Dell EMC PowerFlex Appliance User manual

Dell EMC PowerFlex Appliance and VxFlex
Ready Node R640
Owner's Guide
June 2020
Rev. 4.0

Notes, cautions, and warnings
NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your product.
CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid the
problem.
WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death.
© 2019 - 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell, EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other
trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Chapter 1: PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview................................... 5
Front view of the R640 system...........................................................................................................................................5
Control panels...................................................................................................................................................................7
LCD panel..........................................................................................................................................................................8
Back view of the R640 system.......................................................................................................................................... 10
Locating the Service Tag of your system..........................................................................................................................11
System information tag....................................................................................................................................................... 12
Front system information.............................................................................................................................................. 12
Front system information label..................................................................................................................................... 13
Chapter 2: Technical specifications.................................................................................................15
System dimensions.............................................................................................................................................................. 15
Chassis weight......................................................................................................................................................................16
Processor specifications......................................................................................................................................................16
Cooling fan specifications................................................................................................................................................... 16
PSU specifications............................................................................................................................................................... 16
Hot spare feature........................................................................................................................................................... 17
System battery specifications.............................................................................................................................................17
Expansion card riser specifications.................................................................................................................................... 17
Expansion card installation guidelines.......................................................................................................................... 17
System memory....................................................................................................................................................................17
Memory specifications...................................................................................................................................................19
General memory module installation guidelines.......................................................................................................... 19
NVDIMM-N memory module installation guidelines .................................................................................................20
Optimizer mode............................................................................................................................................................. 20
Storage controller specifications........................................................................................................................................21
Drive specifications.............................................................................................................................................................. 21
Ports and connector specifications................................................................................................................................... 21
USB ports........................................................................................................................................................................21
NIC ports......................................................................................................................................................................... 21
VGA ports....................................................................................................................................................................... 22
Serial port........................................................................................................................................................................22
Video specifications.............................................................................................................................................................22
Environmental specifications............................................................................................................................................. 22
Standard operating temperature.................................................................................................................................23
Expanded operating temperature................................................................................................................................24
Particulate and gaseous contamination specifications............................................................................................. 24
Chapter 3: System diagnostics and indicator codes..........................................................................26
Indicator codes ................................................................................................................................................................... 26
Status LED indicators....................................................................................................................................................26
System health and system ID indicator codes...........................................................................................................26
iDRAC Quick Sync 2 indicator codes.......................................................................................................................... 27
iDRAC Direct LED indicator codes...............................................................................................................................27
Contents
Contents 3

NIC indicator codes....................................................................................................................................................... 28
Power supply unit indicator codes...............................................................................................................................28
Drive indicator codes.....................................................................................................................................................30
Using system diagnostics................................................................................................................................................... 30
Dell Embedded System Diagnostics............................................................................................................................30
Chapter 4: Reference material........................................................................................................32
Trusted Platform Module................................................................................................................................................... 32
Upgrading the Trusted Platform Module....................................................................................................................32
Initialize the TPM for BitLocker users.........................................................................................................................32
Initialize the TPM 1.2 for TXT users............................................................................................................................ 32
Chapter 5: Getting help................................................................................................................. 34
Contacting Dell EMC...........................................................................................................................................................34
Secure Remote Services.................................................................................................................................................... 34
Recycling or End-of-Life service information.................................................................................................................. 34
4 Contents

PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node
R640 system overview
The PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system is a 1U rack server that supports a maximum of:
• All
○Two Intel Xeon Scalable Processors
○24 DIMM slots
○8 or 10 x 2.5-inch drives or 0 drives for diskless configuration
○Two AC redundant power supply units
○SAS, SATA, SAS SED, and NVMe
• VxFlex Ready Node only
○HDD
○BOSSless configuration
NOTE: All instances of SAS, SATA, SAS SED, and NVMe drives are referred to as drives in this document, unless
specified otherwise.
Front view of the R640 system
The front view displays the features available on the front of the R640 system. There are two available versions for the R640 an 8-drive or
10-drive system.
Front view of 8-drive system
Figure 1. Front view of the 8-drive system
Table 1. Features available on the front of the 8-drive system
Item Ports, panels, and slots Icon Description
1 Left control panel N/A Contains the system health and system ID, status LED, and the
iDRAC Quick Sync 2 (wireless) indicator.
NOTE: The iDRAC Quick Sync 2 indicator is available only
on certain configurations.
• Status LED: Enables you to identify any failed hardware
components. There are up to five status LEDs and an overall
system health LED (Chassis health and system ID) bar. For more
information, see Status LED indicators on page 26.
• Quick Sync 2 (wireless): Indicates a Quick Sync enabled system.
The Quick Sync feature is optional. This feature allows
management of the system by using mobile devices. This feature
aggregates hardware or firmware inventory and various system
level diagnostic and error information that can be used in
1
PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview 5

Table 1. Features available on the front of the 8-drive system (continued)
Item Ports, panels, and slots Icon Description
troubleshooting the system. For more information, see the
Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller User’s Guide at
dell.com/support/.
2 Drive slots N/A Enable you to install drives that are supported on your system. For
more information, see Technical specifications.
3 USB port (Optional) The USB port is USB 3.0 compliant.
4 VGA port Enables you to connect a display device to the system. For more
information, see Technical specifications.
5 Right control panel N/A Contains the power button, USB port, iDRAC Direct micro port, and
the iDRAC Direct status LED.
6 Drive slots N/A Enable you to install drives that are supported on your system. For
more information, see Technical specifications.
Front view of 10-drive system
Figure 2. Front view of 10-drive system
Table 2. Features available on the front of the 10-drive system
Item Ports, panels, and slots Icon Description
1 Left control panel N/A Contains the system health and system ID, status LED, and the
iDRAC Quick Sync 2 (wireless) indicator.
NOTE: The iDRAC Quick Sync 2 indicator is available only
on certain configurations.
• Status LED: Enables you to identify any failed hardware
components. There are up to five status LEDs and an overall
system health LED (Chassis health and system ID) bar. For more
information, see Status LED indicators on page 26.
• Quick Sync 2 (wireless): Indicates a Quick Sync enabled system.
The Quick Sync feature is optional. This feature allows
management of the system by using mobile devices. This feature
aggregates hardware or firmware inventory and various system
level diagnostic and error information that can be used in
troubleshooting the system. For more information, see the
Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller User’s Guide at
dell.com/support/.
2 Drive slots N/A Enable you to install drives that are supported on your system. For
more information, see Technical specifications.
3 VGA port Enables you to connect a display device to the system. For more
information, see Technical specifications.
4 Right control panel N/A Contains the power button, USB port, iDRAC Direct micro port, and
the iDRAC Direct status LED.
6 PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview

Table 2. Features available on the front of the 10-drive system (continued)
Item Ports, panels, and slots Icon Description
5 Service tag N/A The Service Tag is a slide-out label panel that contains system
information such as Service Tag, NIC, MAC address, and so on. If
you have opted for the secure default access to iDRAC, the
Information tag also contains the iDRAC secure default password.
Control panels
This section describes the system's control panels.
Left control panel view
The left control panel with optional iDRAC Quick Sync 2.0 indicator is explained as follows:
Figure 3. Left control panel
Table 3. Left control panel options
Item Indicator or button Icon Description
1 Status LED indicators N/A Indicate the status of the system. For more information, see Status
LED indicators.
2 System health and system
ID indicator
Indicates the system health. For more information, see System
health and system ID indicator codes.
3 iDRAC Quick Sync 2
wireless indicator (optional)
Indicates if the iDRAC Quick Sync 2 wireless option is activated. The
Quick Sync 2 feature allows management of the system using mobile
devices. This feature aggregates hardware/firmware inventory and
various system level diagnostic/error information that can be used in
troubleshooting the system. You can access system inventory, Dell
EMC Lifecycle Controller logs or system logs, system health status,
and also configure iDRAC, BIOS, and networking parameters. You
can also launch the virtual Keyboard, Video, and Mouse (KVM)
viewer and virtual Kernel based Virtual Machine (KVM), on a
supported mobile device. For more information about the feature,
see the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller User's Guide at
www.dell.com/idracmanuals.
NOTE: iDRAC Quick Sync 2 wireless indicator is available
only on certain configurations.
NOTE: For more information about the indicator codes, see System diagnostics and indicator codes.
PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview 7

