The PowerEdge R260 is a one-socket 1U rack server that Dell quotes at 461.14 mm deep without its bezel, built around Xeon 6300, Xeon E-2400 or Pentium processors and four DDR5 UDIMM slots. It is aimed at small offices and near-edge sites that want a managed server in a shallow rack. Below is Dell’s documented specification, read against the constraints a single supply and a six-bay ceiling impose.
Our read of Dell’s documentation: where the R260 is strong, and the limits worth knowing before you spec one.
Strengths
+Short depth: Dell’s comparison table quotes 461.14 mm without the bezel, or 426.6 mm with the cabled supply, against 585 mm for the previous-generation R250.
+Nineteen processors in three families, from the 35 W two-core Pentium G7400T to the 12-core, 95 W Xeon 6377P, all under the same 1U heat sink.
+Two storage approaches in a small box: two cabled 3.5-inch drives of up to 16 TB each, or six 2.5-inch bays, two of which can take direct-attached NVMe.
+Office-level noise in light builds: Dell measured 30 dB at the bystander position for its Economy and Volume configurations at 25 °C.
+Dell’s security list for this entry model includes Silicon Root of Trust, TPM 2.0 and Secured-core server, plus System Lockdown with an iDRAC9 Enterprise or Datacenter licence.
Watch-outs
!A single power supply: Dell states the R260 takes one AC or DC unit, so there is no redundancy. The R360 is the 1U sibling with 1+1 supplies.
!Four UDIMM slots cap memory at 128 GB, and Dell’s memory table runs the modules at 4400 MT/s at best despite their 5600 MT/s rating.
!No GPU option, no OCP slot and no rear drives; expansion is two low-profile Gen4 slots on one riser.
!The 700 W Titanium supply has no rating below 200 V; only the 450 W Platinum unit runs from 100–120 V circuits.
!Static rails only: the A4 kit cannot slide the server out for service and does not take a cable-management arm.
Processors19 SKUs
Cores / CPU2–12
DIMM slots4
Drive layouts5
Max bays6
PSU options2 · to 700 W
02 — Processors
19 supported processors, mapped
Dell lists 19 processors, all for the single socket: nine Xeon 6300 series parts, eight Xeon E-2400 and two Pentium G7400 models. None exceeds 12 cores or 95 W, and Dell specifies the same 1U standard heat sink in every configuration, so the choice here is about matching cores and clock to the workload and its licensing rather than about cooling.
Processor landscape — cores × TDP
19 SKUs · 3 families
Xeon 6300 9Xeon E-2400 8Pentium 2Bubble size = L3 cache · hover a bubble for the full SKU
Processor explorer
filter · sort · compare
Processor
Cores / threads
Base
L3 cache
TDP
W / core
Memory
Intel Xeon 6377P
12 / 24
3.1 GHz
36 MB
95 W
7.9
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon 6369P
8 / 16
3.3 GHz
24 MB
95 W
11.9
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon 6357P
8 / 16
3 GHz
24 MB
80 W
10.0
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon 6353P
8 / 16
2.7 GHz
24 MB
65 W
8.1
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon E-2488
8 / 16
3.2 GHz
24 MB
95 W
11.9
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon E-2478
8 / 16
2.8 GHz
24 MB
80 W
10.0
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon E-2468
8 / 16
2.6 GHz
24 MB
65 W
8.1
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon 6349P
6 / 12
3.6 GHz
18 MB
95 W
15.8
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon 6337P
6 / 12
3.5 GHz
18 MB
80 W
13.3
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon 6333P
6 / 12
3.1 GHz
18 MB
65 W
10.8
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon E-2486
6 / 12
3.5 GHz
18 MB
95 W
15.8
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon E-2456
6 / 12
3.3 GHz
18 MB
80 W
13.3
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon E-2436
6 / 12
2.9 GHz
18 MB
65 W
10.8
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon 6325P
4 / 8
3.5 GHz
12 MB
55 W
13.8
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon 6315P
4 / 4
2.8 GHz
12 MB
55 W
13.8
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon E-2434
4 / 8
3.4 GHz
12 MB
55 W
13.8
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon E-2414
4 / 4
2.6 GHz
12 MB
55 W
13.8
DDR5-4800
Intel Pentium G7400
2 / 4
3.7 GHz
6 MB
46 W
23.0
DDR5-4800
Intel Pentium G7400T
2 / 4
3.1 GHz
6 MB
35 W
17.5
DDR5-4800
Dell’s processor table marks turbo only as present or absent — the two Pentiums have none — so no boost clocks are shown.
