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Table of contents 1 System overview ................................................................................................................................................................. 6 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................ 6 New technologies ...............................................................................................................
Appendix B. Standards compliance ............................................................................................................................. 56 Appendix C. Additional resources................................................................................................................................. 57 Table 1. Table 2. Table 3. Table 4. Table 5. Table 6. Table 7. Table 8. Table 9. Table 10. Table 11. Table 12. Table 13. Table 14. Table 15. Table 16. Table 17. Table 18. Table 19.
Figure 13. Figure 14. Figure 15. Figure 16. Figure 17. Figure 18. 750W power supply unit (R720) ...................................................................................................................... 36 Sliding rails with optional CMA ........................................................................................................................ 39 Static rails ............................................................................................................................
The Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 and R720xd are Dell’s latest 2-socket, 2U rack servers that are designed to run complex workloads using highly scalable memory, I/O capacity, and flexible network options. Both systems feature the Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 product family, up to 24 DIMMS, PCI Express® (PCIe) 3.0 enabled expansion slots, and a choice of NIC technologies. The PowerEdge R720 is a general-purpose platform with highly expandable memory (up to 768GB) and impressive I/O capabilities to match.
simplify the lifecycle of deploying, updating, monitoring, and maintaining your Dell PowerEdge servers. New technologies featured on the PowerEdge R720 and R720xd systems are detailed in Table 1. New technologies Detailed descriptions Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family This new family of Intel processors has embedded PCIe lanes for improved I/O performance. See the Processors section for details.
Compared to the previous generation of Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers, the R720 and R720xd have more drive bay options, more PCIe slots, a larger memory footprint, flexible I/O, Express Flash PCIe solid-state drives (available Q2 2012), advanced system management, and hot-plug redundant cooling. The R720 also supports optional dual internal RAID controllers and up to four optional internal GPUs. Table 2 lists the technical specifications for the PowerEdge R720 and R720xd systems.
Feature Specification Integrated NIC Select Network Adapter options: ® Broadcom Quad Port 1GbE BASE-T (no TOE or iSCSI offload) Intel Quad Port 1GbE BASE-T (no TOE or iSCSI offload) Intel Dual Port 10GbE BASE-T with 2 x 1GbE (FCoE capability enabled on the 10GbE ports) Broadcom Dual Port 10GbE SFP+ with 2 x 1GbE (TOE and iSCSI offload available on 10GbE ports) Power supply Auto-ranging, Platinum efficiency 495W, 750W, 1100W AC or 2 Gold efficiency 1100W DC Availability High-efficiency, hot-plug, redu
The PowerEdge R720 and R720xd are replacements for the predecessor R710 system, three systems which are compared in Table 3. For the latest information on supported features, visit Dell.com.
The Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 and R720xd implement a new chassis design which supports an increased number of DIMMs, PCIe slots, and hard drives, relative to their predecessor servers. The following sections provide external and internal views of the systems and describe the chassis features. For information on features and descriptions for these systems, see the Dell PowerEdge R720 and R720xd Owner's Manual on Support.Dell.com/Manuals.
The R720xd supports up to twenty-four 2.5” or up to twelve 3.5” front-accessible, hot-plug hard drives that are secured by a removable front bezel. Other front-panel features include an LED control panel, a USB connector, and a video connector. The R720 back panel includes features such as redundant hot-plug power supply units (PSUs), four Ethernet connectors, PCI expansion slots, and many other features that are described in the rest of this guide.
In addition to the R720 back-panel features, the R720xd also includes two optional 2.5-inch hot-plug drives in the back of the system. The chassis design of the R720 and R720xd is optimized for easy access to components and for airflow for effective and efficient cooling. The R720 and R720xd support up to 24 DIMMs, 2 processors, hot-plug redundant fans, and many other components and features that are described in this guide.
For additional system views, see the Dell PowerEdge R720 and R720xd Systems Owner’s Manual on Support.Dell.com/Manuals. Table 4 lists the chassis features for the R720 and R720xd systems. For additional information on these features, see the Dell PowerEdge R720 and R720xd Systems Owner’s Manual on Support.Dell.com/Manuals.
