Specifications

23 PowerEdge R420 Technical Guide
Controller
Description
Features
RAID
modes
supported
Form factor
Usage
model
PERC S110
Software
RAID
3Gb/s SATA software RAID
controller that supports up
to 4 physical disks or 8
virtual disks
Supports up to 4
hot-plug SATA drives, no
expansion, Microsoft
Windows only
0, 1, 5, 10
System
board-
embedded
SATA
Entry-level
Table 13 lists the storage matrix for the R420 hard drives, backplanes and Dell PERC cards.
Table 13. Hard-drive backplane options
Backplane options
Controller
Drive types
4 x 3.5” cabled
PERC S110, H310
1
, H710
1
, H710P
1
3.5” SATA
3.5” Nearline SAS
3.5” SAS
4 x 3.5” or 2.5” hot-plug
PERC S110, H310
1
, H710
1
, H710P
1
3.5” SATA
3.5” Nearline SAS
3.5” SAS
2.5” SAS
2.5” SSD
8 x 2.5" hot-plug
PERC H310
1
, H710
1
, H710P
1
2.5” SATA
2.5” Nearline SAS
2.5” SAS
2.5” SSD
1
Mini-type PERC
CacheCade
CacheCade is a technology that provides automated storage tiering on SSDs with the PERC H810
and H710P. It works by detecting the most often accessed data and copying it over time to the
CacheCade SSD(s) where that cached data is accessed directly, instead of accessing the hard disk
drives. This can dramatically increase how your applications respond when they are under peak
traffic times and how they perform when response time is critical.
CacheCade provides cost-effective performance scaling for database-type applications that
perform lots of random reads, avoiding the cost of adding extra drives.
Optical drive
The R420 supports one slim, 9.5mm, internal optical drive on the eight-drive bay chassis through
the system board embedded SATA. The four-drive bay chassis supports the 12.7mm optical drive.
The R420 supports both DVD-ROM and DVD+/-RW.
Tape drive
The R420 does not support internal tape drives.