8 hot-plug SAS/SATA/NVMe drives balance drive density and cost; supports optical drive (DVD-ROM or DVD+RW) in the ODD bay position — not available with the 24-bay chassis
Up to 24 Direct-Attach NVMe PCIe SSDs — Express Flash NVMe SSDs connect CPU-direct via PCIe lanes for the lowest-latency storage path; available in 1.6 TB, 3.2 TB, 3.84 TB, 6.4 TB, 7.6 TB, 12.8 TB, and 15.36 TB capacities; PCIe Gen 3 path eliminates SAS/SATA controller latency overhead entirely
SAS 12 Gbps Drive Support — 10K (1.2 TB, 1.8 TB, 2.4 TB) and 15K (300 GB, 600 GB, 900 GB) SAS HDDs and SAS SSDs (400 GB–3840 GB including SED FIPS) coexist with NVMe drives in the 24-bay chassis via PERC hardware RAID controllers for mixed-tier storage pools
SATA SSD and HDD — SATA 6 Gbps SSDs (240 GB, 480 GB, 800 GB, 960 GB, 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB) and SATA HDDs (1 TB, 2 TB at 7.2K) supported for cost-optimized high-capacity storage tiers and boot-volume configurations under the S140 software RAID controller
External Tape Drive Integration — LTO-5 through LTO-7 SAS and Fibre Channel tape drives supported via external SAS HBA or FC HBA for enterprise tape backup; TL2000, TL4000, and ML6000 tape library strings supported for archive and compliance retention workflows
BOSS M.2 SATA RAID Module and IDSDM for Dedicated OS Boot Storage
BOSS Card (Boot Optimized Storage Subsystem) — Dedicated PCIe module hosts two M.2 SATA 6 Gbps SSDs on an independent low-profile half-height controller; installs in a PCIe expansion slot without consuming any front drive bay, ensuring all 8–24 data bays remain fully available for workload storage
240 GB or 480 GB M.2 SATA Drives — Both BOSS M.2 slots support either 240 GB or 480 GB SATA drives; BOSS volumes up to 480 GB per mirror accommodate Windows Server, RHEL, SLES, and Ubuntu installs with full log retention and system temporary file storage without impacting data drive capacity
Hardware RAID 1 Mirror — Integrated BOSS RAID controller presents the two M.2 SSDs as a hardware-mirrored RAID 1 volume to the OS; a single M.2 drive failure is completely transparent to the operating system with no manual failover required
Preferred for Full OS Deployments — For bare-metal deployments of Windows Server, RHEL, SLES, or Ubuntu, BOSS keeps the OS install on the dedicated mirror volume while all NVMe and SAS/SATA drives remain dedicated to workload I/O — critical in the R840 where every front bay has high workload value
IDSDM — Internal Dual SD Module — Supports 2 × microSD cards (16, 32, or 64 GB each) in hardware-mirrored IDSDM mode for VMware ESXi and other hypervisor-only deployments where the complete boot image fits in a compact flash form factor
vFlash Module (16 GB) — A third microSD slot on the IDSDM card provides 16 GB of iDRAC vFlash storage for OS deployment ISO images, RACADM scripts, firmware staging, and iDRAC Virtual Media without requiring external USB media in the data center aisle
Combined IDSDM + vFlash Support — The R840 supports IDSDM, vFlash, or both IDSDM and vFlash cards simultaneously in the module slot — up to three microSD cards total for a combined persistent OS mirror boot volume plus vFlash provisioning storage
PERC H740P, H730P, H350, H750, HBA350i, H840 External, and S140 Software RAID
PERC H740P (Premium Performance) — 12 Gbps SAS/SATA hardware RAID with 4 GB or 8 GB NV cache for RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/60; delivers maximum rebuild speed and sustained IOPS for 24-bay 2.5-inch dense storage configurations with mixed SAS HDDs, SAS SSDs, and SAS expander-connected drive pools
PERC H730P (Value Performance) — 12 Gbps hardware RAID controller with 2 GB NV cache; proven for mid-range mixed-workload environments running SAS/SATA storage pools with hardware-accelerated parity RAID and lower total cost than the H740P NV cache premium
PERC H330P / H350 (Entry Tier) — H330P provides 12 Gbps RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/60 without NV cache for cost-optimized deployments; H350 adds enhanced SAS 12 Gbps performance and expander support; both available as mini-PERC internal form factors that do not consume a general-purpose PCIe slot