Feature Description Optical drive (optional) The R720 supports one optional slimline SATA DVD-ROM drive or DVD+/-RW drive; R720xd does not support an internal optical drive System identification panel Serial connector iDRAC7 Enterprise port Security cable slot Slide-out label panel for system information Connects a serial device to the system and for console redirect Dedicated management port for optional iDRAC7 Enterprise Connects cable lock to system PCIe expansion card slots The R720 supports up t
A useful feature included with Dell™ PowerEdge 12th generation servers is the Quick Resource Locator (QRL)—a model-specific Quick Response (QR) code that is located on the server (shown in Figure 11). Just use your phone to access the Dell QRL application to learn more about the server.
Security feature Description TPM The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is used to generate/store keys, protect/authenticate passwords, and create/store digital certificates. It also supports the Intel Xeon TXT functionality. TPM can also be used to enable the ® BitLocker™ hard drive encryption feature in Windows Server 2008. TPM 1.2 is supported. No TPM version is available for China or Russia. Power-off security BIOS has the ability to disable the power button function.
The Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 and R720xd feature the Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 product family, offering an ideal combination of performance, power efficiency, and cost. These processors provide high performance no matter what your constraint is—floor space, power, or budget—and on workloads that range from the most complicated scientific exploration to crucial web-serving and infrastructure applications.
The R720 and R720xd support up to two processors with up to eight cores per processor. Table 6 lists the Intel Xeon processors supported by the PowerEdge R720 and R720xd. For the latest information on supported processors, visit Dell.com. Model Speed Cache QPI Cores Turbo TDP E5-2690 1 2.9GHz 20M 8.0 GT/s 8 Yes 135W E5-2680 2.7GHz 20M 8.0 GT/s 8 Yes 130W E5-2670 2.6GHz 20M 8.0 GT/s 8 Yes 115W E5-2667 2.9GHz 15M 8.0 GT/s 6 Yes 130W E5-2665 2.4GHz 20M 8.
The R720 can connect to the PowerEdge C410x through a host interface card (HIC) and an iPass cable. Both the NVIDIA® and Dell x16 HIC require one x16 PCIe slot. Each HIC can support up to four GPUs. The R720 can support up to four GPUs maximum. For a list of supported GPU HICs, see Table 18. Some operating systems have not been validated to support GPUs. See Table 24 and Table 25 for more information on operating system support of GPUs.
More memory options are available than ever before with the Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 and R720xd—greater capacities, higher frequencies, and more flexibility. The R720 and R720xd support up to 768GB of memory (24 DIMMs) and speeds up to 1600 MT/s, providing high performance in a variety of applications. High memory density means there is no compromise when it comes to virtualization. Increase your uptime and reduce data loss, due to Dell’s focus on reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features.
Table 8 lists the DIMMs supported on the R720 and R720xd. For the latest information on supported memory, visit Dell.com. Only Capacity (GB) Speed (MT/s) Type Ranks per DIMM Data width SDDC support Voltage 2 1333 RDIMM 1 x8 Advanced ECC 1.35 2 1333 UDIMM 1 x8 Advanced ECC 1.35 2 1600 RDIMM 1 x8 Advanced ECC 1.5 4 1333 RDIMM 2 x8 Advanced ECC 1.35 4 1333 RDIMM 1 x4 All modes 1.35 4 1333 UDIMM 2 x8 Advanced ECC 1.35 4 1600 RDIMM 2 x8 Advanced ECC 1.
Memory speeds of 1600 MT/s, 1333 MT/s, 1066 MT/s, and 800 MT/s are supported on the R720 and R720xd, depending on the DIMM types installed and the configuration. All memory on all processors and channels run at the same speed and voltage. By default, the systems run at the highest speed for the channel with the lowest DIMM voltage and speed.
Reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features help keep the system online and operational without significant impact to performance, and can decrease data loss and crashing due to errors. RAS aids in rapid, accurate diagnosis of faults which require service. Table 10 describes the memory RAS features supported on the R720 and R720xd.
The Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 and R720xd provide storage expandability that allows you to adapt to your workload and operational demands. With comprehensive storage options, the R720 and R720xd offer various drive types, internal and external storage controllers, and different chassis and backplanes for varied numbers of drives.
Table 12 lists the internal hard drives supported by the R720 and R720xd. For the latest information on supported hard drives, visit Dell.com. Form factor 3.5” 2.5” Type Speed (rpm) Capacities SATA (3Gb) 7.2K 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB Nearline SAS (6Gb) 7.2K 1TB, 2TB, 3TB SAS (6Gb) 15K 300GB, 600GB SATA (3Gb) 7.2K 250GB, 500GB, 1TB Nearline SAS (6Gb) 7.
Table 13 lists the types of external storage devices supported by the R720 and R720xd.
Table 14 lists the RAID controllers supported on the R720 and R720xd.
The PowerEdge R720 supports one of the following internal optical drive options: DVD-ROM DVD+RW The R720xd does not support an internal optical drive. The R720 supports the Dell PowerVault™ RD1000 internal backup device on the 2.5-inch chassis only. Internal tape drives are not supported on the R720, and the R720xd does not support any internal backup device.
The Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 and R720xd offer balanced, scalable I/O capabilities, including integrated PCIe 3.0-capable expansion slots. Dell Select Network Adapters, Dell’s network daughter cards, let you choose the right network fabric without using up a valuable PCI slot. Pick the speed, technology, vendor, and other options, such as switch independent partitioning, which lets you share and manage bandwidth on 10GbE connections.
Table 15 lists the available Select Network Adapter options and supported features for the R720 and R720xd.
PXE boot enabled on all LOM and NDCs for ease of use Boot from SAN (iSCSI, FCoE) configuration for networking devices through the USC For information on card installation, requirements, and slot priorities, see the PowerEdge R720 and R720xd Systems Owner’s Manual on Support.Dell.com/Manuals. The R720 and R720xd provide greatly expanded PCIe slot capability over their predecessor servers. This is made possible by the 40 PCIe lanes available from each processor in the system.
Type Adapter ® Emulex LPe12000 (8Gb) Emulex LPe12002 (8Gb) Brocade BR815 (8Gb) Brocade BR825 (8Gb) In addition to the NICs and HBAs listed in Table 17, the supported PCIe expansion cards for the R720 and R720xd are listed in Table 18.
Lower overall system-level power draw is a result of Dell’s breakthrough system design. PowerEdge servers maximize performance per watt through a combination of power and cooling, energy efficient technologies, and tools. Additionally, PowerEdge servers have an extensive collection of sensors that automatically track thermal activity, which helps regulate temperature thereby reducing server noise and power consumption.
Feature Description Intel Node Manager is an embedded technology that provides individual server-level power reporting and power limiting functionality. Dell offers a complete power management solution comprised of Intel Node Manager accessed through Dell iDRAC Enterprise and OpenManage Power Center that allows policy-based management of power and thermals at the individual server, rack, and data center level. Active power management Hot spare reduces power consumption of redundant power supplies.
Figure 13 shows a 750W power supply unit extended from an R720 system. The PowerEdge R720 and R720xd support up to two AC or DC power supplies with 1 + 1 redundancy, auto sensing, and auto-switching capability. Dell PSUs have achieved Platinum efficiency levels as shown in Table 20. Form factor Redundant 86mm Output Efficiency targets by load Class 10% 20% 50% 100% 495W Platinum 82.0% 90.0% 94.0% 91.0% 750W Platinum 82.0% 90.0% 94.0% 91.0% Platinum+ 89.0% 93.0% 94.5% 92.
Comprehensive thermal management: The thermal control system regulates the fan speed based on several different responses from all system-component temperature sensors, as well as inventory for system configurations. Temperature monitoring includes components such as processors, DIMMs, chipset, the inlet air ambient, hard disk drives, NDC, and GPU.
