Dell PowerEdge R650 Server

The Dell PowerEdge R650 is a powerful 1U server in Dell’s 15th generation of servers. The PowerEdge R650 builds upon the 14th generation’s R640. The main differences between each R650 chassis are in the bay counts, chassis rear, and PCIe slots.

Bay Counts

The PowerEdge R650 has four total options when it comes to bay counts and form factors. These options are 4 Bay LFF, 8 Bay SFF SAS/SATA, 8 Bay SFF NVMe, and 10 Bay SFF SAS/SATA or NVMe. The 4 Bay LFF, accepts four 3.5” drives in the front. The 8 Bay SFF SAS/SATA chassis accepts eight 2.5” SAS and/or SATA drives. The backplane for this chassis does not support NVMe drives. The 8 Bay SFF NVMe chassis accepts a total of eight 2.5” NVMe drives in the front. Lastly, the 10 Bay SFF SAS/SATA or NVMe chassis accepts a total of ten SAS, SATA, and/or NVMe drives in the front.

Chassis Rear

For the rear of the R650, all of the ports are the same for all options. The differences have to do with whether the system has rear drive bays, the length and number of PCIe brackets, and whether it has a hot-swap BOSS card. The first possible configuration has three low profile PCIe and a hot-plug BOSS card. The second configuration has two 2.5” rear drive bays, one low profile PCIe, and a hot-plug BOSS card. The last possible rear configuration for the R650 has no rear drive bays, no hot-plug BOSS card, and two full-height PCIe.

PCIe Slots

The PowerEdge R650’s PCIe slot configuration depends on the system’s rear configuration. For the first rear configuration, there is a total of three low-profile Gen 4 PCIe slots. For the second rear configuration, there is one PCIe Gen 4 slot. For the last rear configuration, there is two full-height PCIe Gen 4 slots.

The Dell PowerEdge R650 Server has two CPU sockets which accepts 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors. A maximum of 40 cores per processor can be achieved, meaning that the R650 supports 80 total cores! This makes this server an excellent choice for virtualization applications.

The Dell PowerEdge R650 server has a great range of different potential storage options. The chassis and form factor of your server will determine whether you can use 2.5” or 3.5” drives. There are chassis options for four 3.5” drives, eight 2.5” drives, and ten 2.5” drives. There are also chassis that allow you to add in two 2.5” drives into the rear of the system. The R650 can accept HDDs, SSDs, M.2, and uSDs drives. The supported drive interfaces are: SATA, SAS, and NVMe.

Supported Drives

NVMe is in extreme demand in enterprise environments, and it’s for good reason. NVMe drives outperform most mechanical hard drives and non-NVMe drives. NVMe drives are super-fast which makes them optimal in certain environments. In the past, we have tested systems on three types of NVMe solutions, which are: U.2, PCIe, and M.2.

U.2 NVMe and Backplane NVMe

With some of the older systems we’ve tested, we have been able to install a U.2 NVMe enablement kit, which allowed a portion of the system’s backplane to accept NVMe drives. If you have an 8 bay chassis with an NVMe capable backplane, or a 10 bay chassis, then you’re in luck. With these chassis, you don’t even need an NVMe enablement kit, as the backplane has NVMe support out of the box. If these systems have rear drive bays, then you can install NVMe drives as well. For the 10 bay chassis, CPU 2 will control the first four drive bays and CPU 1 will control the last six drive bays as well as any drive bays in the rear. One thing to note is that installing ten NVMe drives into all ten drive bays will limit your I/O availability since one I/O slot will be in use so it can enable the last two NVMe drives. The 4 Bay LFF chassis does not have an NVMe capable backplane, but if you have a rear drive kit, then you can install two 2.5” NVMe drives into the back of your server.

M.2 NVMe

A maximum of two M.2 NVMe drives can be installed into the Dell PowerEdge R650 with a Dell BOSS-S2 controller card. The R650 has the ability to use the Dell BOSS-S1 adapter as well. One advantage that the BOSS-S2 card has over the BOSS-S1 is that the BOSS-S2 allows you to hot swap M.2 drives. This is super convenient in the event that there is a drive failure. Both the BOSS-S1 and BOSS-S2 support hardware RAID.

How Many Power Supplies does the R650 Take?

The Dell PowerEdge R650 server can hold up to two hot-swap power supplies. The units being hot swap means that you can remove or add a power supply while the server is powered on. To this, one power supply must remain within the system. The location of the PSU slots differ from the R640 as there is one on each side of the server. The power supply bays are spread apart instead of being adjacent to eachother. Dell designed the server like this, to enhance the cooling capabilities of the server and improve the airflow.

Wattage Options

There is a total of three wattage options for the PowerEdge R650 server. These options are 800W, 1100W, and 1400W. Each of these are awesome options, but for more power intensive applications, stick with either 1100W and 1400W options. And for servers that can’t afford to have down time, utilize two units, so if one fails, the other can keep the system up and running, until the failed unit is replaced.

Voltage

For voltages, power supply voltage options, 800W, 1100W, and 1400W all have mixed mode options. This allows the power supply to support an overall greater voltage range. Mixed mode power supplies allow for a voltage range of 100W-240W. With a mixed mode power supply, you can use both 110V and 220V connections. Once thing to note, that when using either a 1100W or 1400W mixed mode power supply, operating on a voltage of 100V-120V, the wattage will decrease to 1050W. There is also a 1100W DC -48V-60V power supply option.

The Dell PowerEdge R650 has many different choices to choose from in terms of network cards. Unlike the R640, the R650 does not support Dell daughter cards anymore. Dell has moved to a new standard called “OCP”.