Dell PowerEdge R900 Rack Server

Description

The PowerEdge R900 used to be Dell's top of the line rack server a few years back and still offers powerful performance in an extremely well-engineered and logical 4U chassis design. Supporting four processors with substantial memory and storage, The R900 is a natural choice for data-intensive enterprise applications, and extreme virtualization.

Performance

The Intel 7300 chipset on the Dell R900 server can host three different Intel processor families. Depending on your choice of processor the system will support up to four six or four-core processors from the Intel 7400 series processors or choose from the Intel 7300 or 7200 processors which offer four-and two-core processors respectively. Using top-of-the-line 7400 series processors with six cores each will provide a total of 24 total cores in a four processor configuration. Processor families cannot be mixed.

Memory

Up to 32 fully buffered DIMM modules (FBD) are supported on the R900 server in a four processor configuration. Memory modules are housed in four individual risers that stack up on either side of the PCIe slots located in the middle of the system board. Each processor in turn supports eight memory modules. With all 32 modules loaded with 8GB modules, that's 256GB of total memory. High availability features including, memory sparing and memory mirroring are available depending on your needs for speed and resiliency. Optional quad-rank, low-power 4GB DIMM modules are also supported but will only provide half the memory capacity compared to standard DIMMs, again with four processors installed.

Storage

There are five drive trays on the front of the system that can support a maximum of 5TB of internal storage, either SAS, SATA or nearline SAS. The five bays will support either five 3.5-inch or eight 2.5-inch drives. There is also a single optical drive located on the front of the system that can house optional DVD-ROM, CD-RW, or DVD-RW. There are several HD RAID controllers supported on the system.

Expansion

Seven PCIe slots are supported for NICs, or additional RAID controllers. Video is handled by an integrated ATI Radeon ES1000 chip with 32MB of SDRAM. There are four embedded Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet NICs. Optional add-in 8GB HBAs are also supported for greater bandwidth.

Management

Systems management is handled by Dell's OpenManage suite of tools with remote management handled by a Baseboard Management Controller via network or serial port. iDRAC5 is optional. The system supports several operating systems. The system also supports several optional embedded hypervisors for VM management. A small diagnostic panel on the front of the system provides immediate system health status of critical components.

Summary

The PowerEdge R900 is a legacy system that is currently represented by Dell's 13th generation R930 rack server. However, the R900 still delivers very impressive performance at a price that's significantly less than the cost of the R930. For more information on this system give us a call and talk to one of our knowledgeable sales people.

If you are looking for a similar four processor system, look at Dell’s R820 or the PowerEdge R830 rack servers. For even greater performance, memory, and storage check out the PowerEdge R920 or the Dell R930 four socket monsters. (Make those links)