> > > > > The quantity and type of PCIe cards installed: This affects overall system acoustics. Installation of more than two PCIe cards results in an increase in overall system acoustics. Utilization of a GPU card: This results in an increase in overall system acoustics. PCIe controller-based SSD drives: Drives such as Express flash drives and Fusion-io® cards require greater airflow for cooling, and result in significantly higher noise levels.
The rack rail systems for the Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 and R720xd provide toolless support for 4-post racks with square or unthreaded round mounting holes, including all generations of Dell racks. Compared to the predecessor R710 sliding rails that required the use of adapter brackets, the sliding rails for the R720 and R720xd now offer native support for threaded-hole racks with the new ReadyRails™ II mounting interface.
The static rails (shown in Figure 15) support a wider variety of racks than the sliding rails, but do not support serviceability in the rack and are not compatible with the CMA. One key factor in selecting the proper rails is identifying the type of rack in which they will be installed. Both the sliding rails and the static rails support toolless mounting in 19”-wide, EIA-310-E compliant square hole and unthreaded round-hole 4-post racks.
The optional cable management arm (CMA) for the R720 and R720xd organizes and secures the cords and cables exiting the back of the server and unfolds to allow the server to extend out of the rack without having to detach the cables.
The Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 and R720xd support a wide range of industry-standard operating systems and virtualization software. Table 24 lists the primary operating systems supported on the R720 and R720xd. For the latest information on supported operating systems, see Dell.com/OSsupport. Operating System Platform Edition Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 x32 x64 N/A Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
Support of the operating systems listed in Table 25 is limited to a virtual environment as a guest operating system. Please contact the software vendor for additional support or questions about running the operating system in a virtualized environment.
Whether your IT environment consists of a few servers or a few thousand servers, Dell™ OpenManage™ systems management solutions provide comprehensive management for evolving IT environments. OpenManage is based on open standards and provides agent-based and agent-free server lifecycle management functionality for Dell PowerEdge™ servers. OpenManage solutions help you automate and streamline essential hardware management tasks.
The Dell OpenManage™ systems management portfolio includes powerful hardware and software management tools and consoles. OpenManage simplifies the lifecycle of deploying, updating, monitoring, and maintaining your Dell PowerEdge servers. The Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller 7 (iDRAC7) with Lifecycle Controller is the heart of the second generation of Dell PowerEdge server embedded management functionality.
iDRAC7 Enterprise is available for the PowerEdge R720 and R720xd, and Dell also offers an option of iDRAC7 Express. A detailed feature comparison for iDRAC7 Enterprise and iDRAC7 Express is shown in Table 28. iDRAC7 Enterprise iDRAC7 Express Local configuration with USC ∞ ∞ IPMI 2.
iDRAC7 Enterprise Feature (function) Virtual flash partitions ∞ Virtual media ∞ Virtual folders ∞ Remote file share ∞ Crash video playback ∞ Boot record/playback ∞ Power capping ∞ Enterprise group power management ∞ Directory services (AD, LDAP) ∞ PK authentication ∞ Two-factor authentication 1 2 iDRAC7 Express ∞ 2 ® ® ® Requires OMSA agent on target server; Uses Microsoft ActiveX on Internet Explorer only Most systems management solutions require pieces of software, called agen
Dell servers; and to create asset reports. OpenManage Essentials also communicates health status alerts for Dell servers, storage, and network devices to the Dell KACE™ K1000 service desk. OpenManage Essentials is available as a no-charge software download from Support.Dell.com. Dell Management Console—Dell Management Console (DMC) offers sophisticated data-center management capabilities with comprehensive reporting features.
Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration (DLCI) for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM)—This pack contains Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration (DLCI), which integrates OpenManage functions in SCCM to manage the Dell PowerEdge servers, including auto-discovery, operating system deployment and configuration of hardware elements, (RAID, NIC, BIOS, iDRAC), OS and hypervisor agnostic updates, firmware management, and system viewer utilities.
