Dell PowerEdge M420 Quick start guide

PowerEdge M420
Technical Guide
Dell PowerEdge M420,
a two-socket,
quarter-height blade
server that delivers
unprecedented
computational density
with 32 individually
serviceable nodes.

ii PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
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January 2014 | Version 6.5

iii PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
Table of contents
1System overview..................................................................................................................................................................5
Introduction.........................................................................................................................................................................5
New technologies ............................................................................................................................................................. 6
2System features ...................................................................................................................................................................7
Comparison of PowerEdge systems ...............................................................................................................................7
Specifications ..................................................................................................................................................................... 8
3Module views and features.............................................................................................................................................. 11
Module views..................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Module features ................................................................................................................................................................14
4Processors ..........................................................................................................................................................................16
Processor features............................................................................................................................................................16
Supported processors......................................................................................................................................................17
Chipset................................................................................................................................................................................17
5Memory...............................................................................................................................................................................18
Supported memory ..........................................................................................................................................................18
Memory configurations ...................................................................................................................................................19
Memory speed ..................................................................................................................................................................19
Memory RAS features...................................................................................................................................................... 20
6Storage ............................................................................................................................................................................... 22
Internal storage ................................................................................................................................................................ 22
Storage controllers.......................................................................................................................................................... 22
7Networking and mezzanine cards ................................................................................................................................ 24
System management integration ................................................................................................................................. 24
Mezzanine cards .............................................................................................................................................................. 25
8Power, thermal and acoustics ....................................................................................................................................... 28
Power consumption and energy efficiency................................................................................................................ 28
Power supply units .......................................................................................................................................................... 29
Thermal and acoustics.................................................................................................................................................... 29
9Operating systems and virtualization ............................................................................................................................31
Supported operating systems.........................................................................................................................................31
Supported virtualization ................................................................................................................................................. 32
10 Dell OpenManage systems management.................................................................................................................... 33
Systems management solutions................................................................................................................................... 33
OpenManage systems management ........................................................................................................................... 34
Dell server management operations............................................................................................................................ 38
Appendix A. Additional specifications...........................................................................................................................41
Module dimensions and weight.....................................................................................................................................41
Video specifications .........................................................................................................................................................41
Environmental specifications ........................................................................................................................................ 42
USB peripherals................................................................................................................................................................ 43
Appendix B. Standards compliance ............................................................................................................................. 44
Appendix C. Additional resources................................................................................................................................. 46
Appendix D. System board block diagram ..................................................................................................................48

iv PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
Tables
Table 1. New technologies ................................................................................................................................................ 6
Table 2. Comparison of PowerEdge M420, M520 and M620......................................................................................7
Table 3. Technical specifications...................................................................................................................................... 8
Table 4. Module features...................................................................................................................................................14
Table 5. Supported processors ........................................................................................................................................17
Table 6. Memory technologies supported.....................................................................................................................18
Table 7. DIMMs supported................................................................................................................................................19
Table 8. Memory speed capabilities ...............................................................................................................................20
Table 9. Memory RAS features .........................................................................................................................................21
Table 10. Hard drive backplane option............................................................................................................................ 22
Table 11. Supported drives................................................................................................................................................. 22
Table 12. RAID controller feature support ...................................................................................................................... 23
Table 13. Supported mezzanine cards............................................................................................................................. 25
Table 14. Power tools and technologies ......................................................................................................................... 28
Table 15. M420 acoustical performance......................................................................................................................... 30
Table 16. Primary operating system support ...................................................................................................................31
Table 17. Virtual guest operating system support ......................................................................................................... 32
Table 18. Virtualization support ........................................................................................................................................ 32
Table 19. iDRAC7 with Lifecycle Controller functions and benefits........................................................................... 34
Table 20. Feature comparison for iDRAC7 Enterprise and iDRAC7 Express for Blades .......................................... 35
Table 21. One-to-one and one-to-many operations .................................................................................................. 39
Table 22. Supported video modes.....................................................................................................................................41
Table 23. Environmental specifications ........................................................................................................................... 42
Table 24. Industry standards documentation ................................................................................................................. 44
Table 25. Additional resources .......................................................................................................................................... 46
Figures
Figure 1. M420 front view ..................................................................................................................................................11
Figure 2. M420 sleeve containing four blades................................................................................................................12
Figure 3. M1000e chassis enclosure with 32 M420 blades..........................................................................................13
Figure 4. M420 internal module view...............................................................................................................................13
Figure 5. QRL code located on module ..........................................................................................................................14
Figure 6. M420 connectivity matrix for 32 blades......................................................................................................... 26
Figure 7. Fabric interconnectivity examples................................................................................................................... 27
Figure 8. Dell systems management solutions.............................................................................................................. 33
Figure 9. Systems management server lifecycle ........................................................................................................... 39
Figure 10. Module dimensions.............................................................................................................................................41
Figure 11. M420 system board block diagram ................................................................................................................48