H750 / HBA350i (Adapter Form Factor) — Full-height PCIe adapter versions of the PERC H750 RAID and HBA350i JBOD HBA for configurations requiring a second independent RAID domain or direct-attach SAS for software-defined storage platforms running Ceph, GlusterFS, or similar distributed storage stacks
HBA330 / HBA350i (Non-RAID Pass-Through) — JBOD-mode 12 Gbps SAS HBAs for software-defined storage deployments where the OS requires direct block-device access without a PERC RAID translation layer; supported as mini-internal or adapter PCIe form factors
S140 Software RAID — Intel chipset-based software RAID supports RAID 0/1/5/10 on SATA and NVMe drives using CPU cycles; entry-level option for deployments with lighter I/O requirements where hardware RAID controller cost is not justified and CPU overhead is acceptable
H840 / 12G SAS HBA / HBA355e (External) — External RAID H840 and non-RAID 12 Gbps SAS HBA connect SAS disk shelves, LTO tape library strings, and JBOD enclosures via SAS cable from a rear PCIe slot; HBA355e provides external SAS connectivity in low-profile or full-height adapter form for mixed internal and external storage topologies
Up to 2 × Double-Width 300 W GPUs or 2 × Full-Height FPGAs in 2U
2 × Double-Width 300 W GPUs — Two full-height double-slot 300 W GPU cards (e.g., NVIDIA Tesla V100, A30, T4 in double-slot) in the R840's 2U chassis deliver parallel compute for AI inference, deep learning, seismic processing, and financial simulation workloads co-located with the 4-socket CPU platform
2 × Full-Height FPGAs — Up to 2 × double-width full-height full-length FPGA accelerator cards (Intel Xilinx variants) in the same PCIe expansion slots for hardware-accelerated packet processing, custom algorithm acceleration, encryption offload, and real-time signal processing workloads
PCIe Gen 3 x16 GPU Slots — GPU cards are seated in Riser 1 Slot 2 and Riser 2 Slot 6, both full-height full-length PCIe Gen 3 x16 positions connected directly to processor CPU cores for maximum GPU-to-CPU memory bandwidth and minimal inter-socket hop latency
GPU and NVMe Coexistence — GPU installations require the x16 PCIe riser configuration (Riser 1 and Riser 2); rear drive cage is not supported when Riser 2 is installed, making GPU and rear drives mutually exclusive; NVMe drive coexistence with GPUs is supported in the front 24-bay chassis
10 GbE NDC Constraint — The 10 GbE rNDC (Network Daughter Card) is not supported when GPU cards are installed; for GPU-heavy R840 configurations, use the 25 GbE or 4 × 1 GbE rNDC options to maintain full-speed networking alongside the GPU workload
PSU Requirements for GPU Configurations — Dual 300 W GPU configurations in the R840 typically require 2000 W or 2400 W AC PSUs to maintain power headroom for all four high-TDP Xeon Scalable processors, 24 drives, and full DIMM population simultaneously under peak load
Validated Thermal Envelope — GPU cards in the R840 are validated at standard 30°C recommended inlet temperature; higher-TDP GPU configurations require review of the R840 thermal guidelines documentation for ambient temperature and airflow de-rating limits in specific card combinations
Up to 6 × PCIe Gen 3 Slots — Dual Full-Height Risers and System Board Low-Profile Slots
Up to 6 × PCIe Gen 3 Slots — Maximum I/O expansion via two full-height risers (Riser 1 and Riser 2) plus two low-profile half-length slots on the system board; all slots are PCIe Generation 3 for consistent bandwidth across the entire expansion fabric
Riser 1 — Slots 1 and 2 (Full-Height) — Riser 1 provides two full-height slots: Slot 1 (half-length or full-length on x16 riser, half-height half-length on x8 riser) and Slot 2 (full-height full-length on x16 riser); Slot 2 is the primary GPU/FPGA position for the first accelerator (x16 bandwidth)
System Board — Slots 3 and 4 (Low Profile) — Two low-profile half-length PCIe slots mounted directly on the system board are always present regardless of riser configuration; Slot 3 connects to CPU1, Slot 4 connects to CPU2; commonly used for external RAID controllers, HBAs, and InfiniBand/Fibre Channel adapters
Riser 2 — Slots 5 and 6 (Full-Height) — Riser 2 mirrors Riser 1 on the opposite end of the chassis: Slot 5 (half-length) and Slot 6 (full-height full-length on x16 riser); Slot 6 is the primary location for the second GPU/FPGA; Riser 2 is mutually exclusive with rear drive cage installation