Table 29 lists the products that are available for one-to-one and one-to-many operations, and when they are used in the server’s lifecycle: Operation One-to-one Lifecycle Controller GUI DTK SBUU Symantec Deployment Server Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter KACE K1000 Appliance Lifecycle Controller Remote Services BMC BladeLogic integration with Lifecycle Controller Dell Server Deployment Pack (DSDP) for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and Dell Lifecycle Controller
Operation One-to-one One-to-many iDRAC7 OMSA Dell OpenManage Essentials Dell OpenManage ITA BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Dell OpenManage Power Center Dell Management Console Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter BMC ProactiveNet Dell Server Management Pack Suite for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) IPMI iDRAC7 Lifecycle Controller GUI Lifecycle Controller Remote Services Remediate: Dell Server PRO Management Pack for Microsoft System Cen
Figure 18 details the dimensions of the Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 and R720xd chassis. Xa 482.4mm Xb 444.0mm Y 87.3mm Za (with bezel) Za (without bezel) 32.0mm 18.0mm Zb Zc 684.0mm 723.0mm Table 30 lists the weight of the R720 and R720xd chassis at maximum configuration as well as empty of any hardware. Configuration 52 R720 (2.5” chassis) R720 (3.5” chassis) R720xd (2.5” chassis) R720xd (3.5” chassis) 29.5kg (64.9lbs) 29.2kg (64.3lbs) 29.5kg (64.9lbs) 32.5kg (71.5lbs) 11.7kg (25.
Table 31 lists power supply specifications for the PowerEdge R720 and R720xd. Specification Current consumption Supply voltage Frequency Heat dissipation (BTU/hr max.) 1100W DC 1100W AC 750W AC 495W AC 32A (X2) 12A–6.5A 10A–5A 6.5A–3A -48V to -60V de CC 100–240VAC -48V to -60V de CC 50/60Hz 50/60Hz 50/60Hz 4416 4100 2891 1908 1 100–240VAC 1 100–240VAC 1 1 Auto-ranging Table 32 details the environmental specifications for the R720 and R720xd.
Temperature and humidity For the PowerEdge R720, a maximum 130W processor is supported in either the 8 hard drive or 16 hard drive chassis. The following additional restrictions apply to PowerEdge R720xd: Maximum 95W processor is supported on 3.5-inch hard drive chassis Maximum 115 W processor is supported on 2.5-inch hard drive chassis Only SSDs are allowed in the hard drive slots at the back of the 3.5-inch hard drive chassis.
The rack rail adjustability ranges are listed in Table 34. Server R720/R720xd Rail identifier Rail type Rail adjustability range (mm) Square Round Rail depth (mm) Threaded Min Max Min Max Min Max without CMA with CMA B6 Sliding 676 868 662 861 676 883 714 845 B4 Static 608 879 594 872 604 890 622 — The adjustment range of the rails is a function of the type of rack in which they are being mounted.
The R720 and R720xd systems conform to the industry standards in Table 35. Standard URL for information and specifications ACPI Advance Configuration and Power Interface Specification, v2.0c http://www.acpi.info/ Ethernet IEEE 802.3-2005 http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/802.3.html HDG Hardware Design Guide Version 3.0 for Microsoft Windows Server http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/pcdesign/ desguide/serverdg.mspx IPMI Intelligent Platform Management Interface, v2.0 http://www.intel.
Table 36 provides a list of documents and websites that provide for more information on the Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 and R720xd. Resource Description of contents Location PowerEdge R720 and R720xd Systems Owner’s Manual This manual is provided in HTML format on the CD provided with the R720 or R720xd systems, and also in HTML and PDF format at the Dell support site. A printed version is available in Asian languages as a customerorderable option.
Resource Description of contents Location Dell Energy Smart Data Center Assessment uses infrastructure and thermal analysis to help maximize system efficiency Dell.com/EnergySmart Energy Smart Solution Advisor (ESSA) The Dell online advisor console enables easier and more meaningful estimates to help you determine the most efficient configuration possible. With Dell’s, you can calculate the power consumption of your hardware, power infrastructure, and storage. Dell.
