The Dell PowerEdge R650xs is a fast enterprise rackmount server. It is very similar to the PowerEdge R650, but it has some minor differences. We will compare the different R650xs chassis options. We will also cover some of the similarities and differences between the R650 and the R650xs.

R650 vs R650xs

On the surface, the PowerEdge R650 and the R650xs may look identical, however they do have their differences. The R650xs is marketed as a lower cost version of the R650. The R650xs is made for businesses who have a smaller budget. The R650xs is roughly 3 inches shorter than the R650. Both power supply bays on the R650xs are one side of the server, while the R650 has them spread out. R650xs also has support for 600W power supplies, while the R650 does not. The R650xs limits your CPU cores to 32 cores per processor.

Bay Counts and NVMe Capable Backplanes

There is a total of four possible bay counts for the PowerEdge R650xs. These options are: 4 Bay LFF, 8 Bay SFF, 10 Bay SFF, and a 0 Bay Chassis! The 4 Bay LFF chassis can accept a total of four 3.5” SAS/SATA drives in the front. The 8 Bay SFF chassis accepts a total of eight 2.5” drives in the front. For the 8 Bay SFF chassis, there are two possible configurations. The first 8 Bay configuration for the R650xs supports SAS, SATA, or NVMe drives. The second configuration only supports NVMe drives. For the 10 Bay SFF chassis, ten 2.5” SAS, SATA, or NVMe drives can be installed into the backplane. Lastly, there is a chassis that has ZERO drive bays, which accepts no drives at all. This may seem useless, but it is quite useful for In-memory computing (IMC), Computation, and Storage Area Networks (SANs).

Chassis Rear and PCIe Slots

On the rear of the PowerEdge R650xs, there is a total of three low-profile PCIe slots. Two of these slots can be turned into two 2.5” drive bays. Doing so will take up PCIe slots 2 and 3. Located on the chassis rear is two hot-swap power supply bays. There are two 1 GbE RJ45 Ethernet ports as well as an RJ45 iDRAC port. Between PCIe slot 1 and 2 is the BOSS riser, and below the BOSS riser is two USB ports. Next to these USB ports, there is an OCP slots for network cards. Lastly, next to the OCP slot is a VGA port for video accessibility.

The Dell PowerEdge R650xs has two total CPU sockets that accept 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors. Unlike the R650, the R650xs has a 32 core per processor limit. This means that the PowerEdge R650xs supports a max of 64 CPU cores.

The Dell PowerEdge R650xs has many different storage options. The form factor of your server will determine whether you can use 2.5” or 3.5” drives. With a four bay LFF chassis, you can use 3.5” drives. With the 8 Bay SFF and 10 Bay SFF chassis, you can use 2.5” drives. You can also add in an additional two 2.5” drives in to the rear of the chassis. The PowerEdge R650xs can accept HDDs, SSDs, M.2, and uSDs. Supported drive interfaces for the R650xs are: SATA, SAS, and NVMe.

Supported Drives

NVMe is heavily sought after in datacenter environments. NVMe drives offer phenomenal speed performance, especially when compared to most HDDs and non-NVMe drives. For this reason, NVMe drives are critical in environments where speed is essential. If NVMe is something that you need, the R650xs has NVMe capabilities.

U.2 NVMe and Backplane NVMe

We have tested systems in the past that require you to use a NVMe enablement kit in order to give the backplane NVMe capabilities. Luckily, depending on what R650xs chassis you have, the backplane comes with NVMe support out of the box. If you have an 8 Bay SFF or 10 Bay SFF chassis, you can install NVMe drives into the backplane. The 4 Bay LFF chassis does not have an NVMe capable backplane, but if you install a rear drive kit, then you can utilize two NVMe drives. This rear drive kit can be installed into each R650xs chassis.

M.2 NVMe

Two M.2 NVMe drives can be installed into the R650xs with a Dell BOSS-S2 controller card. Unlike the R650, the R650xs cannot use the BOSS-S2 as there is no built-in slot for it. On the system’s motherboard, there is a dedicated slot for the BOSS-S1 card. You can use the drives installed into the BOSS card as boot drives. The BOSS-S1 does support hardware RAID.

How Many Power Supplies does the R650xs Take?

The Dell PowerEdge R650xs server can hold a total of two hot-swap power supplies. Hot-swap means that the power supplies can be removed or added while the server is running. One power supply unit must remain within the system in order for the system to stay powered on. This allows you to replace bad power supplies without shutting down your server.

Wattage Options

The PowerEdge R650xs has four wattage options which are: 600W, 800W, 1100W, and 1400W. The R650 server does not have a 600W option. A 600W power supply is great for lower power applications. For applications that are more power intensive, the 1100W and 1400W options are the best choice. If you server needs to be running 24/7, install two power supplies into your server. If one unit fails, the second unit can take over until the bad unit is replaced.

Voltage

There are multiple voltage options for each wattage option. Selecting the right voltage for your server is something that can easily be overlooked. The 600W, 800W, and 1400W power supply has two different voltage options. These options are DC/240v and AC/100~240v. The 1100W power supply has three voltage options which are DC/-48~-60v, DC/240v, and AC/100-240v. When choosing a power supply for your server, make sure that the voltage of the unit supports the connection in your lab or data center, or your server may not turn on, or will function at a lower wattage.

Power Supply Placement

The R650xs differs in terms of power supply placement when compared to the R650. On the R650, the power supply bays are spaced out. On the R650xs, the power supply bays are adjacent to each other, just like the R640.

If you want to connect your server to your network or to the Internet, you will need to install a network card. There are many network cards to choose from for the PowerEdge R650xs. There are options that support RJ45 and Fiber connections. The 15th generation of Dell servers now use OCP cards instead of the Dell proprietary Network Daughter Cards (NDC). PCIe network cards are also supported.