5 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
1System overview
Introduction
Enjoy remarkable computational density with the Dell™PowerEdge™M420 capable of deploying
32 server nodes in just 10U of rack space. Scaling up to 20 processor cores and 192GB of RAM, each
M420 couples processing power and memory capacity with tremendous I/O throughput, with up to
four ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) available in an exceptionally compact, individually
serviceable form factor. From entry and mid-tier business applications, to high node-count virtual
environments, and even distributed workloads such as cloud or high-performance computing (HPC)
environments, the M420 provides advantages for virtually any data center where a large number of
computational nodes need to be deployed in minimal space.
Ensure business continuity
Dell’s no-compromise approach toward enterprise-class features on our M-series blade servers is
not limited by the M420’s ultra-dense form factor. The fully redundant and individually serviceable
M420 platform offers such capabilities as hardware RAID and hot-pluggable dual solid-state drives
in order to ensure maximum uptime. Dell’s unique failsafe virtualization technology even extends
the redundancy and resiliency of the M420 to virtual environments, offering a redundant,
failover-capable infrastructure for embedded hypervisors.
Simplified systems management, without compromise
The Dell OpenManage™ systems management portfolio includes Integrated Dell Remote Access
Controller 7 (iDRAC7) with Lifecycle Controller. This embedded feature helps IT administrators
manage Dell servers in physical, virtual, local and remote environments, operating in-band or
out-of-band, with or without a systems management software agent installed.
OpenManage iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller integrates and connects to leading third-party
systems management solutions (such as those from Microsoft, VMware and BMC Software), so users
can maintain a single point of control and capitalize on an existing systems management investment.
OpenManage simplifies the lifecycle of deploying, updating, monitoring and maintaining Dell
PowerEdge servers.
The PowerEdge M-series blade server line
Implement the right combination of features and performance scalability with the PowerEdge
M-series blade servers, which can handle tough workloads in a data center of any size. In addition to
the world-class management features provided in all PowerEdge servers, the M420 also takes
advantage of the capabilities of the M1000e’s Chassis Management Controller (CMC). The CMC
allows M-series blades to be managed individually or as groups, in single or multiple chassis and
within a data center or in multiple geographically dispersed locations around the globe without
requiring an agent or additional hardware. In addition to the existing networking infrastructure, the
new Dell Networking MXL 10Gb switch provides next-generation port density and bandwidth for
exceptional throughput. PowerEdge M-series blade servers use the redundant power and cooling
infrastructure provided by the Dell M1000e blade enclosure, which is exceptionally easy to deploy
and manage, and maximizes power and cooling efficiency.

6 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
New technologies
A number of new technologies are featured on the PowerEdge M420 system, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. New technologies
New technology
Detailed description
Intel®Xeon®processor
E5-2400 and
E5-2400 v2 product
families
This new family of Intel processors has embedded PCI Express®(PCIe) lanes for
improved I/O performance and additional new features. See the Processors
section for details.
Intel C602 series chipset
The Intel Platform Controller Hub (PCH) chip is implemented on the M420.
Next-generation
PERC H310
The M420 supports the new Dell PERC H310 controller card with improved
functionality and faster performance. See the Storage section for details.
iDRAC7 with Lifecycle
Controller
The second generation embedded systems management solution for Dell servers
provides agent-free hardware and firmware inventory and alerting, in-depth
memory alerting, faster performance, a dedicated gigabit port and many more
features.
Advanced power
management
The M420 supports advanced power monitoring and power capping tools that can
help manage power consumption in the data center.
Failsafe hypervisors
The internal dual SD module enables Dell's unique failsafe virtualization
architecture, ensuring uptime by providing failover capability for embedded
hypervisors, such as VMware®vSphere®ESXi™ and Microsoft Windows Server
2012 R2 Hyper-V®.
Dell Fresh Air cooling
Dell has tested and validated an integrated data center solution that enables you to
operate at higher temperatures or even chiller-less. See the Power, thermal and
acoustics section for details.