x16 vs x8 Riser Configuration — Each riser position accepts either an x16 riser (for GPU/FPGA/100G NIC requiring full x16 PCIe lanes) or an x8 riser (for HBA, RAID, and 25G NIC cards requiring x8 lanes); configuration is selected at build time based on the highest-bandwidth expansion card requirement
rNDC Integrated Slot — The network daughter card installs in a dedicated rNDC slot on the system board at x8 bandwidth, consuming no general-purpose PCIe slot; all six numbered expansion slots remain available for storage, GPU, networking, and accelerator cards
Supported Expansion Cards — InfiniBand HCA (EDR/FDR) x16/x8, 100G NICs (Intel, Mellanox, Broadcom) x16, 25G NICs x8, 40G NICs x8, FC32/FC16/FC8 HBAs x8, BOSS card x4/x8, external RAID H840 x8, NVMe PCIe SSDs x8, and 1G NICs x1/x4 — with full-height or low-profile variants depending on slot position
Dell Select rNDC — 4 × 1 GbE, 4 × 10 GbE, 2 × 10GbE + 2 × 1 GbE, or 2 × 25 GbE
rNDC Integrated Without Sacrificing a PCIe Slot — Dell Select Network Adapters (rNDC) install in the dedicated rear rNDC slot on the system board at x8 PCIe bandwidth; all six numbered expansion slots remain available for storage, GPU, and additional networking cards alongside the base network connectivity
4 × 1 GbE Option — Quad 1 Gbps copper rNDC for environments with 1 GbE top-of-rack switch infrastructure; suitable for out-of-band management, lightweight application servers, and control plane traffic where 10GbE uplink cost is not justified at every node
4 × 10 GbE Option — Quad 10 Gbps rNDC (SFP+ or BASE-T options) provides four independent 10GbE ports for NIC teaming, storage iSCSI/NFS multi-path, and VM traffic separation across four physical uplinks from a single integrated adapter without consuming additional PCIe slots
2 × 10 GbE + 2 × 1 GbE Option — Hybrid rNDC configuration providing two 10GbE ports for primary data traffic and two 1GbE ports for management, iSCSI, or dedicated backup traffic; balances high-speed data-plane bandwidth with dedicated low-speed management-plane connectivity
2 × 25 GbE Option — Dual 25 Gbps SFP28 rNDC for high-bandwidth environments with 25GbE top-of-rack switching; note that the 25 GbE rNDC and 10 GbE rNDC are not compatible with GPU installations — use the 4 × 1 GbE or 25 GbE NDC depending on workload and GPU configuration
Additional PCIe Networking Cards — 25G NICs (Intel, Broadcom, Mellanox), 100G NICs (Intel, Broadcom, Mellanox), 40G NICs (Intel), InfiniBand HCA EDR/FDR (Mellanox), and Omni-Path HFI (Intel) can be installed in expansion slots for cluster networking, RDMA-over-Converged-Ethernet (RoCE), and high-performance HPC fabrics
iDRAC9 Dedicated Management NIC — Separate 1 GbE iDRAC9 port on the rear panel provides out-of-band management traffic isolation independent of the data-plane NIC; shared iDRAC LOM mode is also available for environments without a dedicated management network
Hot-Plug Redundant PSUs — 750 W to 2600 W Platinum, Titanium, and DC Options
1+1 Hot-Plug Redundancy — Two hot-swappable rear-accessible PSU bays with 1+1 redundancy; a PSU failure is replaceable under full operational load without interrupting any running workload, VM, network connection, or storage I/O in the chassis
750 W AC and HVDC — Right-sized for base configurations with minimal drives and moderate CPU TDPs; 750 W Mixed Mode HVDC and DC variants for China-specific 380 V DC-bus rack deployments; 80 PLUS Platinum efficiency rating
1100 W Platinum and DC — Standard tier for fully-loaded quad-socket configurations at moderate CPU TDP tiers with full DIMM and drive populations; 1100 W DC option for –48 V telecommunications rack infrastructure; 1100 W HVDC for Japan-specific deployments
1600 W and 2000 W AC Platinum — Required for high-TDP CPU configurations with Xeon Platinum 8280 (205 W × 4 = 820 W CPUs alone); 2000 W provides headroom for 4 × 205 W processors, full DIMM population (48 DIMMs), 24 drives, and PCIe cards simultaneously under sustained peak load
2400 W and 2600 W HLAC — Highest-wattage options for GPU-loaded or future-proofed maximum-density configurations; 2400 W Platinum at 100–240 V AC; 2600 W High Line AC for 200–240 V high-voltage-input rack deployments requiring maximum single-PSU wattage headroom