Right control panel view
The right control panel is explained as follows:
Figure 4. Right control panel
Table 4. Right control panel
Item Indicator or button Icon Description
1 Power button Indicates whether the system is turned on or off. Press the power to
manually turn the system on or off.
2 USB port The USB ports are 4-pin, 2.0-compliant. This port enables you to
connect USB devices to the system.
3 iDRAC Direct LED N/A The iDRAC Direct LED indicator lights up to indicate that the iDRAC
Direct port is actively connected to a device. For more information,
see iDRAC Quick Sync 2 indicator codes on page 27.
4 iDRAC Direct port (Micro-
AB USB)
The iDRAC Direct (Micro-AB USB) port enables you to access the
iDRAC Direct (Micro-AB) features. For more information about the
feature, see the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller User's
Guide at www.dell.com/idracmanuals.
NOTE: For more information on the ports, see Technical specifications.
LCD panel
The LCD panel provides system information, status, and error messages to indicate whether the system is functioning correctly or requires
attention. The LCD panel can also be used to configure or view the system’s iDRAC IP address.
The LCD panel is available only on the optional front bezel. The optional front bezel is hot pluggable.
The statuses and conditions of the LCD panel are outlined here:
• The LCD backlight is white during normal operating conditions.
• When the system needs attention, the LCD backlight turns amber, and displays an error code followed by descriptive text.
NOTE: If the system is connected to a power source and an error is detected, the LCD turns amber regardless of
whether the system is turned on or off.
• When the system turns off and there are no errors, LCD enters the standby mode after five minutes of inactivity. Press any button on
the LCD to turn it on.
• If the LCD panel stops responding, remove the bezel and reinstall it.
If the problem persists, see "Getting help" at the end of this publication.
• The LCD backlight remains off if LCD messaging is turned off using the iDRAC utility, the LCD panel, or other tools.
8PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview

Figure 5. LCD panel
Table 5. LCD panel features
Item Button or
display
Description
1 Left Moves the cursor back in one-step increments.
2 Select Selects the menu item that is highlighted by the cursor.
3 Right Moves the cursor forward in one-step increments.
During message scrolling:
• Press and hold the right button to increase scrolling speed.
• Release the button to stop.
NOTE: The display stops scrolling when the button is released. After 45 seconds of
inactivity, the display starts scrolling.
4 LCD display Displays system information, status, and error messages or iDRAC IP address.
Viewing Home screen
The Home screen displays user-configurable information about the system. This screen is displayed during normal system operation when
there are no status messages or errors. When the system turns off and there are no errors, LCD enters the standby mode after five
minutes of inactivity. Press any button on the LCD to turn it on.
Steps
1. To view the Home screen, press one of the three navigation buttons (Select, Left, or Right).
2. To navigate to the Home screen from another menu, complete the following steps:
a. Press and hold the navigation button till the up arrow is displayed.
b. Navigate to the Home icon using the up arrow .
c. Select the Home icon.
d. On the Home screen, press the Select button to enter the main menu.
Setup menu
The Setup menu contains the following options:
NOTE: When you select an option in the Setup menu, you must confirm the option before proceeding to the next action.
iDRAC Select DHCP or Static IP to configure the network mode. If Static IP is selected, the available fields are IP,
Subnet (Sub), and Gateway (Gtw). Select Setup DNS to enable DNS and to view domain addresses. Two
separate DNS entries are available.
Set error Select SEL to view LCD error messages in a format that matches the IPMI description in the SEL. This enables
you to match an LCD message with an SEL entry.
Select Simple to view LCD error messages in a simplified user-friendly description. For information about the
event and error messages generated by the system firmware and agents that monitor system components, see
the Error Code Lookup page at qrl.dell.com
Set home Select the default information to be displayed on the Home screen. See View menu section for the options and
option items that can be set as the default on the Home screen.
PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview 9