7 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
2System features
Compared to the previous generation of Dell PowerEdge blade servers, the M420 has similar
memory scalability, as well as more processor cores in a much denser form factor than ever before.
Features include DDR3 memory, PCIe 3.0, dual internal SD module and Dell’s next-generation
iDRAC solution known as iDRAC7 Enterprise with Lifecycle Controller.
Comparison of PowerEdge systems
The PowerEdge M420 is a 2-socket, quarter-height blade server that delivers an extraordinary
balance of value and performance for mainstream business applications, with no compromise on
enterprise-class features.
Designed for exceptionally dense computational environments where space is at an absolute
premium. Best fit for space and/or power conscious, highly available, ultra-dense nodes.
Housed within the PowerEdge M1000e chassis with up to 32 independent, individually
serviceable, M420 blade servers, offering a unique combination of performance, density and
efficiency.
Compared with half-height blades:
—Double the density
—Half the infrastructure costs (chassis and switches)
—Reduced cabling to top-of-rack (ToR) switches
—All with no enterprise feature trade-offs
Three PowerEdge 12th-generation servers, the M420, M520 and M620 systems, are compared in
Table 2. For the latest information on supported features, visit Dell.com/PowerEdge.
Table 2. Comparison of PowerEdge M420, M520 and M620
Feature
PowerEdge M420
PowerEdge M520
PowerEdge M620
Chassis;
enclosure
Ultra-dense, quarter-height
blade; PowerEdge M1000e
Blade Enclosure
General purpose, half-
height blade; PowerEdge
M1000e Blade Enclosure
General purpose, half-
height blade; PowerEdge
M1000e Blade Enclosure
Processors
Intel Xeon processor
E5-2400 and E5-2400 v2
product families
Intel Xeon processor
E5-2400 and E5-2400 v2
product families
Intel Xeon processor
E5-2600 and E5-2600v2
product families
Internal
interconnect
Intel QuickPath
Interconnect
Intel QuickPath
Interconnect
Intel QuickPath
Interconnect
Memory
6 x DDR3 RDIMMs
12 x DDR3 RDIMMs and
UDIMMs
24 x DDR3 RDIMMs,
UDIMMs and LRDIMMs
Hard drive
bays
(hot plug)
2 x 1.8”
2 x 2.5”
2 x 2.5”
Embedded
NIC
2 x 10GbE dual-port LOM
2 x 1GbE dual-port LOM
Dual Port Select Network
Adapter, 3 options of 2 x
10GbE