Power Monitoring at 1% Accuracy — iDRAC9 real-time power consumption monitoring achieves 1% accuracy versus the industry-standard 5%; supports Dell EMC Enterprise Infrastructure Planning Tool (EIPT) for data-center power budgeting and Power Capping to enforce hard per-server watt limits
80 PLUS Certification and Energy Efficiency — Platinum and Titanium efficiency ratings across the PSU lineup comply with Climate Savers, ENERGY STAR, and 80 PLUS standards; Titanium-grade PSUs achieve 94–96% peak efficiency for facilities targeting PUE improvement in dense 4-socket server deployments
6 × Hot-Plug N+1 Fans with Intelligent Multi-Vector Thermal Control
6 Hot-Plug Cooling Fans — Six hot-plug fans in N+1 redundant configuration allow a single fan failure without triggering a system shutdown; failed fans are field-replaceable under full production load without removing the chassis from the rack — critical in always-on 4-socket database and HPC environments
Open + Closed Loop Hybrid Thermal Control — Open-loop pre-computed fan speed tables load from system BOM at startup; closed-loop feedback from CPU, DIMM, PCH, GPU, inlet air, NVMe, and PCIe temperature sensors continuously refines fan speeds to the minimum required for thermal compliance across all four processor sockets
Standard 10–35°C Operating Range — Full component support for all CPU TDP tiers, DCPMM configurations, and GPU options within the standard recommended ambient temperature range; DAPC (Dell Active Power Controller) fan profile minimizes fan power consumption while maintaining all component thermal margins
Extended Fresh Air (5–40°C) — Continuous operation up to 40°C ambient for thermally compliant configurations; higher-TDP quad-Xeon Platinum configurations with 205 W TDP processors may have de-rating limits above 30°C ambient reviewed in the R840 thermal guidelines documentation
Four-Processor Thermal Design — The R840 chassis thermal path is designed to cool four high-TDP Xeon processors plus up to 48 DIMMs, 24 NVMe drives, and GPU cards within the standard 2U chassis depth — more complex than 2-socket designs but validated by Dell EMC's thermal engineering team for all supported configurations
NVMe PCIe SSD Airflow Considerations — Full 24-bay NVMe configurations require higher airflow than SAS/SATA-only builds; iDRAC9 BIOS thermal profiles include configurations specific to all-flash NVMe chassis to balance fan acoustic output with NVMe drive temperatures at sustained 100% I/O workloads
User-Configurable Thermal Profiles — iDRAC9 BIOS thermal settings include Performance Per Watt (DAPC/OS), Performance Optimized, and Maximum Performance modes; Max Exhaust Temperature and Fan Speed Offset are configurable for colocation environments with strict per-rack BTU budgets
Dual Front USB 2.0, Optional USB 3.0, Front VGA, iDRAC Direct, and Full Rear I/O Panel
Front USB 2.0 × 2 — Two USB 2.0 ports on the right front control panel for OS installation media, USB diagnostic tools, and temporary portable storage without routing cables to the rear of the chassis while racked
Front iDRAC Direct (Micro-AB USB) — Dedicated Micro-AB USB port with LED status indicator for direct laptop connectivity to iDRAC9 without requiring network access; the LED illuminates during active iDRAC Direct sessions for quick visual confirmation at the rack aisle
Front VGA Port — 1 × VGA connector on the right front control panel for monitor console access during POST diagnostics, BIOS configuration, RAID setup utility, and OS installation at the rack without routing display cables to the rear panel
Optional Front USB 3.0 — An optional USB 3.0 port on the right control panel (8-bay chassis only) provides SuperSpeed 5 Gbps transfer for large OS installation images and field service diagnostic drives; not available on the 24-bay chassis configuration
Rear USB 3.0 × 2 — Two SuperSpeed USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) ports on the rear panel for persistent keyboard/mouse attachments, external USB storage, long-term external diagnostic drives, and KVM adapter dongles in rack-mounted configurations
