Dell PowerEdge R230 Server

The Dell PowerEdge R230 server is a flexible and capable system that is great for businesses of all sizes. This 1U rackmount server has three chassis options to choose from: 2 Bay LFF Cabled, 4 Bay LFF Cabled, and 4 Bay LFF Hot-swap. The Dell R330 is a "pizza box" style chassis.

2 Bay LFF Cabled

The 2 Bay LFF cabled chassis for the PowerEdge R230 accepts up to two 3.5" SAS/SATA drives. 2.5" hard drives or solid state drives can be installed via a 2.5" to 3.5" drive adapter. There is no hot-swap version of this chassis, only a cabled version. This means that drives cannot be installed or removed while the system is running. In order to install new drives or remove old drives, you must open up the system and unplug the cable that connects to the drive. Once the cable is unplugged, then you can take out the drive. The rear of the 2 Bay LFF cabled chassis includes a serial connector, a VGA port, a removable vFlash card slot, a removable iDRAC LAN port, two 1GbE RJ45 Ethernet ports, two Type A USB 3.0 ports, one low-profile x8 PCIe 3.0 slot, one full-height x16 full-height PCIe 3.0 slot, and one cabled power supply unit.

4 Bay LFF Cabled & 4 Bay LFF Hot-swap

There are two versions of the R230's 4 Bay LFF chassis: 4 Bay LFF Cabled and 4 Bay LFF Hot-swap. Both chassis are exactly the same, other than how the drives connect to the backplane. The 4 Bay LFF Cabled chassis has cables that plug in directly to each drive. The system must be opened up in order to install or remove drives. For the 4 Bay LFF chassis, drive plug in directly to the backplane, and do not require a cable. You do not need to open the system to install hot-swap drives. For hot-swap drives, you can also add or remove drives while the system is powered on. You cannot do this with a cabled drive system. Both chassis support up to four 3.5" SAS/SATA drives. 2.5" hard drives or solid state drives can be installed via a 2.5" to 3.5" drive converter. Other than the storage layout, the 4 Bay LFF Cabled and Hot-swap chassis are identical to the 2 Bay LFF Cabled chassis. The rear of both of these chassis includes a serial connector, a VGA port, a removable vFlash card slot, a removable iDRAC LAN port, two 1GbE RJ45 Ethernet ports, two type A USB 3.0 ports, one low-profile x8 PCIe 3.0 slot, one full-height x16 PCIe 3.0 slot, and one cabled power supply unit.

The Dell PowerEdge R230 server has a single LGA1151 socket and supports Intel Xeon E3-1200 v5 and E3-1200 v6 series processors. Intel Core i3 6100, Celeron G3900, Pentium G4500, and Pentium G4600 series processors are also supported. A maximum of 4 CPU cores is supported.

DIMM slots & Memory Channels

The Dell PowerEdge R230 is a DDR4 based machine with four total DIMM slots. There are two memory channels, that each consist of two DIMM slots.

Supported Memory Types

ECC Unbuffered (ECC UDIMMs) are the only type of memory that is supported by the R230. Installing unsupported memory types can lead to many issues, such as boot failure.

Supported Memory Capacities

Module capacities of 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB are accepted by the R230 server. It is important to note, that only two 32GB modules can be installed. You are not able to fill up all four DIMM slots using 32GB modules.

Max Configurations

A maximum RAM configuration of 64GB can be achieved via 4 x 16GB or 2 x 32GB modules. 64GB is the highest possible capacity that can be reached for the PowerEdge R230 server.

Supported Memory Speeds

The PowerEdge R230 server supports module speeds of 2133MT/s and 2400MT/s. The fastest speed that the installed modules can run at will be determined by the processor that is installed. If you have a E3-1200 v5 series processor installed, a maximum speed of 2133MT/s is supported. If a E3-1200 v6 processor is installed, then there is a maximum speed of 2400MT/s. If you installed a module with a speed that is higher than the maximum supported speed, that module will clock down to the max speed. For example, if your system has a max speed of 2133MT/s, and you install a 2400MT/s module, the module will clock down to 2133MT/s.

Supported Drives

Power Supplies Overview

There is only one power supply option for the PowerEdge R230 server: 250W cabled. There is no hot-swap version, which means that the installation/removal processor is a lot more involved and requires you to open up the chassis. There is also only support for one power supply unit, meaning there is no redundancy like there is in other 13th generation servers.

The Dell PowerEdge R230 server does not accept Mini Monolithic PERC RAID Controllers. Only PCIe RAID controllers can be installed into the Dell R230. Unlike the PowerEdge R330, there is no dedicated PCIe slot for the RAID controller, so you must use one of the PCIe slots on the riser.

The Dell PowerEdge R230 server has two 1GbE RJ45 LAN ports built into the motherboard. The R230 does not have a Daughter Card slot. If you want 10GbE speeds, additional network ports, and/or fiber connectivity (SFP+), you must install a PCIe network card into one of the R230's PCIe slots.