1

Hello,

we have a Dell PowerEdge R720 with the Perc H710P as controller.

The final use of the server would be a storage/backup server.

The server has 16 2.5" bays, hence we would like to use all the bays with 8TB or bigger disks.

Unfortunately, looking on the internet, I couldn’t find the max size of the disks that the controller is compatible with.

Is anyone able to help me?

7 Spice ups
2

Is anyone even making 2.5" drives larger than 2 or 4 TB yet?

3

That’s a good question.

I have to admit that I din’t check in advance for the prices.

Since the server came with SAS disks, do you think that I could plugin some SATA disks?

4

You should be able to mix SATA and SAS but not in the same array. Still going to have issues finding large size 2.5" drives. I know Seagate has/had a 4 or 5 TB 2.5" drive but it was 5400RPM.

2 Spice ups
5

I’d reach out to your rep at Dell, they should have all the information.

… you do have a rep at Dell, right? If not, your rep at whoever sold you the box.

6

I believe the largest SAS drives that Dell currently sells that are 2.5 inch are 3.84 TB.

7

Hey,

I would go to here : https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04

Put in my Servers Service Tag. It should show you fully supported accessories and components including drives supported by Dell.

Altough the R720 is old AF.

8

Provided the drive is 512 or 512e sector size we have been using 10TB drives (3.5”) in a H710 and H710P recently.

If it’s a 4kn sector then you need 13th gen raid controllers such as H730.

We haven’t found the limit yet, although there will be one I suspect it’ll be ridiculous.

1 Spice up
9

I’m in agreement with DaveHayden. My experience and that of others reported in various home server forums have discovered that 4k sector size is where people have issues with the 710p. With 512e sector emulation, the 710P will take up to 8TB drives.

I have not seen any drives larger than that tested, but I think most current generation high-volume drives are commonly 4k drives, which means they are less likely to work.

1 Spice up
10

Dell spec sheets tell you all of this:

https://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/dell-poweredge-r720-spec-sheet.pdf

Maximum internal storage 32TB
Hard drives Hot-plug hard drive options: 2.5” PCIe SSD, SAS SSD, SATA SSD, SAS (15K, 10K), nearline SAS (7.2K), SATA (7.2K) 3.5” SAS (15K), nearline SAS (7.2K), SA

Your reseller can give you the actual available disk sizes but with 16 bays and a maximum of 32TB, you can fill it up with 16 x 2TB 10k SAS disks.

1 Spice up
11

According to this sheet, you can put 16x3Tb 7.2k drives

12

Those would be SSD’s, one of which would cost more than a single current-gen server I bet.

13

Last year, the largest drive offered direct from Dell for the H710 was 6TB. They said 8tb may work with a firmware update (Here)

The maximum internal storage on that tear sheet is the maximum that Dell offers preconfigured, not the limits of the hardware.

14

Thanks for throwing our Barracuda in the mix, Da_Schmoo : )

@da-schmoo

15

Is this the same for the SAS drives as well ? I would like to use some Seagate SAS 900GB 15K drives.

The product code is ST900MP0006. These are also 512 Native drives.

16

Is what the same?

17

My question was meant for DaveHayden. He mentioned that 10TB drives work provided they are 512 native and my assumption is that those are SATA drives. I would like to know if the same principal applies with the SAS interface and if the Seagate ST900MP006 900GB SAS 15K HDD’s will work as they are also 512 native emulation.

18

My question was meant for DaveHayden. He mentioned that 10TB drives work provided they are 512 native and my assumption is that those are SATA drives. I would like to know if the same principal applies with the SAS interface and if the Seagate ST900MP006 900GB SAS 15K HDD’s will work as they are also 512 native emulation.

I would also like to know the model of 10TB drive that works.