Dell PowerEdge R815 Rack Server CTO

Dell PowerEdge R815 server is part of Dell's 11th generation server line and supports four AMD Opteron CPUs. AMD processors offer a lower entry price than the 11th generation PowerEdge R810 running Intel Xeon CPUs but still delivers comparable performance and resiliency. The R815 features all the same bells and whistles you'll find on thePowerEdge R810but instead of Xeons you get AMD processors which offer more physical cores and you'll also save a bundle on the purchase of four AMDs over four Xeon processors.

Performance

This server is powered by two or four AMD Opteron 6100, 6200, or 6300 series processors using an AMD chipset. Administrators can start out with just two processors and add two more as needed but most people purchase a four processor system to take advantage of all four processors. The AMD processors offer more physical cores than the Intel Xeon processors supported on the R810 rack server and support comparable memory and hard drives at a more attractive price point.

Memory

DDR3 memory both registered DIMMS (RDIMM) and unbuffered DIMMs (UDIMM) are supported on the Dell R815 in four channels per processor with each processor supporting eight memory modules. In a four processor configuration, with all 32 memory slots loaded with 32GB registered DIMMs, the system will support up to 1TB of memory, same as that supported on the PowerEdge R810. Memory Sparing is supported but that will halve your available memory to 512GB but will provide greater resiliency for your data.

Storage

There are six storage bays up front to support 2.5"-inch SAS, SATA hot-swap HDDs and SSDs depending on your need for storage or performance. The maximum internal storage is listed at 3TB. There's also an optional internal dual SD Card to support a hypervisor with redundancy.

Expansion

Six PCIe slots are supported on the system board, two of which are required to support the PCI riser cards. The risers install in slots three and four respectively, leaving four PCIe slots total to support additional expansion cards. Administrators have options for additional NICs, LOMs, and HD controllers. There are several PERC storage and RAID controllers that are supported on the system. Storage controllers plug into the dedicated SAS slot on Riser1. It also features two embedded Broadcom 5709C dual-port LAN controllers.

Management

Management of the system is handled by Dell's OpenManage and iDRAC6 with LifeCycle controller providing on-site and remote access when used with an Enterprise license key. Without the Enterprise license you still get iDRAC6 Express pre-installed, which is one level up from Basic. An integrated video subsystem is integral to the iDRAC6 and supports only 2D graphics.

Summary

Dell's PowerEdge R815 is an excellent addition for space constrained data centers featuring four processors, dense memory, and substantial storage - all in a 2U for factor! AMD processors and chipset also provides a lower cost to performance ratio when compared to PowerEdge servers powered by Intel Xeon processors and most likely you'll never notice the difference.