The Dell PowerEdge R6515 is a 1U rackmount server that is perfect for virtualization, hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), and network functions virtualization (NFV). There are a handful of chassis options to choose from for the PowerEdge R6515. We will highlight some of the differences and similarities between these options.

Bay Counts

There are three possible bay counts and form factors available for the PowerEdge R6515. These options are: 4 Bay LFF, 8 Bay SFF, and 10 Bay SFF. The 4 Bay LFF chassis accepts up to four 3.5” SAS/SATA drives. The 8 Bay SFF option can accept up to eight 2.5” SAS/SATA drives. Both the 4 Bay LFF and 8 Bay SFF options have the ability to install an optional optical drive in the front of the system. Lastly, the 10 Bay SFF chassis accepts up to ten 2.5” SAS/SATA/NVMe drives. All chassis options support hot-swap drives, meaning drives can be installed or removed while the server is running.

Chassis Rear & PCIe Slots

There is only one rear configuration that is available for the PowerEdge R6515. The R6515’s rear includes two low-profile PCIe slots, a serial port, VGA port, a system status indicator cable port, a system ID button, a dedicated iDRAC port, two RJ45 1GbE Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two optional LOM riser Ethernet ports, and two hot-swap power supplies.

The Dell PowerEdge R6515 is a single-socket server. The socket inside is a SP3 socket. The R6515 accepts 2nd or 3rd Generation AMD EYPC processors. A maximum of 64 cores are supported.

The Dell PowerEdge R6515 has 16 total DDR4 DIMM slots. There are 8 memory channels that each consist of two DIMM slots. Slots are color-coded white and black to help distinguish the memory channels.

Supported Memory Types and Capacities

Two types of memory are accepted by the R6515 server: ECC Registered (RDIMMs) and Load Reduced (LRDIMMs). Module capacities of 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB can be used with the PowerEdge R6515. It is important to know that 128GB modules can only be used with one type of RAM: Load Reduced. With LRDIMMs, you can achieve an overall greater RAM capacity than you can with RDIMMs. With RDIMMs, the greatest possible configuration you can achieve is 1TB (1024GB) with 16x64GB. On the other hand, with LRDIMMs you can achieve a maximum configuration of 2TB (2048GB) with 16x128GB.

Supported Memory Speeds

The Dell PowerEdge R6515 supported memory speeds of 2666MT/s, 2933MT/s, and 3200MT/s. The processor you install will determine that maximum memory speed that installed modules can run at. If you install a processor that supports a lower max memory speed than the speeds that you have installed, then the install modules will clock down to that maximum speed. For example, if the install processor supports a max speed of 2933MT/s, and you install a 3200MT/s module, the module will operate at 2933MT/s.

The Dell PowerEdge R6515 server has a wide range of storage options to choose from. The R6515’s chassis determines whether 2.5” or 3.5” drives can be installed. The R6515 can accepts HDDs, SSDs, and M.2s. Supported drive interfaces for the R6515 are: SATA, SAS, and NVMe.

Supported Drives

NVMe is in demand across datacenters around the world. NVMe offers major performance benefits. Compared to most non-NVMe drives, NVMe drives are much faster. If you are interested in NVMe for the PowerEdge R6515, then you are in luck.

U.2 NVMe and Backplane NVMe

Out of the three chassis options for the PowerEdge R6515, only one has an NVMe capable backplane. The 10 Bay SFF chassis supports up to ten NVMe drives in the backplane. The other two chassis options only support SAS and SATA drives.

M.2 NVMe

A maximum of two M.2 NVMe drives can be installed in to the R6515 server via a Dell BOSS S1 card. The Dell BOSS S1 card supports hardware RAID. There is no support for the BOSS S2 for this server.

The Dell PowerEdge R6515 can accept up to two hot-swap power supply units (PSU). Because the PSUs are hot-swap, they can be removed or added while the system is running, as long as one unit remains plugged into the server. There are two power supply options to choose from: 550W AC Platinum and 700W 100-240VAC Platinum. For more power-intensive application, it is best to go with the 700W options. For lower-end applications, the 550W unit works just fine.

In order to connect a server to the Internet, it will need some type of Network Interface Card (NIC). A NIC can manifest as ports that are built-in to the motherboard. It can also manifest as an additional card that can be installed into the system. The PowerEdge R6515 has two RJ45 Ethernet ports built into the back of the motherboard. You can also install one LOM Mezzanine card into the back of the R6515.