8 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
Feature
PowerEdge M420
PowerEdge M520
PowerEdge M620
RAID
H310
S110, H310, H710, H710P
S110, H310, H710, H710P
Express Flash
drives
Not supported
Not supported
Up to 2
Mezzanine
slots
1 PCIe 3.0 x8 mezzanine
card slot
2 PCIe 3.0 x8 mezzanine
card slots
2 PCIe 3.0 x8 mezzanine
card slots
Optional SD
port
2 Internal SD slots
(2 for redundant hypervisor
or 1 for vFlash)
3 Internal SD slots
(2 for redundant hypervisor
and 1 for vFlash)
3 Internal SD slots
(2 for redundant hypervisor
and 1 for vFlash)
Dell
OpenManage
Systems
Management
OpenManage Essentials
OMSA Agent
OpenManage Power
Center (requires iDRAC7
Enterprise with Lifecycle
Controller)
CMC 4.x (available with
the M1000e Modular
Blade Enclosure)
OpenManage
Integrations and
Connections
iDRAC7 Express for
Blades with Lifecycle
Controller (standard
option)
OpenManage Essentials
OMSA Agent
OpenManage Power
Center (requires iDRAC7
Enterprise with Lifecycle
Controller)
CMC 4.x (available with
the M1000e Modular
Blade Enclosure)
OpenManage
Integrations and
Connections
iDRAC7 Express for
Blades with Lifecycle
Controller (standard
option)
OpenManage Essentials
OMSA Agent
OpenManage Power
Center (requires iDRAC7
Enterprise with Lifecycle
Controller)
CMC 4.x (available with
the M1000e Modular
Blade Enclosure)
OpenManage
Integrations and
Connections
iDRAC7 Express for
Blades with Lifecycle
Controller (standard
option)
Specifications
Table 3 lists the technical specifications for the PowerEdge M420 blade server. For the latest
information on supported features, visit Dell.com/PowerEdge.
Table 3. Technical specifications
Feature
Technical specification
Form factor;
enclosure
Quarter-height blade; Dell PowerEdge M1000e Blade Enclosure
Processors
Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 and E5-2400 v2 product families
Internal
interconnect
Intel QuickPath interconnect (QPI) link: 6.4GT/s, 7.2GT/s, 8.0GT/s
Cache
2.5MB per core; core options: 4, 6, 8, 10
Memory1
Up to 192GB (6 DIMM slots): 2GB/4GB/8GB/16GB/32GB DDR3 up to 1600MT/s
Chipset
Intel C602
Video
Integrated Matrox®G200

9 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
Feature
Technical specification
Primary storage
Hot-plug hard drive options:
Up to 2 x 1.8” uSATA SSD drives (50GB and 200GB)
External storage:
For information about Dell external storage options, visit Dell.com/Storage
USB ports
2 front
NIC/LOM
Embedded Broadcom®57810S-k 2P 10Gb
I/O mezzanine card
options
1Gb/10Gb Adapters:
Broadcom 5719 quad-port 1Gb
Intel I350 quad-port 1Gb
Broadcom 57810S-k dual-port 10Gb
Intel X520-x/k dual-port 10Gb
Qlogic®QME8262-k dual-port 10Gb
Brocade®BR1741M-k dual-port 10Gb
Mellanox®ConnectX®-3 dual-port 10GbE KR blade
InfiniBand™:
Mellanox FDR10 CX-3 40Gb
Fibre channel:
QLogic QME2572 dual-port 8Gb
Emulex®LPe1205-M dual-port 8Gb
QLogic QME2662 dual-port 16Gb
Emulex LPm16002B-D dual-port 16Gb
I/O slots
1 PCIe 3.0 x8 fully populated mezzanine card slot and switch modules yields 2
redundant I/O fabrics per blade
RAID controller
Internal controller:
PERC H310 embedded
Power supplies and
fans
Supplied by M1000e blade enclosure
Dell OpenManage
Systems
Management
(Agent-free or with
OpenManage Server
Administrator
[OMSA] Agent)
OpenManage Essentials
OMSA Agent
OpenManage Power Center (requires iDRAC7 Enterprise with Lifecycle
Controller)
CMC 4.x (available with the M1000e Modular Blade Enclosure)
OpenManage Integrations and Connections:
OpenManage Integration Suite for Microsoft®System Center
OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter™
Connections for HP®Operations Manager, IBM®Tivoli®Netcool®and CA
Network and Systems Management
iDRAC7 Express for Blades with Lifecycle Controller (standard option)
Upgrade to iDRAC7 Enterprise with Lifecycle Controller
Upgrade to 8GB vFlash media or 16GB vFlash media for iDRAC7 Enterprise
with Lifecycle Controller
Trial evaluation available for IDRAC7 Enterprise with Lifecycle Controller

10 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
Feature
Technical specification
Operating systems
Microsoft Windows Server®2012
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (includes Hyper-V)
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, x64 (includes Hyper-V)
Novell®SUSE®Linux®Enterprise Server
Red Hat®Enterprise Linux
Virtualization options:
Citrix®XenServer®
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization®
VMware vSphere ESXi
For more information on the specific versions and additions, visit
Dell.com/OSsupport.
Embedded
hypervisor
Two internal SD cards dedicated for hypervisor
Or one SD card dedicated for vFlash media support
For more information about the Dell blade solution, see the PowerEdge M1000e Technical Guide or the
PowerEdge M1000e Blade Chassis Spec Sheet .
1GB means 1 billion bytes and TB equals 1 trillion bytes; actual capacity varies with preloaded material and operating
environment and will be less