Every row of the processor table lists 4800 MT/s memory and 128 GB capacity; the memory chapter sets the speed the modules actually run at.
Xeon 6300 series processors are not supported with Windows Server 2019, per Dell’s note under the processor table.
Each processor integrates 16 PCIe Gen5 lanes at 32 GT/s plus four Gen4 lanes at 16 GT/s; the chassis exposes them as Gen4 slots.
In ASHRAE A3 and A4 environments, processors rated above 80 W are not supported.
03 — Memory
4 DDR5 DIMM slots
Four DDR5 ECC UDIMM slots and two module sizes: 16 GB single-rank and 32 GB dual-rank, both rated 5600 MT/s. Four 32 GB modules give the 128 GB ceiling. Dell’s supported-DIMM table contains unbuffered modules only.
Capacity with every slot filled
by DIMM size
Operating speed
per Dell memory tables
Processor
1 DIMM / channel
2 DIMMs / channel
Any listed CPU · 16 GB 1R UDIMM
4400 MT/s
4000 MT/s
Any listed CPU · 32 GB 2R UDIMM
4400 MT/s
3600 MT/s
The guide quotes three speeds: 6400 MT/s as the DDR5 ceiling in its overview, 4800 MT/s in the processor table and 4400 MT/s as the operating speed in the memory table. The last is the one that describes the fitted modules.
No 6400 MT/s module appears in the supported-DIMM list, which stops at 5600 MT/s.
128 GB is the documented maximum both per processor and per system.
Memory is not a lever for scaling this server; workloads that need more than 128 GB belong on a platform such as the R470, which has 16 DIMM slots.
04 — Storage
5 drive-bay layouts, up to 6 bays
Five internal configurations, all at the front, and no rear bays. The 3.5-inch option is a pair of cabled drives — Dell’s acoustic table lists it as a cabled backplane — while the six-bay 2.5-inch backplane is hot-plug. The bay map draws four of them; the chipset-SATA version of the four-plus-two NVMe layout looks the same as the PERC version.
Headline layouts
front panel view
Front panel
Six hot-plug bays on a PERC for 10K SAS hard drives or SAS and SATA SSDs — the most SAS/SATA drives the R260 takes.
SAS/SATANVMeSAS/SATA + NVMe
Controllers & boot
S160 — Software RAID. Entry tier; SATA / Gen4 NVMe software RAID, Windows only per feature matrix; RAID 0,1,5,10; up to 8 drives
PERC H355 — RAID. Value tier, PERC 11 adapter; no cache; RAID 0,1,10; replaces H345
HBA355i — HBA. Value tier, HBA 11 internal adapter
PERC H755 — RAID, 8GB cache. Performance tier, PERC 11 adapter; 8 GB flash NV-backed cache; RAID 0,1,5,6,10,50,60
BOSS-N1 (M.2) — boot
Internal USB 3.2 Gen1 — boot
The overview rates the chassis for 12 Gbps SAS and 6 Gbps SATA, while the drive table also lists 24 Gbps SAS SSDs; Dell says the controller determines the speed achieved.
PERC H355 offers RAID 0, 1 and 10 without cache; the H755 adds RAID 5, 6, 50 and 60 and 8 GB of flash-backed cache.
Adapter PERCs connect to the system board through a small high-density connector rather than a PCIe slot. The H355 replaces the H345 as Dell’s entry RAID card.
Dell warns that Windows Server 2025 installation may fail on an S160 software-RAID system when NVMe drives are present, and refers to a documented fix.
