6    PowerEdge R720 and R720xd Technical Guide
 
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. The R720 can readily handle very demanding workloads, 
such as data warehouses, e-commerce, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), databases, and high 
performance computing (HPC) as a data node. 
In addition to the R720’s capabilities, the R720xd offers extraordinary storage capacity, making it well 
suited for data-intensive applications that require storage and I/O performance, like medical imaging 
and email servers.  
Keep pace with the explosion of data in the virtual age with the flexible I/O and storage capabilities 
of the R720 and R720xd. The R720 supports up to sixteen internal hard drives to increase your 
capacity, while optional hot-plug, front-access Express Flash PCIe solid-state drives (up to four) 
enable performance-enhancing, in-box storage tiering.  
The PowerEdge R720xd allows you to quickly access and process vast amounts of data with up to   
twenty-six internal hot-plug hard disks. The R720xd is a great solution for any mid-size or large 
business that requires scalability in storage capacity. 
The R720 and R720xd allow you to tailor your network throughput to match your application needs, 
enabling added I/O performance. Select Network Adapters, Dell’s flexible NIC technology, let you 
choose the right network fabric without using up a valuable PCI slot. You can pick speed, 
technology, vendor and other options, like switch independent partitioning (SIP) that lets you share 
and manage bandwidth on 10GbE connections. 
Maximize your data center’s application capacity by expanding your virtual environment using the 
large memory footprint of the R720 and R720xd. Choose an industry-leading hypervisor and take 
advantage of our system management capability to manage both physical and virtual assets. 
Redundant failsafe hypervisors can also help maximize your virtual machines’ uptime. Dell’s Virtual 
Integrated System™ (VIS) solution lets you enable complex virtualization environments in just a few 
mouse clicks. 
The Dell OpenManage™ systems management portfolio includes the Integrated Dell Remote Access 
Controller (iDRAC) with Lifecycle Controller. Dell embedded server management features help 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. OpenManage also 
integrates with and connects to third-party systems management solutions so you can maintain 
your single point of control and capitalize on your existing investment. OpenManage solutions