11 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
3Module views and features
The Dell PowerEdge M420 implements a new module design, with a quarter-height blade server
that requires an M1000e chassis to operate. It occupies one slot vertically in the M1000e rack
chassis, which is populated with a sleeve and contains four blades. The M1000e chassis can contain
a maximum of 32 blades with eight sleeves. It can be mixed with other existing Dell blades of half-
height or full-height form factors and designed to mix with possible future half-height/double-wide
and full height/double-wide blades.
The following sections provide external and internal views of the system and describe the module
features. For more detailed information on features and descriptions for the M420, see the Dell
PowerEdge M420 Systems Owner's Manual on Dell.com/Support/Manuals.
Module views
As shown in Figure 1, the M420 module supports up to two unique front-accessible, hot-plug solid
state drives (SSD) and two USB ports.
Figure 1. M420 front view

12 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
The M420 is optimized for a densely populated chassis with effective and efficient cooling. Figure 2
shows one of eight sleeves containing four stackable blades in a fully loaded M1000e enclosure.
Figure 2. M420 sleeve containing four blades

13 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
The chassis design of the M420 is optimized for easy access to components and for airflow for
effective and efficient cooling. Figure 3 shows the fully loaded M1000e chassis enclosure comprised
of eight sleeves, each with four stackable blades, for a total of 32 M420 modules.
Figure 3. M1000e chassis enclosure with 32 M420 blades
The M420 module shown in Figure 4 supports up to six DIMMS, two processors and many other
features that are described in this guide.
Figure 4. M420 internal module view
For additional system views, see the Dell M420 Systems Owner’s Manual on
Dell.com/Support/Manuals.

14 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
Module features
Table 4 lists the modules features for the M420 system. For additional information on these features,
see the Dell PowerEdge M420 Systems Owner’s Manual on Dell.com/Support/Manuals.
Table 4. Module features
Feature
Description
USB connectors
2 front-accessible USB connectors
Status indicator
Indicator for M420 power status
Drives
2 front-accessible, hot-plug, 1.8-inch SSD; see the Storage section
for details
Drive activity LEDs
Indicate the status and activity of the SSD
Blade handle release button
Release button on the front handle of the blade server
Trusted Platform Module (TPM)
TPM is used to generate/store keys, protect/authenticate passwords
and create/store digital certificates; it also supports the Intel Xeon
TXT functionality.
Quick Resource Locator (QRL)
This code on the module can be scanned by a smartphone
application to access information about the server.
LCD control panel
The M1000e chassis enclosure LCD control panel is located on the front of the M1000e chassis to
provide user access to buttons, display and I/O interfaces. For more information on the M1000e
LCD control panel, see the Dell PowerEdge M1000e Enclosure Owner's Manual on
Dell.com/Support/Manuals.
Quick Resource Locator
Dell PowerEdge 12th-generation servers offer a Quick Resource Locator (QRL) —a model-specific
Quick Response (QR) code (shown in Figure 5) that is located on the server. Use your smartphone to
access the Dell QRL application to learn more about the server.
Figure 5. QRL code located on module

15 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
This QRL code allows you to:
View step-by-step videos, including overviews of system internals and externals, as well as
detailed, concise, task-oriented videos and installation wizards
Locate reference materials, including searchable owner’s manual content, LCD diagnostics and
an electrical overview
Look up your service tag so you can quickly gain access to your specific hardware configuration
info and warranty information
Contact Dell directly (by link) to get in touch with technical support and sales teams and provide
feedback to Dell
These codes provide an easy way to retrieve the critical support information you need when you
need it, making you more efficient and effective in managing your hardware.
M1000e chassis enclosure features
For more information on the M1000e chassis enclosure features, see the Dell PowerEdge M1000e
Enclosure Owner's Manual on Dell.com/Support/Manuals.