BOSS-N1 is an M.2 boot module fitted at the rear; an internal USB 3.2 Gen1 port is the other boot option. BOSS-N1 is not supported in ASHRAE A3 or A4 conditions.
External options: USB tape, NAS software stacks and 12 Gb MD-series JBODs through the HBA355e, which addresses up to 240 drives.
Every documented layout
5 with drive bays
2.5-inch3.5-inchEDSFF (E1.S / E3.S)
05 — I/O & networking
PCIe and networking
I/O topology
1 socket
The processor brings 16 Gen5 and four Gen4 PCIe lanes, but the R260 turns them into two Gen4 slots on a single butterfly riser — or none at all in the riser-less build. Adapter PERCs plug into their own board connector, so adding hardware RAID does not use up either slot.
Network adapters Dell lists
7 options
Adapter
Ports
Form
Broadcom 4 x 1 GbE F1 PCIe
4 × 1GbE
PCIe
Intel 2 x 10 GbE BT PCIe
2 × 10GbE
PCIe
Intel 4 x 10 GbE BT PCIe
4 × 10GbE
PCIe
Broadcom 3 x 10 GbE BT PCIe (port count as printed)
3 × 10GbE
PCIe
Broadcom 4 x 10 GbE BT PCIe
4 × 10GbE
PCIe
Intel 4 x 1 GbE F1 PCIe
4 × 1GbE
PCIe
Broadcom BCM5720 2 x 1 GbE LOM
2 × 1GbE
LOM
There is no OCP 3.0 slot. Faster networking means a PCIe card: Dell lists six adapters, 1GbE and 10GbE, with two to four ports.
Riser configuration RC0 has no riser; RC1 adds the Gen4 riser and supports an adapter PERC. Neither allows rear storage.
The two LOM ports run at 10/100/1000 Mbps, and an optional card adds up to four more.
Cards above 25 W, or not qualified by Dell, are not supported in ASHRAE A3 or A4 conditions.
06 — Power & cooling
2 power supplies, 450–700 W
The R260 runs from exactly one power supply. Dell offers two: a 450 W Platinum cabled unit in a 106 mm form factor, and a 700 W Titanium non-cabled unit in the newer 60 mm format. Neither can be paired for redundancy; the R360, by contrast, supports two supplies in 1+1.
AC
450 W Platinum (106 mm, cabled): 100–240 V AC at 6.5–3.5 A, 1730 BTU/hr and the full 450 W at low line; efficiency is 90 % at 20 % load, 94 % at half load and 91 % at full load.
700 W Titanium (60 mm, non-cabled): rated 4.1 A on 200–240 V AC or 3.4 A on 240 V DC, 2625 BTU/hr, with no low-line rating; efficiency runs from 90 % at 10 % load to a 96 % peak at half load.
The 450 W cabled supply uses a C13/C14 cord set.
Choosing the cabled supply cuts Dell’s quoted depth to 426.6 mm without a bezel. Dell’s weight table gives 9.44 kg for a fully populated 2.5-inch system with the cabled PSU and 9.60 kg for the row it labels “redundant PSU”, although the R260 takes only one supply.
07 — Management, security & OS
Run it, secure it, choose the OS
Management
iDRAC9 — Basic tier offered on 100–500 series; Enterprise and Datacenter upgrades
iDRAC Direct (front micro-AB USB)
iDRAC RESTful API with Redfish
iDRAC Service Module
Zero-touch provisioning with DHCP (needs iDRAC Enterprise)
OpenManage Enterprise with Power Manager, Service and Update Manager plugins
CloudIQ for PowerEdge
OpenManage Mobile
Integrations for VMware vCenter, Microsoft System Center and Windows Admin Center
Security
Silicon Root of Trust
Cryptographically signed firmware
Secure Boot
Secured-core server
Secured Component Verification
Data at Rest Encryption (SEDs, local or external key management)
System Lockdown (iDRAC9 Enterprise or Datacenter)
Secure Erase
TPM 2.0 FIPS, CC-TCG certified · TPM 2.0 China NationZ
Security bezel or optional filter bezel
Operating systems
Canonical Ubuntu Server LTS
Microsoft Windows Server with Hyper-V
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
VMware ESXi
Dell NativeEdge
08 — Compare
R250 → R260
How the R260 compares with the R250 it succeeds, row by row from Dell’s own comparison table. The depth cut and the move to DDR5 are the headline changes; the loss of the four-bay 3.5-inch option is the one to check before replacing an R250 like for like.
