Dell PowerEdge R840 5120*2/8G DDR4/2*600G SAS 2.5 10k/H330/DVD/4*1GE/2*750W/2.5-8 Server

Dell R840 is a 5120*2/2*8G DDR4/2*600G SAS 2.5 10k/H330/DVD/4*1GE/2*750W/2.5-8. It belongs to the PowerEdge Server range.

What to check before you buy. Three things decide whether a server will suit the job. The generation, because the processors, memory and controllers that fit one generation generally do not fit the next even where the chassis looks identical. The drive configuration, because a chassis built for small form factor disks cannot take large form factor ones without a different cage and backplane. And how it is specified to be populated, since a second processor usually needs its own heatsink and may enable memory slots that are otherwise unusable. It is also worth asking what is physically included: rails, bezel, drive carriers and the remote management licence are all commonly sold separately from the chassis.

How we supply it. Supplied new where available, otherwise as tested stock with warranty, subject to availability. If you are unsure whether this is the right part, give us the model it is going into and we will confirm it. Quotes by the next working day.

A Dell PowerEdge R840 built to a fixed specification: 2 x Intel Xeon Scalable 5120; 2 x 8 GB; 2 x 600GB 2.5-inch SAS 10K.

The Dell PowerEdge R840 is a four-socket server in 2U, which is the point of it: scale-up core count without the rack height a traditional four-socket box needs.

2 of 4 sockets are populated. There is room to grow, but on these platforms some memory slots and expansion slots only come alive once the later sockets are filled, so a part-populated server is not simply a fraction of a full one.

What is in this configuration

The H330 RAID controller

The H330 is Dell’s entry RAID controller. It does hardware RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 and supports SAS and SATA, but it has no cache, so write-heavy workloads will feel the difference against a cached card. For a general-purpose server with a handful of drives it is the sensible, cost-effective choice.

The drives that come with it

Unusually for a server listing, this build includes its drives: 2 x 600GB 2.5-inch SAS 10K. That is worth knowing because most server SKUs quote a chassis and leave the disks to you. These are 10,000 rpm spinning disks rather than SSDs, which is the right choice for bulk capacity and sequential work and the wrong one if the workload is latency-sensitive. If you want SSDs instead, say so and we will re-quote rather than have you buy these and replace them. The chassis takes 8 2.5-inch drives in total, so there is room to add to what ships.

Power supplies, and whether this build is redundant

This build ships with 2 x 750 W power supplies, so it is genuinely redundant: lose one supply or one feed and the server keeps running. Feed them from separate circuits if the rack allows it, since two supplies on one failed circuit protect against nothing.

Worth checking before you order

• The H330 has no write cache. For write-heavy work, ask what a cached controller would add before you commit.
• Not all sockets are populated. Adding a processor later means matching the exact model, and some memory slots only become usable once it is in.
• Check the included drives against what you actually need. Swapping them at order time costs less than buying this build and replacing them.
• It includes a DVD drive. Harmless, but if you are tight on budget it is one of the few things here you can drop.
• Pre-configured does not mean fixed. We can change processor, memory, drives, controller or network before despatch, which is cheaper than upgrading afterwards.
• Tell us what this server is replacing and what it has to run, and we will confirm this build is the right one rather than just the one you found.