16 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
4Processors
The Dell PowerEdge M420 system features the Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 and E5-2400 v2
product families, which offer an ideal combination of performance, power efficiency and cost.
Featuring 10-core processing to maximize performance and performance per watt for datacenter
infrastructures and highly dense deployments, E5-2400 v2 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.
Processor features
The Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 v2 product family is designed specifically for servers and
workstation applications. A summary of what’s new and improved includes:
Up to 10 cores per processor and 64-byte cache line size
Intel Integrated I/O support for up to 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0, which can reduce latency
Faster connections provided throughout the system with support for DDR3 1600MT/s memory
and 8.0GT/s QPI
Intel Data Direct I/O (DDIO) allowing I/O traffic to skip the main system memory and be directed
straight to the processor cache, which can provide a significant reduction in latency as well as
allowing memory to remain in a low-power state
Intel Advanced Vector Extensions offering up to double the floating-point operations per clock
cycle by doubling the length of registers, which can be useful for addressing very complex
problems or dealing with large-number calculations that are integral to many technical, financial
and scientific computing problems
Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 delivering up to double the boost of the previous-generation
turbo technology
Continued improvements to both Intel TXT and AES-NI helping to better protect systems and
data
Enhanced Intel SpeedStep®Technology
For more information on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 and E5-2400 v2 product families, visit
Intel.com.

17 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
Supported processors
The M420 supports up to two processors with up to 10 cores per processor. Table 5 lists the Intel
Xeon processors supported by the PowerEdge M420. For the latest information on supported
processors, visit Dell.com/PowerEdge.
Table 5. Supported processors
Model
Speed
Cache
QPI
Cores
Turbo
TDP
E5-2470 v2
2.4GHz
25M
8.0GT/s
10
Yes
95W
E5-2470
2.3GHz
20M
8.0GT/s
8
Yes
95W
E5-2450L v2
1.7GHz
25M
8.0GT/s
10
Yes
60W
E5-2450L
1.8GHz
20M
8.0GT/s
8
Yes
70W
E5-2450 v2
2.5GHz
20M
8.0GT/s
8
Yes
95W
E5-2450
2.1GHz
20M
8.0GT/s
8
Yes
95W
E5-2440 v2
1.9GHz
20M
7.2GT/s
8
Yes
95W
E5-2440
2.4GHz
15M
7.2GT/s
6
Yes
95W
E5-2430L v2
2.4GHz
15M
7.2GT/s
6
Yes
60W
E5-2430L
2.0GHz
15M
7.2GT/s
6
Yes
60W
E5-2430 v2
2.5GHz
15M
7.2GT/s
6
Yes
80W
E5-2430
2.2GHz
15M
7.2GT/s
6
Yes
95W
E5-2420 v2
2.2GHz
15M
7.2GT/s
6
Yes
80W
E5-2420
1.9GHz
15M
7.2GT/s
6
Yes
95W
E5-2407 v2
2.4GHz
10M
6.4GT/s
4
No
80W
E5-2407
2.2GHz
10M
6.4GT/s
4
No
80W
E5-2403 v2
1.8GHz
10M
6.4GT/s
4
No
80W
E5-2403
1.8GHz
10M
6.4GT/s
4
No
80W
For information on processor installation and configuration, see the Dell PowerEdge M420 Systems
Owner’s Manual on Dell.com/Support/Manuals.
Chipset
The Intel C602 chipset is implemented on the PowerEdge M420. For more information, visit
Intel.com.

18 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
5Memory
More memory options are available than ever before with the Dell PowerEdge M420 —greater
capacities, higher frequencies and more flexibility. The M420 supports up to 192GB of memory
using up to six DIMMs in a dual-processor configuration, and speeds up to 1600MT/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. RAS aids in the rapid and accurate diagnosis of faults that require service,
increasing your memory reliability. System uptime is reinforced with RAS features like memory
mirroring, sparing and many others.
The M420 supports unbuffered DIMM (UDIMM) and registered DIMM (RDIMM) technology.
Supported memory
Table 6 lists the memory technologies supported by the M420.
Table 6. Memory technologies supported
Feature
UDIMM
RDIMM
Register
No
Yes
Buffer
No
No
Frequencies*
1600MT/s
1333 or 1600MT/s
Ranks supported
2
1, 2 or 4
Capacity per DIMM
4GB
2, 4, 8, 16 or 32GB
Maximum DIMMs per channel
1
1
DRAM technology
x8
x4 or x8
Temperature sensor
Yes
Yes
Error Correction Code (ECC)
Yes
Yes
Single Device Disable Code (SDDC)
Yes (with advanced ECC
mode)
Yes
Address parity
Yes
Yes
*Although the M420 supports DIMM speeds lower than 1333MT/s, you can purchase this system with DIMM
speeds of 1333MT/s and 1600MT/s only on Dell.com/PowerEdge.