View menu
The View menu contains the following options:
NOTE: When you select an option in the View menu, you must confirm the option before proceeding to the next action.
iDRAC IP Displays the IPv4 or IPv6 addresses for iDRAC9. Addresses include DNS (Primary and Secondary), Gateway,
IP, and Subnet (IPv6 does not have Subnet).
MAC Displays the MAC addresses for iDRAC, iSCSI, or Network devices.
Name Displays the name of the Host, Model, or User String for the system.
Number Displays the Asset tag or the Service tag for the system.
Power Displays the power output of the system in BTU/hr or Watts. The display format can be configured in the Set
home submenu of the Setup menu.
Temperature Displays the temperature of the system in Celsius or Fahrenheit. The display format can be configured in the Set
home submenu of the Setup menu.
Back view of the R640 system
The back view displays the features available on the back of the R640 system.
Figure 6. Back view of system with 3 PCIe expansion slots
Table 6. 2 X 2.5-inch drive system with 3 PCIe expansion slot
Item Ports, panels, or slots Icon Description
1 PCIe expansion card slot(3) N/A The expansion slot(s) enable you to connect PCI Express expansion
cards. For more information on the expansion cards that are
supported on your system, see Expansion card guidelines.
2 Power supply unit (2) N/A For more information about the PSU configurations, see Technical
specifications.
3 NIC port (4) The NIC ports that are integrated on the network daughter card
(NDC) provide network connectivity. For more information about
the supported configurations, see Technical specifications.
4 USB 3.0 port (2) The USB ports are 9-pin and 3.0-compliant. These ports enable you
to connect USB devices to the system.
5 VGA port Enables you to connect a display device to the system. For more
information, see Technical specifications.
6 Serial port Enables you to connect a serial device to the system. For more
information, see Technical specifications.
7 iDRAC9 dedicated network
port
Use the iDRAC9 dedicated network port to securely access the
embedded iDRAC on a separate management network. For more
information about the feature, see the Integrated Dell Remote
Access Controller User's Guide at www.dell.com/idracmanuals.
8 System status indicator
cable port
N/A Enables you to connect the status indicator cable and view system
status when the CMA is installed.
10 PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview

Table 6. 2 X 2.5-inch drive system with 3 PCIe expansion slot (continued)
Item Ports, panels, or slots Icon Description
9 System identification button The System Identification (ID) button is available on the front and
back of the system. Press the system ID button to identify a system
in a rack. You can also use the system ID button to reset iDRAC and
access BIOS using the step through mode.
Locating the Service Tag of your system
You can identify your system using the unique Express Service Code and Service Tag. Pull out the information tag in the front of the
system to view the Express Service Code and Service Tag. Alternatively, the information may be on a sticker on the chassis of the system.
The mini Enterprise Service Tag (EST) is found on the back of the system. This information is used by Dell EMC to route support calls to
the appropriate personnel.
Figure 7. Service Tag
1. Information tag (top view)
2. Information tag (bottom view)
3. OpenManage Mobile (OMM) label (optional)
4. iDRAC MAC address and iDRAC secure password label
NOTE: If you have opted for secure default access to iDRAC, the iDRAC secure default password is available on the
back of the system Information tag. This section of label will be blank, if you have not opted for secure default
access to iDRAC, then the default user name and password are root and Scaleio123, respectively.
5. Service Tag
PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview 11