Rear VGA and Serial — 1 × VGA display port and 1 × DB-9 serial port on the rear panel; the serial port supports iDRAC9 Serial-over-LAN (SOL) for headless serial console redirect through out-of-band management without requiring a physical serial terminal at the rack
iDRAC9 Dedicated Management Port and System ID Button — 1 × dedicated 1 GbE iDRAC9 RJ-45 management port on the rear panel for out-of-band management traffic isolation; System ID button with blue LED illuminates for rack identification during maintenance; optional Quick Sync 2 BLE/Wi-Fi bezel for front panel wireless management
Cyber Resilient Architecture — Silicon Root of Trust, TPM, Secure Boot, and System Erase
Silicon Root of Trust — Factory-burned cryptographic identity in iDRAC9 silicon validates every firmware component in the boot chain before any host CPU instruction executes; hardware-anchored trust is immune to OS-layer and hypervisor-layer firmware injection attacks that bypass software validation
Cryptographically Signed Firmware — All firmware packages — BIOS, iDRAC, PERC, NIC, PSU — carry Dell-issued digital certificates verified by Lifecycle Controller at install time; Lifecycle Controller rejects modified or unsigned firmware, preventing supply-chain firmware tampering across all R840 components
UEFI Secure Boot — Verifies all bootloader and kernel module signatures before the OS security stack loads; prevents rootkits, unauthorized operating system images, and pre-boot malware from executing during the pre-OS initialization phase when host security agents are not yet active
TPM 2.0 and TPM 1.2 (Optional) — Pluggable Trusted Platform Module provides hardware-rooted key storage for BitLocker volume encryption, vTPM support for VMware, Intel TXT-based measured boot, platform attestation, and platform identity certificates; TPM 2.0 NationZ available for China-specific regulatory compliance
System Lockdown Mode — OpenManage Enterprise-enforced lockdown policy prohibits all hardware and firmware configuration changes from BIOS, iDRAC, RACADM, and WS-Man until the authorized administrator removes the lockdown token; prevents configuration drift across regulated R840 deployments in financial and healthcare environments
System Erase (NIST 800-88 Secure Erase) — Cryptographic and overwrite erase available for all internal storage media including SSDs, HDDs, NVMe PCIe drives, NVDIMM flash, IDSDM microSD cards, and optionally CPU volatile memory for NIST 800-88-compliant decommissioning at end of server lease or redeployment
Physical Security Features — Chassis cover intrusion switch detects unauthorized chassis opening; optional locking security bezel restricts physical drive access; toolless cover latch with optional keyed lock; power-button disable via BIOS for environments where unauthorized power-off is a compliance concern
iDRAC9 with Lifecycle Controller, RESTful Redfish API, Quick Sync 2, and OpenManage
iDRAC9 Embedded Out-of-Band Controller — Dedicated management processor on its own power plane with independent 1 GbE NIC; provides persistent hardware inventory, component health alerting, remote KVM console, and 1% power monitoring accuracy regardless of host OS or hypervisor state
Lifecycle Controller 3.x — Agent-free system provisioning, OS deployment, firmware baseline update, hardware configuration, and log collection operate entirely through iDRAC9 without a running OS; Touch-free bare-metal deployment from a remote console is fully supported across all four R840 processor configurations
iDRAC RESTful API with Redfish — Full DMTF Redfish 1.0 standards-based JSON REST API enables infrastructure-as-code automation from Ansible Playbooks, Terraform modules, ServiceNow workflows, Python scripts, and PowerShell DSC for fleet-scale R840 lifecycle management and health monitoring
Quick Sync 2 Wireless Module (Optional) — BLE + Wi-Fi wireless bezel module enables iDRAC9 inventory read, RACADM command push, and firmware update trigger from the Dell OpenManage Mobile app on a smartphone at the server front panel without a dedicated laptop connection
OpenManage Enterprise — Single-console lifecycle management for the complete PowerEdge fleet including automated discovery, firmware compliance reporting, policy push, alert escalation to ticketing systems, and per-server power consumption dashboards across all R840 nodes