Previous generationPowerEdge R250
This modelPowerEdge R260
Processors
1 × Xeon E-2300, up to 8 cores
1 × Xeon 6300 or E-2400 (up to 12 cores) or Pentium (2 cores)
Memory
4 × DDR4 UDIMM · up to 3200 MT/s
4 × DDR5 ECC UDIMM · up to 6400 MT/s (processor-limited)
Front bays
Up to 4 × 3.5" or 2 × 3.5" SAS/SATA
2 × 3.5" · 6 × 2.5" · 4 × 2.5" + 2 × NVMe
RAID & boot
H345, H355, H755, HBA355i · BOSS-S1 · S150
H355, H755, HBA355i · BOSS-N1 · S160
Power
450 W Bronze or Platinum (cabled) · 700 W Titanium (non-cabled)
450 W Platinum (cabled) · 700 W Titanium (non-cabled)
Fans
Up to 3 standard + 1 optional HPR
Up to 5 standard + 1 optional HPR
Depth
585 mm (no bezel) · 598.64 mm (bezel)
461.14 mm (no bezel) · 496.8 mm (bezel)
PCIe
Up to 2 × Gen4
Up to 2 × Gen4 on riser
Rear USB
USB 3.0 + USB 2.0
USB 3.2 Gen1 + USB 2.0
TPM
TPM 1.2/2.0 · TCM 2.0 optional
TPM 2.0 · TPM 2.0 China NationZ
GPU
None
None
Source: Dell PowerEdge R260 Technical Guide (June 2026, Rev. A04), Table 2 — features comparison of the PowerEdge R260 and PowerEdge R250.
The R260 family side by side
The R260, the redundant-power R360 and the T160 and T360 towers draw on the same 19 processors and four UDIMM slots, according to their technical guides. The R470 is the step up when memory or bays run out, with 16 DIMM slots and up to 4 TB. The matrix sets their documented limits side by side.
This modelSiblings and successorEach value from that model’s own verified spec file · bars scale per column
Head-to-head comparisons
Every figure on this page, set against the machines buyers weigh it up with.
Four builds sized for small sites, each using only parts the configurator accepts on the R260 and opening pre-filled so you can change them. All of them assume the single power supply the chassis allows.
Small office
Two-disk file and print server
For shared folders, print queues and a small directory rather than heavy compute. Two 8 TB SATA drives on chipset SATA, mirrored with S160 software RAID, need no RAID card, and a 55 W four-core processor lets Dell’s thermal table run the 3.5-inch chassis on three standard fans. It sits close to the Economy build Dell measured at 30 dB.
Dell names software RAID only for the four-bay 2.5-inch layout, although its Economy acoustic build runs this cabled 3.5-inch pair from chipset SATA — confirm S160 for it when ordering. The controller matrix marks S160 as Windows software RAID (a footnote mentions a Linux MDRAID utility). Adding a PCIe card or BOSS-N1 raises the fan count to four.
Dell pitches the R260 at near-edge sites such as retail offices and warehouses. This build uses a 65 W eight-core Xeon 6353P, which stays inside the 80 W limit Dell sets for ASHRAE A3 and A4 conditions, four SATA SSDs in RAID 5 on the H755, and a 10GbE card for the store network. Specify the filter bezel where dust is a concern.
1 × Xeon 6353P — 8 cores @ 2.7 GHz, 65 W
2 × 32 GB DDR5-5600 ECC UDIMM — 64 GB
4 × 1.92 TB SATA SSD in the six-bay backplane — RAID 5, 5.76 TB usable, two bays free
PERC H755 adapter, 8 GB flash-backed cache
Intel 2 × 10GbE (BT) PCIe adapter
1 × 450 W Platinum cabled PSU
Windows Server 2025
For the extended A3 (5–40 °C) and A4 (5–45 °C) ranges Dell also rules out BOSS-N1 and any card above 25 W, so check the network adapter’s power before relying on them.