System information tag
The Information tag is a slide-out label panel that contains system information such as Service Tag, NIC, MAC address, and so on. If you
have opted for the secure default access to iDRAC, the Information tag also contains the iDRAC secure default password.
Front system information
Front system information explains LED behavior and displays drive configuration and layout
Figure 8. LED behavior
Figure 9. Configuration and layout and express Service Tag
NOTE: The PowerFlex Appliance and VxFlex Ready Node only support the 2.5 x 8 and 2.5 x 10 configurations.
12 PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview

Front system information label
The information tag displays information to assist service technicians, including system touchpoints, electrical and mechanical overviews,
and rear view configurations. It also displays jumper settings and memory information.
Figure 10. Service information, electrical overview, network daughter card and miniPERC installation
PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview 13

Figure 11. Memory information, jumper setting and NVDIMM battery removal
14 PowerFlex appliance and VxFlex Ready Node R640 system overview

Technical specifications
The technical and environmental specifications of your system are outlined in this section.
System dimensions
This topic provides details of the R640 system's dimensions:
Figure 12. System dimensions
Table 7. R640 system dimensions
System Xa Xb Y Za (with
bezel)
Za (without
bezel)
Zb*Zc
10 x 2.5-inches 482.0 mm
(18.97-inches)
434.0 mm
(17.08-inches)
42.8 mm
(1.68-inches)
35.84 mm
(1.41-inches)
22.0 mm
(0.87-
inches)
733.82 mm
(29.61-inches)
772.67
mm
(30.42-
inches)
2
Technical specifications 15

Chassis weight
The following table shows the maximum weight of the R640 system chassis:
Table 8. Chassis weight
System Maximum weight (with all drives)
R640 21.9 kg
(48.28 lbs)
Processor specifications
The R640 system supports two Intel Xeon Scalable Processors, up to 28 cores per processor.
Cooling fan specifications
The cooling fans are integrated into the system to dissipate the heat generated by the functioning of the system. These fans provide
cooling for the processors, expansion cards, and memory modules.
Your system supports up to eight standard or high-performance cooling fans.
NOTE:
• High-performance fans can be identified by a blue label on top of the cooling fan.
• Mixing of standard and high-performance cooling fans is not supported.
• Each fan is listed in the systems management software, referenced by the respective fan number. If there is a
problem with a particular fan, you can easily identify and replace the proper fan by noting the fan number on the
system.
PSU specifications
The R640 system supports up to two AC power supply units (PSUs).
Table 9. PSU specifications
PSU Class Heat dissipation
(maximum)
Frequency Voltage
750 W AC Platinum 2891 BTU/hr 50/60 Hz 100–240 V AC, autoranging
750 W AC Titanium 2843 BTU/hr 50/60 Hz 200–240 V AC, autoranging
1100 W AC Platinum 4100 BTU/hr 50/60 Hz 100–240 V AC, autoranging
1600 W AC 6000 BTU/hr 50/60 Hz 100–240 V AC, autoranging
NOTE: If a system with 1100 W AC or HVDC PSU operates from 100 to 120V, the power rating per PSU is derated to 1050
W.
NOTE: If a system with 1600 W PSUs operates from 100 to 120 V, then the power rating per PSU is derated to 800 W.
NOTE: Heat dissipation is calculated using the PSU wattage rating.
NOTE: This system is also designed to connect to the IT power systems with a phase to phase voltage not exceeding
230 V.
NOTE: PSUs rated for 1600 W and higher require high-line voltage (200-240 V) to supply their rated capacity.
16 Technical specifications