Ecosystem Integration — OMIVV for VMware vCenter manages R840 health and firmware from within vSphere; OpenManage Ansible Modules automate provisioning in CI/CD pipelines; integrations for BMC TrueSight, Microsoft System Center, Red Hat Ansible, and Nagios Core/XI provide coverage across major enterprise ITSM platforms
SupportAssist Embedded — Proactive and predictive diagnostics engine embedded in iDRAC9 automatically creates Dell Support cases, dispatches replacement parts, and generates AI-based failure probability scores for drives, DIMMs, and fans; reduces unplanned downtime by detecting component anomalies before production impact occurs
Windows Server, RHEL, SLES, VMware ESXi, Ubuntu, and Citrix Hypervisor Certified
Windows Server LTSC with Hyper-V — Full Microsoft Hyper-V host certification for the R840's 4-socket NUMA topology; Windows Admin Center browser-based cluster management; iDRAC Service Module (iSM) enables host-to-iDRAC health and power reporting integration without a separate management agent
VMware ESXi — VMware Hardware Compatibility Guide (HCG) certified for all major ESXi versions; OMIVV for vCenter plugin manages R840 health, firmware compliance baselines, and lifecycle operations directly from the vSphere web client; DCPMM App Direct Mode supported for persistent-memory-aware VMs
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) — RHEL 7 and 8 certified for long-term enterprise Linux deployments including OpenShift Container Platform bare-metal worker nodes; RHEL for SAP HANA configurations validated with Intel Optane DCPMM App Direct Mode for large-capacity in-memory SAP scale-up instances
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) — SLES certified including SLES for SAP Applications; DCPMM-enabled SAP HANA scale-up in SLES on the R840 achieves multi-terabyte in-memory SAP instances in a single 2U chassis — the highest SAP HANA memory capacity in the Gen 14 2U portfolio
Canonical Ubuntu Server LTS — Ubuntu LTS for OpenStack Compute host nodes, Kubernetes bare-metal worker hosts, and developer-facing infrastructure workloads; long-term security update cadence aligns with the R840's operational lifespan in production data centers
Oracle Linux — Certified for Oracle Database, Oracle RAC (Real Application Clusters), and Oracle Middleware on Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) for Oracle co-support eligibility on certified Dell PowerEdge hardware — critical for enterprise Oracle Database deployments requiring hardware vendor support alignment
Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer) — Citrix Hypervisor certified for VDI (Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops), hosted private cloud, and multi-tenant application delivery; the R840's 4-socket memory capacity supports high-density Citrix VDI farms with per-VM memory allocations that single-socket platforms cannot sustain
ReadyRails Sliding and Static for All 19-Inch 4-Post and 2-Post Rack Types
ReadyRails Sliding — Standard (Drop-In) — Tool-less drop-in installation in 19-inch square or unthreaded round-hole 4-post racks; tooled install for threaded racks; full-extension slide for DIMM, drive, fan, PCIe card, and processor servicing without removing the chassis from the rack; square-hole adjustment range 631–868 mm
ReadyRails Sliding — Stab-In/Drop-In (Gen 14) — New Gen 14 stab-in design required for Dell EMC Titan and Titan-D racks; supports square, round, and threaded round-hole racks at 603–915 mm adjustment range; recommended for mixed-cabinet environments deploying both Dell and non-Dell enclosures
Optional Cable Management Arm (CMA) — CMA attaches to the sliding rail rear bracket and keeps all rear cable bundles (power, SAS, network) organized during full-extension chassis service; minimum rack depth with CMA installed is 845 mm requiring a 1000 mm deep cabinet for safe extraction
ReadyRails Static — Stab-in installation for the widest rack compatibility — supports 19-inch square, round, and threaded 4-post plus 2-post Telco racks; no CMA compatibility; minimum rail depth 622 mm; square-hole adjustment range 608–879 mm
