Dell PowerEdge T550 Tower Server

Dell PowerEdge T550 — Technical Specifications & Product Overview

1. System Architecture & Processing

• Form Factor: 5U tower or rack-mountable layout (using an optional rack mount kit).

• Processor Support: Up to two 3rd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors (Ice Lake), up to 32 cores per processor.

• Processor Interconnect: 3 UPI (Ultra Path Interconnect) links per CPU up to 11.2 GT/s.

• Thermal Design Power (TDP): Supports up to 220W per processor.

2. Memory Subsystem

• DIMM Slots: 16 DDR4 DIMM slots (8 slots per processor).

• Memory Architecture: 8-channel memory per CPU (1 DIMM per channel).

• Supported RAM Types: Registered DIMMs (RDIMMs) and Load-Reduced DIMMs (LRDIMMs).

• Maximum Capacity: Up to 1.0 TB using 64GB RDIMMs.

• Maximum Speed: Up to 3200 MT/s (Note: 16G architectures transition to DDR5, but the T550 utilizes optimized DDR4 infrastructure).

• Advanced Features: Advanced ECC, Memory Optimized, Memory Sparing, Fault Resilient Memory.

3. Storage & Drive Bays

The T550 chassis features standard front hot-plug backplanes rather than the cabled setups seen in lower-tier models:

• Configuration A: Up to 8 x 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS/SATA/NVMe HDDs/SSDs.

• Configuration B: Up to 16 x 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS/SATA/NVMe HDDs/SSDs.

• Configuration C: Up to 24 x 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS/SATA/NVMe HDDs/SSDs.

• Configuration D: Up to 8 x 3.5-inch hot-swap SAS/SATA HDDs/SSDs.

4. Storage Controllers & Internal Boot

• Internal Hardware RAID: PERC H345, PERC H745, PERC H755, PERC H755N (NVMe optimized).

• External HBAs: HBA355e.

• Software RAID: Intel Embedded Software RAID S150.

• Internal Dedicated Boot: BOSS-S2 (Boot Optimized Storage Subsystem), providing hardware RAID via hot-swappable 2 x M.2 SATA SSDs accessible from the rear pane.

5. Expansion I/O Slots (PCIe Layout)

Provides up to 5 PCIe Gen4 slots for low-latency adapter throughput:

• Slot 1: Full-Height, Full-Length (FH/FL) PCIe Gen4 x16 (from CPU1).

• Slot 2: FH/FL PCIe Gen4 x8 (x16 physical connector, from CPU2).

• Slot 3: FH/FL PCIe Gen4 x16 (from CPU2).

• Slot 4: FH/FL PCIe Gen4 x16 (from CPU1).

• Slot 5: FH/FL PCIe Gen4 x8 (x16 physical connector, from CPU2).

6. Accelerator Support (GPU)

• Supports up to 2 x double-width 300W accelerators or 5 x single-width 700W/similar accelerators (e.g., NVIDIA A2, A30, or A40 depending on thermal qualification layout).

• Requirement: Requires a dual-processor configuration and high-performance cooling fan configurations.

7. Networking, Ports & Connectivity

• Embedded Network Interfaces: 2 x 1GbE LOM ports on board.

• OCP Options: 1 x OCP 3.0 mezzanine slot (supports x8 PCIe Gen4 lane bandwidth adapters for 10GbE/256GbE setups).

• Front Ports: 1 x Dedicated iDRAC Direct (Micro-AB USB), 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x USB 3.0.

• Rear Ports: 1 x Dedicated iDRAC RJ-45, 1 x Serial DB9, 1 x VGA port, 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x USB 3.0.

8. Embedded Management & Hardware Security

• Management Architecture: iDRAC9 (Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller 9) infrastructure (Express, Enterprise, or Datacenter options).

• Security Core: Digitally signed firmware, Silicon Root of Trust, Secure Boot, System Lockdown mode, Secure Erase, TPM 2.0 module.

9. Power Supply Units (PSU)

• 800W Platinum (100-240V AC or 240V HVDC), hot-plug redundant.

• 1100W Titanium (100-240V AC or 240V HVDC), hot-plug redundant.

• 1400W Platinum (100-240V AC or 240V HVDC), hot-plug redundant.

• 2400W Platinum (100-240V AC or 240V HVDC), hot-plug redundant.