Hot spare feature
Your system supports the hot spare feature that significantly reduces the power overhead associated with power supply unit (PSU)
redundancy.
When the hot spare feature is enabled, one of the redundant PSUs is switched to the sleep state. The active PSU supports 100 percent of
the system load, thus operating at higher efficiency. The PSU in the sleep state monitors output voltage of the active PSU. If the output
voltage of the active PSU drops, the PSU in the sleep state returns to an active output state.
If having both PSUs active is more efficient than having one PSU in the sleep state, the active PSU can also activate the sleeping PSU.
The default PSU settings are as follows:
• If the load on the active PSU is more than 50 percent of PSU rated power wattage, then the redundant PSU is switched to the active
state.
• If the load on the active PSU falls below 20 percent of PSU rated power wattage, then the redundant PSU is switched to the sleep
state.
You can configure the hot spare feature by using the iDRAC settings. For more information, see the iDRAC User’s Guide available at .
System battery specifications
The R640 system supports CR 2032 3.0-V lithium coin cell system batteries.
Expansion card riser specifications
The R640 system supports PCI express (PCIe) generation 3 expansion cards that are installed on the system using expansion card risers.
This system supports 1A and 2A expansion card risers.
Expansion card installation guidelines
Depending on your system configuration, the following PCI Express (PCIe) generation 3 expansion cards are supported:
Table 10. Expansion card riser configurations
Expansion card riser PCIe slots on the riser Processor
connection
Height Length Slot
width
Riser 1A Slot 1 Processor 1 Low Profile Half Length x16
Slot 2 Processor 1 Low Profile Half Length x16
Riser 2A Slot 3 Processor 2 Low Profile Half Length x16
NOTE: The expansion card slots are not hot-swappable.
System memory
The system supports DDR4 Registered DIMMs (RDIMMs) and Non-Volatile DIMMs (NVDIMM-Ns: for storage and HCI nodes). System
memory holds the instructions that are executed by the processor.
Your system contains 24 memory sockets split into two sets of 12 sockets, one set per processor. Each 12-socket set is organized into six
channels. Six memory channels are allocated to each processor. In each channel, the release tabs of the first socket are marked white, and
the second socket black.
Technical specifications 17

Figure 13. Memory socket locations
Memory channels are organized as follows:
Table 11. Memory channels
Processor Channel 0 Channel 1 Channel 2 Channel 3 Channel 4 Channel 5
Processor 1 Slots A1 and A7 Slots A2 and A8 Slots A3 and A9 Slots A4 and A10 Slots A5 and A11 Slots A6 and A12
Processor 2 Slots B1 and B7 Slots B2 and B8 Slots B3 and B9 Slots B4 and B10 Slots B5 and B11 Slots B6 and B12
18 Technical specifications

Memory specifications
The following table shows the memory specifications for the R640 system:
Table 12. Memory specifications
DIMM
type DIMM rank DIMM capacity
Single processors
(VxFlex Ready Node only)
Dual processors
Minimum RAM Maximum RAM Minimum RAM Maximum RAM
LRDIMM
(VxFlex
Ready
Node only )
Octal rank 128 GB 128 1.5 TB 512 GB 6144 GB
RDIMM
(VxFlex
Ready
Node only )
Single rank 8 GB 8 GB 96 GB 16 GB 192 GB
RDIMM Dual rank 16 GB 16 GB 192 GB 192 GB (PowerFlex
appliance only.
PowerFlex appliance
requires that 12 slots
are populated.)
32 GB (VxFlex Ready
Node only)
384 GB
RDIMM Dual rank 32 GB 32 GB 384 GB 64 GB 768 GB
RDIMM Dual rank 64 GB 64 GB 768 GB 128 GB 1536 GB
NVDIMM-
NSingle rank 16 GB NA NA RDIMM: 192 GB RDIMM: 384 GB
NVDIMM-N: 32 GB NVDIMM-N: 96 GB
NOTE: 8 GB RDIMMs and NVDIMM-Ns must not be mixed.
NOTE: A minimum of two CPUs are required for any configurations that support NVDIMM-N.
General memory module installation guidelines
To ensure optimal performance of your system, observe the following general guidelines when configuring your system memory: If your
system's memory configurations fail to observe these guidelines, your system might not boot, stop responding during memory
configuration, or operate with reduced memory.
The memory bus operating frequency can be 2933 MT/s or 2666 MT/s, 2400 MT/s and 2100 MT/s depending on the following factors:
• Maximum supported DIMM speed of the processors
• Maximum supported speed of the DIMMs
NOTE: MT/s indicates DIMM speed in MegaTransfers per second.
The following are the recommended guidelines for installing memory modules:
• All DIMMs must be DDR4.
• RDIMMs and LRDIMMs must not be mixed.
• NVDIMMs and LRDIMMs must not be mixed.
• NVDIMMs and RDIMMs can be mixed.
• x4 and x8 DRAM based memory modules can be mixed.
• Up to two RDIMMs can be populated per channel regardless of rank count.
• A maximum of two different ranked DIMMs can be populated in a channel regardless of rank count.
• Populate memory module sockets only if a processor is installed.
Technical specifications 19