2U Chassis Profile — 86 mm (3.3 inches) height occupies exactly two rack units; 482 mm (18.97 inches) full-width chassis fits standard 19-inch EIA-310-E compliant racks; depth with front bezel to rear PSU handle: 879.84 mm (34.64 inches)
Weight and Lift Requirements — Maximum weight 36.6 kg (80.7 lb) with all 2.5-inch drives and full component population; 2-person lift is required per OSHA ergonomic guidelines for chassis removal during top-of-rack service or initial rack installation events
Dell Rack Compatibility — ReadyRails Stab-In/Drop-In required for Dell EMC Titan and Titan-D rack enclosures; standard sliding rails for PowerEdge-series Dell racks; static rails for non-Dell third-party cabinets where sliding rail minimum depth cannot be accommodated
R840 vs R830 — Doubled DIMM Slots, DCPMM, iDRAC9, BOSS, and More NVMe
2nd Gen Xeon Scalable vs Xeon E5-4600 v3/v4 — Xeon Scalable (Cascade Lake-SP, LGA 3647) replaces Broadwell-EX (LGA 2011-3); 50% more memory channels per socket (6 vs 4 on Broadwell-EX), Intel UPI replacing QPI, AVX-512, Deep Learning Boost, and full DCPMM/NVDIMM support — none of which is available on any E5-4600 v3/v4 SKU
48 DIMM Slots vs 24 — The R840 doubles the per-socket DIMM channel count from 4 to 6, delivering 48 total DIMM slots versus the R830's 24; this alone doubles maximum DDR4 LRDIMM capacity and enables the much larger DCPMM memory pools required for Gen 14 in-memory workloads
15.36 TB Addressable Memory vs ~1.5 TB DDR4 — R840 reaches 15.36 TB with DCPMM + LRDIMM versus the R830's maximum of ~1.5 TB DDR4 without any persistent memory support; a 10× memory capacity improvement enabling SAP HANA scale-up and in-memory database sizes impossible on the prior generation
Up to 24 Direct-Attach NVMe Drives (New) — The R830 had no native CPU Direct-Attach NVMe support; the R840 supports up to 24 Express Flash NVMe PCIe SSDs connected directly to processor PCIe lanes with no PCIe bridge overhead — transforming the platform's peak storage bandwidth
BOSS M.2 Boot Module (New) — The R840 adds the BOSS card for dedicated M.2 SATA RAID 1 OS boot; the R830 had no equivalent, requiring a dedicated hot-plug front drive bay for OS boot regardless of PERC tier — the R840 BOSS frees all front bays for workload storage
iDRAC9 vs iDRAC8 — iDRAC9 adds Silicon Root of Trust, Redfish RESTful API, Quick Sync 2 wireless management, Server Lockdown, System Erase, and DCPMM health monitoring — all capabilities entirely absent from iDRAC8 on the R830
Intel UPI vs QPI and Expanded PCIe — Intel Ultra Path Interconnect runs at up to 3 links per processor for higher inter-socket coherent bandwidth versus the single or dual QPI links of the E5-4600 generation; combined with PCIe Gen 3 expansion across 6 slots and support for 100G NICs and modern PCIe-attached NVMe arrays not available for R830
| Feature | R830 (Gen 13) | R840 (Gen 14) |
|---|---|---|
| Processor Family | Xeon E5-4600 v3 / v4 (Broadwell-EX) | 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable (Cascade Lake-SP) |
| CPU Interconnect | Intel QPI | Intel UPI (up to 3 links) |
| Max Cores Total | 72 (4 × 18) | 112 (4 × 28) |
| Memory Channels / Socket | 4 | 6 |
| DIMM Slots Total | 24 | 48 |
| Max DDR4 LRDIMM | ~1.5 TB | 6 TB |
| Intel Optane DCPMM | Not supported | Up to 15.36 TB (24 × 512 GB) |
| NVDIMM-N | Not supported | Up to 384 GB (24 × 16 GB) |
| Max NVMe Drives | Not natively supported | Up to 24 CPU Direct Attach |
| BOSS M.2 Boot Module | Not available | 2 × M.2 SATA 240/480 GB RAID 1 |
| Max GPU — Double-Width | N/A | 2 × 300 W |
| Remote Management | iDRAC8 | iDRAC9 |
| Quick Sync Wireless | Not available | Quick Sync 2 BLE/Wi-Fi |
ProSupport Plus with SupportAssist and ProDeploy for R840 Deployments
ProSupport Plus — Dell's highest-tier support plan with SupportAssist automated monitoring, predictive failure scoring for drives, fans, DIMMs, and PSUs, and an assigned Services Account Manager for proactive R840 fleet management, performance baseline recommendations, and planned maintenance coordination
SupportAssist Embedded — Replaces manual support workflows with automated issue detection, case creation, and parts dispatch; AI-driven predictive analysis detects storage, cooling, and DIMM pre-failure indicators before production impact — especially critical for 4-socket always-on database and HPC workloads