The Xeon 6377P is the only 12-core part on the list, and with all four slots holding 32 GB modules it gives a small Hyper-V host 24 threads and 128 GB. Four SAS SSDs on the H755 carry the virtual machines, the two direct-attached NVMe bays hold a fast scratch volume, and BOSS-N1 keeps the hypervisor off the data drives.
4 × 1.92 TB SAS SSD on the PERC (RAID 10) + 2 × 3.84 TB NVMe Gen4, direct-attached
PERC H755 adapter, 8 GB flash-backed cache
BOSS-N1 M.2 boot module
Intel 4 × 10GbE (BT) PCIe adapter
1 × 700 W Titanium PSU (200–240 V AC or 240 V DC)
Windows Server 2025 Datacenter
Both the 95 W processor and BOSS-N1 are excluded from ASHRAE A3/A4 operation, so this build belongs in a normal A2 room (10–35 °C). The single supply remains a single point of failure.
Two internal 12 TB drives hold the backup catalogue and recent restore points, and an HBA355e opens a path to Dell’s 12 Gb MD-series JBODs — the external HBA is rated for up to 240 drives — or a USB tape unit takes copies off site. The six-core, 80 W E-2456 stays within the A3/A4 processor limit.
1 × Xeon E-2456 — 6 cores @ 3.3 GHz, 80 W
4 × 16 GB DDR5-5600 ECC UDIMM — 64 GB
2 × 12 TB 3.5-inch SATA HDD, cabled — RAID 1
PERC H355 adapter for the internal pair
HBA355e external SAS adapter for a JBOD
Intel 2 × 10GbE (BT) PCIe adapter
1 × 450 W Platinum cabled PSU
Windows Server 2025
Dell lists USB-attached tape for this model; SAS tape is not in its external-device table. One power supply feeds the whole backup role.
Our refurbished PowerEdge configurator has no single-socket Intel model, but two older 1U dual-socket machines cover similar small-site duties if DDR5 and current Xeon processors are not requirements.
14G · re-certified
PowerEdge R440
1U rack · up to 2 × Xeon Scalable
16 DIMM slots · 1 TB DDR4 maximum
10 × 2.5" or 4 × 3.5" drives
iDRAC9 management
Choose it when a branch needs more memory or drive bays than the R260’s 128 GB and six bays, and a second socket would be useful.
42.8 × 482 mm · Dell quotes 461.14 mm deep without bezel, 496.8 mm with bezel, 426.6 mm with cabled PSU and no bezel · drawing: ears to PSU handles 461.14 mm, ears to rear wall 426.6 mm, plus 22.0 mm in front of the ears (35.6 mm with bezel)
Weight
Fully populated: 9.44 kg (2.5-inch) / 9.45 kg (3.5-inch) with the cabled PSU; 9.60 / 9.61 kg in the rows Dell labels “redundant PSU” · 6.79–7 kg without drives
Cooling
Air · up to five standard fans plus one optional high-performance fan · N+1 fan redundancy
Bezel
Security bezel or optional filter bezel
Rails
A4 static ReadyRails (stab-in) · 4-post square, round or threaded; 2-post flush or centre · no CMA
USB tape · NAS software stack · 12 Gb MD-series JBODs
Expansion & networking
PCIe
Up to 2 × Gen4 on one butterfly riser: slot 1 x8; slot 2 x16 connector at x8 · both low profile, half length
LOM
2 × 1GbE, Broadcom BCM5720
Network cards
Optional: 4 × 1GbE, 2 or 4 × 10GbE (Intel or Broadcom); one Broadcom 10GbE card listed with 3 ports
OCP / GPU
No OCP slot · no GPU option
Power
Supplies
One only — no redundancy
450 W Platinum
Cabled, 106 mm · 100–240 V AC · 1730 BTU/hr
700 W Titanium
Non-cabled, 60 mm · 200–240 V AC or 240 V DC · 2625 BTU/hr
Ports & video
Front
USB 2.0 · iDRAC Direct (micro-AB USB)
Rear
USB 3.2 Gen1 · USB 2.0 · VGA · serial · dedicated iDRAC Ethernet · 2 × 1GbE
Internal
USB 3.2 Gen1
Video
Up to 1920 × 1200 at 60 Hz
Environment & acoustics
ASHRAE A2
10–35 °C up to 900 m; 1 °C lower per 300 m above
ASHRAE A3 / A4
5–40 °C / 5–45 °C — no CPU above 80 W, no BOSS-N1, no cards above 25 W
Acoustics
30 dB idle (Economy and Volume builds, 25 °C) · 62 dB at 35 °C full load (Feature Rich build)
12 — FAQ
R260 questions, answered from the documentation
What is the maximum memory of the Dell PowerEdge R260?