19 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
The M420 server supports the DIMMs listed in Table 7. For the latest information on supported
memory, visit Dell.com/PowerEdge.
Table 7. DIMMs supported
Capacity
(GB)
Speed
(MT/s)
Type
Ranks
per
DIMM
Data
width
SDDC support
Voltage
2
1600
RDIMM
1
x8
Advanced ECC
1.35
2
1600
UDIMM
1
x8
Advanced ECC
1.35
4
1600
RDIMM
2
x8
Advanced ECC
1.35
4
1600
RDIMM
1
x4
All modes
1.35
4
1600
UDIMM
2
x8
Advanced ECC
1.35
4
1600
UDIMM
1
x8
Advanced ECC
1.35
8
1600
RDIMM
1
x4
All modes
1.35
8
1600
RDIMM
2
x4
All modes
1.35
16
1600
RDIMM
2
x4
All modes
1.35
16
1333
RDIMM
2
x4
All modes
1.35
32
1333
RDIMM
4
x4
All modes
1.35
Memory configurations
The M420 server supports flexible memory configurations ranging from capacities of 2GB to 192GB,
and up to 3 DIMMs per processor (up to 6 DIMMs in a dual-processor configuration). Each
processor has three memory channels, with each channel supporting a single DIMM.
Flexible memory configuration
The M420 supports a flexible memory configuration, according to the following basic rules:
Speed: If DIMMs of different speeds are mixed, all channels across all processors operate at the
slowest DIMM’s common frequency.
The following additional memory-population guidelines also apply to the M420:
A single quad-rank (QR) DIMM, dual-rank (DR), or single-rank (SR) DIMM may be populated on
each channel.
DIMMs should be installed with largest rank count to smallest. For example, if DR DIMMS are
mixed with SR DIMMs, DR DIMMS should be placed in the lowest DIMM slots, followed by the SR
DIMMs.
For more information on memory configuration and population, see the Dell PowerEdge M420
Systems Owner’s Manual on Dell.com/Support/Manuals.
Memory speed
The M420 supports memory speeds of up to 1600MT/s, 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 system runs at the highest speed for the channel with the lowest DIMM voltage and
speed. The operating speed of the memory is also determined by the maximum speed supported by

20 PowerEdge M420 Technical Guide
the processor, the speed settings in the BIOS and the operating voltage of the system. The loading
within a channel significantly affects memory speed.
Table 8 lists the memory configuration and performance details for the M420, based on the
population of the number and type of DIMMs per memory channel.
Green boxes are defaults for performance per watt.
White boxes (with lower voltage) can save power but will run at slower speeds.
White boxes (with higher voltage) can be custom configured in the BIOS.
Table 8. Memory speed capabilities
DIMM
type
DIMM
rank
DIMM-rated voltage
and speed
Intel Xeon processor
E5-2400 and E5-2400 v2
product families
DIMMs per channel (DPC)
1 DPC
2 DPC
1.35V
1.5V
1.35V
1.5V
RDIMM
1R/2R
DDR3L (1.5V)
1600MT/s
1600
1600
RDIMM
1R/2R
DDR3L (1.35V/1.5V)
1333MT/s
1333
1333
UDIMM
1R/2R
DDR3L (1.35V/1.5V)
1600MT/s
1600
1600
RDIMM
4R
DDR3L (1.35V/1.5V)
1333MT/s
1333
1333
LRDIMM
4R
DDR3L (1.35V/1.5V)
1333MT/s
Memory RAS features
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 9 describes the memory RAS features supported on the M420.