ProSupport — 24×7×365 certified hardware and software engineer access with on-site next-business-day or 4-hour mission-critical parts and labor response for R840 fleets in environments where human-escalated resolution is required within defined SLO response windows
ProSupport One for Data Center — Site-wide support contract covering all R840 servers plus Dell EMC storage and networking under one agreement with assigned field and technical account managers; designed for environments with large server fleets requiring unified support coverage across multiple brands and generations
ProDeploy Enterprise Suite — Certified Dell deployment engineers handle rack-and-stack (Basic Deployment), OS installation and firmware baseline configuration (ProDeploy), or full environment assessment, migration planning, application configuration, and knowledge transfer (ProDeploy Plus) for R840 SAP HANA and HPC deployments
Residency Services — On-site or remote Dell experts available for SAP HANA DCPMM sizing and App Direct Mode configuration, 4-socket memory topology planning for persistent memory deployments, VMware vSAN ReadyNode cluster deployment, and GPU-accelerated inference environment setup on the R840 platform
TechDirect Self-Service — Online portal for self-dispatching replacement parts, opening and managing support cases without phone escalation, API integration with internal ITSM ticketing systems, and accessing Dell certification and training resources for R840 administrators
Frequently Asked Questions — Dell PowerEdge R840
The Dell PowerEdge R840 supports up to 6 TB of DDR4 LRDIMM RAM across 48 DIMM slots (12 per processor × 4 sockets) at speeds up to 2933 MT/s with select 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable processors and one DIMM per channel. With Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory (DCPMM), total addressable memory reaches 15.36 TB using 24 × 512 GB DCPMMs combined with 24 × 128 GB LRDIMMs. Up to 384 GB of NVDIMM-N battery-backed persistent memory is also supported. All 48 DIMM slots require a quad-processor configuration. Configure your R840 memory at ECS.
The Dell PowerEdge R840 supports up to 4 × 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (Cascade Lake-SP) in LGA 3647 sockets. Supported SKU families include Xeon Gold and Xeon Platinum with up to 28 cores per socket. A fully configured quad-socket R840 with four Xeon Platinum 8280 processors delivers 112 cores / 224 threads — the highest core density in the Gen 14 2U 4-socket portfolio. Single, dual, and quad-processor configurations are all supported, with unused sockets requiring processor blank fillers for airflow compliance. Build your R840 at ECS.
The Dell PowerEdge R840 is available in three storage chassis configurations — all using 2.5-inch SFF drives: 8 × 2.5-inch SAS/SATA (with optical drive bay), 24 × 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe, or 24 × 2.5-inch + 2 × 2.5-inch rear drives. The R840 does not support 3.5-inch LFF drives. The 24-bay chassis supports up to 24 CPU Direct-Attach NVMe PCIe SSDs in capacities ranging from 1.6 TB to 15.36 TB per drive. Note that the 2 rear drive bays are mutually exclusive with Riser 2 PCIe cards.
The Dell PowerEdge R840 supports up to 6 × PCIe Gen 3 expansion slots: Riser 1 provides Slots 1 and 2 (full-height), the system board provides Slots 3 and 4 (low-profile, always present), and Riser 2 provides Slots 5 and 6 (full-height). Both Riser 1 and Riser 2 are available in x16 or x8 PCIe riser variants depending on the target expansion card bandwidth requirements. The rNDC network daughter card installs in a separate integrated slot and does not count against the 6-slot PCIe total. Note: Riser 2 and rear drive cage are mutually exclusive configurations.
Yes. Express Computer Systems stocks professionally reconditioned refurbished Dell PowerEdge R840 servers tested and configured to your exact processor, memory, storage, and networking specifications. Whether you need a 24-bay NVMe analytics server, a memory-dense SAP HANA platform with DCPMM, or a quad-CPU HPC compute node, ECS builds your R840 to specification and ships it ready to rack and power on. Shop refurbished Dell R840 servers at ECS.
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