○For dual-processor systems, sockets A1 to A12 and sockets B1 to B12 are available.
• Populate all the sockets with white release tabs first, followed by the black release tabs.
• When mixing memory modules with different capacities, populate the sockets with memory modules with the highest capacity first.
• Memory modules of different capacities can be mixed provided other memory population rules are followed.
For example, 8 GB and 16 GB memory modules can be mixed.
• In a dual-processor configuration, the memory configuration for each processor must be identical.
For example, if you populate socket A1 for processor 1, then populate socket B1 for processor 2, and so on.
• Mixing of more than two memory module capacities in a system is not supported.
• Unbalanced memory configurations result in a performance loss so always populate memory channels identically with identical DIMMs
for best performance.
• Populate six identical memory modules per processor (one DIMM per channel) at a time to maximize performance.
• To ensure proper system cooling, memory module blanks must be installed in memory sockets that are not occupied.
DIMM population update for Performance Optimized mode with quantity of 4 and 8 DIMMs per processor.
• When the DIMM quantity is 4 per processor, the population is slot 1, 2, 4, 5.
• When the DIMM quantity is 8 per processor, the population is slot 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11. (VxFlex Ready Node only)
NVDIMM-N memory module installation guidelines
The following are the recommended guidelines for installing NVDIMM-N memory modules:
• Each system supports memory configurations with 2, 4, or 6 NVDIMM-Ns.
• Supported configurations have dual processors and a minimum of 12x RDIMMs.
• Maximum of 6 NVDIMM-Ns can be installed in a system.
• NVDIMM-Ns or RDIMMs must not be mixed with LRDIMMs. (VxFlex Ready Node only)
• DDR4 NVDIMM-Ns must be populated only on the black release tabs on processor 1 and 2.
Optimizer mode
This mode supports Single Device Data Correction (SDDC) only for memory modules that use x4 device width. It does not impose any
specific slot population requirements.
• Dual processor: Populate the slots in round robin sequence starting with processor 1.
NOTE: Processor 1 and processor 2 population should match.
Table 13. Memory population rules
Processor Configuration Memory population Memory population information
Dual processor (Start
with processor1.
Processor1 and
processor 2 population
should match.)
Optimized (Independent channel)
population order
A{1}, B{1},
A{2}, B{2},
A{3}, B{3},
A{4}, B{4},
A{5}, B{5},
A{6}, B{6}
Odd number of DIMM population per
processor is allowed.
NOTE: Odd number of DIMMs
will result in unbalanced
memory configurations, which
in turn will result in
performance loss. Dell EMC
recommends that you
populate all memory channels
identically with identical
DIMMs for best performance.
Optimizer population order is not
traditional for 8 and 16 DIMMs
installations for dual processor.
• For 8 DIMMs: A1, A2, A4, A5, B1,
B2, B4, B5
• For 16 DIMMs:
A1, A2, A4, A5, A7, A8, A10, A11
20 Technical specifications