Dell PowerEdge hard drives: what Dell's tables list for the R740, R750 and R760xs

Dell PowerEdge hard drives by generation: what Dell's own tables list

Which disk goes in which bay is answered by Dell model by model, in a technical guide or a spec sheet, and the answers are not the same from one generation to the next. Three of those documents give the figures on this page: the R740 and R740xd Technical Guide, the R750 Technical Guide and the R760xs spec sheet.

These are Dell's lists of the drives it offered for each machine when the document was written. We make no claim either way about a drive a list leaves out, and the dates matter: Dell's R740 guide is Rev. A09 of December 2021, so its table is as of that guide.

The R740 row is the one that catches people out. Its SATA side reaches 16TB, but its SAS side stops at 10TB, so on Dell's list a 12TB, 14TB or 16TB 3.5-inch drive for that server exists only as SATA. The guide's specification table gives the eight-bay 3.5-inch configuration a 128TB maximum for SAS/SATA hard drives, which is 16TB a bay by our arithmetic, the top SATA size on the list. The per-bay figure is ours, not a number printed in the guide.

On the R750 the gap closes. Its table takes SATA and SAS alike at 2, 4, 8, 12, 16 and 18TB, and its internal configurations include 12 x 3.5-inch SAS/SATA bays, also offered with two rear 2.5-inch bays for SAS/SATA or NVMe. An owner moving from an R740 to an R750 can stay on SAS at 12TB, 16TB and 18TB, sizes the R740 list offers only as SATA (12TB and 16TB) or not at all (18TB).

The R760xs sheet is written differently. It gives up to 12 x 3.5-inch SAS/SATA bays, for hard drives or SSDs, with a 240TB maximum. Divided by 12, that is 20TB a bay, but that is our arithmetic on a total: the sheet prints no per-drive limit, and we have not found a Dell document with a per-drive list for the R760xs.

R740 or R740xd: count the bays first

Dell's one guide covers two chassis. The R740 takes up to 8 x 3.5-inch or 16 x 2.5-inch front drives; the R740xd takes up to 12 x 3.5-inch or 24 x 2.5-inch, and adds rear options of 4 x 2.5-inch or 2 x 3.5-inch and a 4 x 3.5-inch mid-bay. The drive table above applies to both, and the R740's front backplanes and controller cards are set out on PowerEdge R740 drives.

Dell server hard drives: 3.5-inch SAS on Amazon.co.uk

This table holds 3.5-inch enterprise SAS drives sold under the drive maker's own name, not Dell-labelled kits, ranked by price per terabyte. The table shows 8 listings, chosen from 40 listings in stock. Lowest £/TB at the last check: £30.00/TB. Every price is pounds sterling inc VAT on Amazon.co.uk.

The table has no capacity cap. It shows whatever sizes are listed on Amazon.co.uk, including drives above the 10TB SAS line in the R740 table and above the 18TB line in the R750 table. A row above your model's line is not on Dell's list for that machine, and we have not found a document that states how the server treats it. New and used drives sit together, so read the Condition column on every row before the price.

3.5-inch SATA drives for PowerEdge bays

SATA is the side of the R740 table that reaches 16TB, so an R740 owner who wants more than 10TB in a bay and wants to stay on Dell's list is looking here. On the R750, SATA and SAS share the same 18TB top size. The table shows 8 listings right now. Lowest £/TB at the last check: £20.49/TB.

Again the rows run beyond Dell's printed sizes, up to the largest drives listed. Use the capacity column against your model's line, and the interface column against the bay. Whether SAS and SATA drives can share one controller or one array is a separate question; SAS vs SATA covers the interfaces themselves.

2.5-inch drives for small-form-factor PowerEdge bays

Machines built with 2.5-inch front bays need 2.5-inch drives, and the R740 and R740xd table lists four 2.5-inch hard drive lines:

• SAS 12Gb 10K: 300GB, 600GB, 768GB, 1.2TB, 1.8TB and 2.4TB, plus 1.2TB and 2.4TB SED FIPS. The 2.4TB entries are marked P-RTS.
• SAS 12Gb 15K: 300GB, 600GB and 900GB, plus a 900GB SED FIPS.
• SAS 12Gb 7.2K: 1TB and 2TB, plus a 2TB SED FIPS.
• SATA 6Gb 7.2K: 1TB and 2TB.

So capacity and spindle speed go together on Dell's 2.5-inch list: the largest SAS drive is 2.4TB at 10K, while 15K stops at 900GB. Check the speed on the maker's sheet for any row you pick from the table below, then hold its capacity against the matching line.

Dell PowerEdge hard drive replacement: four checks

• Model and chassis. R740 or R740xd, R750 or R760xs, and whether the front bays are 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch.
• Interface. SAS or SATA, as your model's table lists it. On an R740 above 10TB in a 3.5-inch bay, Dell's table offers SATA only.
• Capacity. Hold it against the guide for your model, and remember the guide's date: a list written in December 2021 shows what Dell offered then.
• Controller and carrier. Confirm which controller card your server carries. We have not found a Dell document on drive carriers, so confirm what the bay needs before you order a bare drive.

No row on this page is a Dell part. As far as our sources go, fit is physical: form factor and interface, set against the sizes Dell lists. Whether Dell supports a drive sold under the maker's own name is a separate question, and we have not found a Dell document that answers it. If support terms matter to you, ask Dell before you rely on a maker-branded replacement.

Planning a fresh array rather than swapping one disk? The calculator below shows what a RAID level leaves usable for a given number of bays and drive size, which is useful when an eight-bay R740 is choosing between 10TB SAS and 16TB SATA, or a twelve-bay R750 between sizes up to 18TB.