Dell PowerEdge R730xd vs R740xd: Which Generation Should You Buy?
Both machines are 2U, dual-socket servers built around dense internal storage, and both are everywhere on the secondary market. The useful question is not which one is newer. It is whether moving from Intel's Xeon E5-2600 v3/v4 platform to Xeon Scalable changes anything for the workload you actually run.
The R730xd is Dell's 13th-generation (13G) 2U storage server: Socket 2011-3, Xeon E5-2600 v3 (Haswell-EP) or v4 (Broadwell-EP), four memory channels per socket, 24 DDR4 DIMM slots. The R740xd is the 14th-generation replacement: Socket P (LGA 3647), 1st- or 2nd-generation Xeon Scalable, six memory channels per socket, the same 24 DIMM slots. That channel count, four versus six, drives most of the rest of the differences.
Specifications side by side
| Item | PowerEdge R730xd (13G) | PowerEdge R740xd (14G) |
|---|---|---|
| Socket | 2 x Socket 2011-3 | 2 x Socket P (LGA 3647) |
| Processors | Xeon E5-2600 v3 / v4 | Xeon Scalable 1st and 2nd gen |
| Max cores per socket | 22 (E5-2699 v4) | 28 (Platinum 8280) |
| Max CPU TDP | 145 W | 205 W |
| Interconnect | QPI, up to 9.6 GT/s | UPI, up to 10.4 GT/s |
| Memory channels per CPU | 4 | 6 |
| DIMM slots | 24 | 24 |
| Max memory speed | 2133 MT/s (v3), 2400 MT/s (v4) | 2666 MT/s (1st gen), 2933 MT/s (2nd gen) |
| Max memory | 1.5 TB (24 x 64 GB LRDIMM) | 3 TB (24 x 128 GB LRDIMM) |
| PCIe | Gen 3, up to 6 slots | Gen 3, up to 8 slots |
| Front drive bays | 12 x 3.5" or 24 x 2.5", plus 2 rear 2.5" | Up to 24 x 2.5" plus 4 mid-plane and 4 rear, or 12 x 3.5" plus 4 mid-plane |
| Boot options | Internal dual SD (IDSDM), front or rear bays | BOSS card (mirrored M.2), IDSDM, rear bays |
| Management | iDRAC8 with Lifecycle Controller | iDRAC9 with Lifecycle Controller |
Two rows matter more than the others. Six channels per socket instead of four means a fully populated R740xd moves considerably more memory bandwidth at the same DIMM count, which shows up in in-memory databases, dense virtualization, and analytics work. The second is population rules: on the R730xd you add DIMMs in groups of four per CPU to keep every channel active, on the R740xd it is groups of six. A four-DIMM kit that balances perfectly on 13G leaves two channels idle on 14G.
Note also that running two DIMMs per channel can reduce the operating speed depending on DIMM rank and processor SKU on both platforms. Check the memory population guidelines for the exact CPU before assuming 24 populated slots will run at the rated speed.
Storage layout is the real dividing line
The xd suffix means extra drives, and the two generations diverge more here than the socket change suggests. The R730xd front bays come in two main flavors: 12 x 3.5-inch LFF or 24 x 2.5-inch SFF, each with an optional pair of 2.5-inch rear bays used for boot or cache. NVMe exists but is a bolt-on: up to four Express Flash bays on specific backplanes, wired through dedicated PCIe extenders.
The R740xd adds a mid-plane drive cage between the backplane and the fan wall. That produces layouts the R730xd cannot match, such as 24 front 2.5-inch bays plus four mid-plane and four rear, or 12 front 3.5-inch bays plus a four-bay 3.5-inch mid-plane. NVMe also stopped being an afterthought: the R740xd offers backplanes that route large numbers of front bays directly to PCIe, and the BOSS card moves the hypervisor onto a mirrored pair of M.2 modules instead of consuming a data bay or relying on dual SD cards.
If the design goal is raw capacity, a backup repository, an object storage node, an archive tier, the R730xd's 12 LFF bays cover it with fewer moving parts. If NVMe sits anywhere in the data path, or the box will host virtual machines for another five years, the R740xd was built for that job.
Management, firmware, and spare parts
iDRAC8 and iDRAC9 both cover remote console, virtual media, hardware inventory, SNMP and Redfish. iDRAC8 gained an HTML5 console in later firmware, but iDRAC9 is faster in daily use and its Redfish implementation is more complete, which matters if you are automating provisioning. On either generation, confirm the Enterprise license is present, since virtual console and virtual media are licensed features and a machine without them is far less pleasant to run remotely.
Parts do not cross generations. 14G 2.5-inch drive carriers are a different design from 13G carriers, and rails, bezels, risers, heatsinks and fan assemblies are all generation-specific. If you already stock spares for a 13G fleet, that inventory is a real operational advantage and a legitimate argument for staying put. If you are starting fresh, standardizing on one generation matters more than which generation you pick.
Firmware access is worth checking before you commit. Dell has tightened access to some BIOS and firmware downloads for systems without an active entitlement, so confirm how you will obtain BIOS, iDRAC, PERC and NIC updates for the life of the deployment. If you intend to fit 2nd-generation Xeon Scalable processors in an R740xd, check the installed BIOS level as well, since that support arrived in a later firmware release. The same planning applies to your hypervisor: newer VMware and enterprise Linux releases have progressively dropped older processor generations from their supported lists, and E5-2600 v3/v4 sits closer to that boundary than Xeon Scalable does. Look up the specific CPU on the vendor compatibility list.
Choosing between them
The R730xd is the better fit when:
- The workload is storage-bound, not CPU-bound: backup targets, media archives, file servers, log retention.
- You already run 13G hardware and have rails, carriers and spare PSUs on the shelf.
- Per-core software licensing drives the design and you want cores rather than platform features the workload will not use.
The R740xd is the better fit when:
- Memory bandwidth or capacity per socket is the constraint, especially above 512 GB per host.
- You need meaningful NVMe capacity, or want mirrored M.2 boot separate from the data drives.
- The host must stay on a current hypervisor build for several more years.
- You want the mid-plane cage to reach a drive count a 2U chassis otherwise cannot.
Where to go from here
If you have a rough shape in mind, browse the Dell PowerEdge R730xd systems and the Dell PowerEdge R740xd systems to see which drive layouts and processor pairs are available. If none of the standard builds match, request a quote and specify CPUs, memory, backplane, controller and NICs the way you want them. Tell us the workload and the rack constraints alongside the parts list, and we will flag anything in the configuration that will not behave the way you expect.