Will Dell R710 drive caddy work in Dell R730?

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ViciousXUSMC

Active Member
Nov 27, 2016
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Kinda finally rotating out a lot of my old gear.

I am going to keep one full size server around for NAS duties.

I have not found the deal of the centry on a Dell R730XD yet (what I plan to use) but since I have a fully loaded Dell R710 and Dell R510 I am curious if those drive caddies I already have (3.5" LFF) will work for the R730?

If so that might save me like $100 as they are not cheap and I can go more for a bare bones R730XD and build it out myself to spec.
 

neb50

Member
Aug 28, 2018
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The R720 and R730 use the same drive trays. The R740 are different.
I haven't used a R710, so not sure if they are the same as the R720 but they at least look the same.
 

jabuzzard

Member
Mar 22, 2021
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Yes the RX10, RX20 and RX30 where X is either 3,4,5,67, or 8 all use the same caddy. The design changed a bit over the years but they work interchangeably. Originally I think they where designed with the notion of using interposer boards, judging by the screw holes in the oldest caddies, but then nearline SAS became a thing and they never changed the tooling. They changed the design in the RX40 series, it looks cheaper to produce.
 

ericloewe

Active Member
Apr 24, 2017
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They changed the design in the RX40 series, it looks cheaper to produce.
Biggest difference is that they got rid of the extra space for the stupid SAS interposers. In fact, Gen 11/12/13 trays have two sets of mounting holes, one labeled "SAS" and positioned for disks to actually connect to the backplane, and one labeled "SATA", further away from the backplane, presumably to allow for the useless piece of crap interposer to fit. The extra centimeters were desperately needed inside the chassis as servers were getting longer and longer by Gen 14.

Gen 14 also made sense for the change because they changed the whole design language post EMC acquisition (some Gen 13s carry the short-lived DellEMC logo instead of the old Dell logo).

Gen 14/15/16 use the same trays, and the renders I've seen of Gen 17 strongly suggest they'll use the same design as well.
 

jabuzzard

Member
Mar 22, 2021
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Biggest difference is that they got rid of the extra space for the stupid SAS interposers. In fact, Gen 11/12/13 trays have two sets of mounting holes, one labeled "SAS" and positioned for disks to actually connect to the backplane, and one labeled "SATA", further away from the backplane, presumably to allow for the useless piece of crap interposer to fit. The extra centimeters were desperately needed inside the chassis as servers were getting longer and longer by Gen 14.
I have seen Gen 11/12/13 caddies without the SATA and interpossers holes. I figure at some point the tooling wore out and they removed them. The bit of aluminium across the bottom is not present in later caddies either. However, I guess you are right the main reason for the redesign in Gen14 was to get the space back that was allowed for the non-existent interposer.
 

ericloewe

Active Member
Apr 24, 2017
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Must have been a late Gen 13 thing, I've seen them on trays up to 2015ish, at least. Even the knockoffs have the "SATA" mounting holes!