It tops out at 128 GB: four DDR5 ECC UDIMM slots, each holding a 32 GB dual-rank module. The only other size Dell lists is a 16 GB single-rank module; both are rated 5600 MT/s but operate at up to 4400 MT/s.
Which processors fit the R260?
Its one socket takes any of 19 parts: nine Xeon 6300 series (4 to 12 cores, 55–95 W), eight Xeon E-2400 (4 to 8 cores, 55–95 W) and the two-core Pentium G7400 and G7400T. The 12-core Xeon 6377P has the most cores. Xeon 6300 parts do not support Windows Server 2019.
How many drives does the R260 hold?
Up to six 2.5-inch drives at the front — all SAS/SATA, or four SAS/SATA plus two direct-attached NVMe — or two cabled 3.5-inch drives. There are no rear bays. BOSS-N1 adds a separate M.2 boot module.
Does the R260 have redundant power supplies?
No. Dell states it supports one AC or DC supply: a 450 W Platinum cabled unit or a 700 W Titanium non-cabled unit. For 1+1 redundancy in 1U, the R360 is the sibling to look at.
Can I fit a GPU in the R260?
No. Dell’s comparison table lists no GPU options for the R260. Its 1U sibling, the R360, accepts a single 60 W NVIDIA A2.
How deep is the R260, and will it fit a short rack?
Dell quotes 461.14 mm without the bezel, 496.8 mm with it, and 426.6 mm with the cabled supply and no bezel. Its dimension drawing measures the first and last from the front mounting ears, with a further 22.0 mm (35.6 mm with the bezel) ahead of them. Dell’s A4 static rails adjust between 608 and 879 mm on square-hole racks and have a rail depth of 622 mm.
What PCIe expansion does the R260 have?
Two low-profile, half-length PCIe Gen4 slots on a single riser: slot 1 is x8 and slot 2 is an x16 connector wired at x8. There is no OCP slot, so any networking beyond the two on-board 1GbE ports needs a PCIe card.
How does the R260 differ from the R360?
Both use the same 19 processors and four UDIMM slots. The R360 adds a second supply for 1+1 redundancy, takes up to eight 2.5-inch or four 3.5-inch drives, supports one 60 W NVIDIA A2 and offers sliding as well as static rails. The R260 is shallower and lighter, with one supply and at most six bays.
What changed from the R250?
According to Dell’s comparison, the R260 moves from DDR4 to DDR5, from Xeon E-2300 (8 cores) to Xeon 6300 or E-2400 (up to 12 cores), and from BOSS-S1 to BOSS-N1. Its table lists 461.14 against 585 mm without the bezel and 496.8 against 598.64 mm with it, but the R250’s four-bay 3.5-inch option is gone.
Is the PowerEdge R260 end of life?
Not according to Dell’s R260 technical guide (Rev. A04, June 2026), which gives no end-of-sale or end-of-support date. Once the first seven years of ProSupport run out, the Post Standard Support service in its appendix can keep hardware covered for as many as five further years. Our server end-of-life checker will show any date Dell announces later.
Specifications are extracted from Dell’s published documents and independently re-checked line by line. Configurations are quote-based; availability and exact options are confirmed at quotation. Last reviewed 2026-09-11.
