The PowerEdge T160 is a 3U single-socket tower just 132.52 mm wide and 408.8 mm deep with its bezel, meant for a desk, shelf or back office rather than a rack. It shares the R260’s 19 processors and 128 GB UDIMM ceiling but takes up to five cabled internal drives and one cabled supply. The sections below set out what Dell documents for it, down to how loud it runs.
Our read of Dell’s documentation: where the T160 is strong, and the limits worth knowing before you spec one.
Strengths
+Compact and quiet: 132.52 mm wide, 11.64 kg fully loaded, and measured at 28–29 dB at the bystander position in Dell’s idle and operating tests at 25 °C.
+The same 19-processor list as Dell’s entry rack servers, up to the 12-core Xeon 6377P, in a chassis that needs no rack.
+Five drives in a small footprint: three 3.5-inch plus two 2.5-inch, with the 2.5-inch pair available as direct-attached NVMe — up to 63.36 TB by Dell’s figure.
+Seven external USB ports: three USB 2.0 and three USB 3.2 Gen1 at the rear plus a front USB 3.2 Gen1, which leaves room for the USB tape drives Dell supports.
+Dell publishes a rugged-environment rating of 5–55 °C alongside the usual ASHRAE classes, and the rear has a Kensington lock slot.
Watch-outs
!The drives sit in internal cabled cages rather than front carriers, and the guide never describes them as hot-swappable.
!One cabled 300 W or 500 W supply and no redundancy option.
!Two PCIe slots only, and slot 1 runs at x4 bandwidth; a PERC adapter takes one of them. The T150 had four full-height slots.
!Maximum capacity fell from the T150’s 80 TB (four 3.5-inch drives) to 63.36 TB.
!No GPU support and a shorter network-card list than the rack models — no four-port 1GbE Broadcom or four-port 10GbE Intel adapter.
Processors19 SKUs
Cores / CPU2–12
DIMM slots4
Drive layouts3
Max bays5
PSU options2 · to 500 W
02 — Processors
19 supported processors, mapped
The T160 draws on the same 19 processors as the R260 and R360, from the 35 W Pentium G7400T to the 12-core, 95 W Xeon 6377P. Cooling is one standard fan plus an optional high-performance fan, so the processor interacts with everything else you fit: Dell’s thermal matrix pairs each TDP and core count with a heat-sink and fan combination.
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
The thermal matrix covers 95 W parts with six or eight cores but has no row for the 12-core 6377P; confirm cooling for that part when ordering.
At 95 W the matrix lists the HPR/STD heat-sink and fan pairing; 80 W and below use STD/STD.
A BOSS module, any PCIe card or a drive in the 2.5-inch bay makes the high-performance PCIe fan mandatory in every configuration.
Windows Server 2019 is unsupported on Xeon 6300 series processors.
Turbo is marked only as yes or no in Dell’s table; the Pentiums have none.
03 — Memory
4 DDR5 DIMM slots
Four slots for unregistered ECC DDR5, taking 16 GB single-rank or 32 GB dual-rank modules rated 5600 MT/s. The ceiling is 128 GB, the same as the T150 before it, so the move to DDR5 brings speed rather than capacity.
Capacity with every slot filled
by DIMM size
Operating speed
per Dell memory tables
Processor
1 DIMM / channel
2 DIMMs / channel
All CPUs · 16 GB single-rank
4400 MT/s
4000 MT/s
All CPUs · 32 GB dual-rank
4400 MT/s
3600 MT/s
Dell’s comparison quotes DIMM speeds up to 6400 MT/s, but the supported list tops out at 5600 MT/s modules and the operating speed is 4400 MT/s at best — the processor sets the limit.
The T150 ran DDR4 at up to 3200 MT/s with the same 128 GB maximum.
Dell’s acoustic test builds used two DIMMs (16 GB or 32 GB each), which is where the 28–29 dB figures come from.
04 — Storage
3 drive-bay layouts, up to 5 bays
Dell’s comparison table files them under front bays, but its front-view figure shows no drive carriers: three 3.5-inch drives sit in an internal cage, cabled to the chipset for SATA or to a PERC for SAS/SATA, and an optional second cage adds two 2.5-inch drives — SAS/SATA or direct-attached NVMe. Dell gives no front bay layout for these cabled cages, so none is drawn here.
Controllers & boot
S160 — Software RAID. Entry tier, SATA software RAID (chipset); NVMe presence may affect Windows Server 2025 install
PERC H355 Adapter — RAID. Value tier, PERC 11 adapter (replaces H345)
HBA355i Adapter — HBA. Value tier, internal HBA 11 adapter
Capacity limits as Dell states them: 48 TB with three 3.5-inch drives, 63.36 TB with the two 2.5-inch drives added.
Drive options: 3.5-inch 7.2K SAS or SATA from 2 to 16 TB; 2.5-inch 10K SAS HDD, SAS or SATA SSD and NVMe Gen4 up to 7.68 TB.
Controllers are adapters only — PERC H355, PERC H755, HBA355i and the external HBA355e — plus S160 software RAID on the chipset SATA ports. The slot table allows one PERC 11 adapter.
With S160 and NVMe drives both present, Windows Server 2025 setup can be affected; Dell points to the Installation and Service Manual or its support team for the fix.
BOSS-N1 runs two M.2 SSDs under hardware RAID from a dedicated internal slot, so it does not take a PCIe slot; USB boot is the alternative.
Outside the case, Dell supports USB tape drives, NAS appliance software and 12 Gb MD-series JBODs.
Every documented layout
3 with drive bays
2.5-inch3.5-inchEDSFF (E1.S / E3.S)
05 — I/O & networking
PCIe and networking
I/O topology
1 socket
There is no riser: both PCIe slots sit directly on the system board. Slot 2 gets the full x16 of bandwidth, while slot 1 is an x8 connector wired at x4. BOSS-N1 has its own internal slot, so the two PCIe slots are left for a RAID card, an HBA or network adapters.
Network adapters Dell lists
5 options
Adapter
Ports
Form
Intel 2 x 10 GbE BT PCIe
2 × 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 (port type printed 'F1') PCIe
4 × 1GbE
PCIe
Broadcom BCM5720 2 x 1 GbE LOM
2 × 1GbE
LOM
Card slot priority is 2 then 1; the system takes one PERC 11 adapter, up to two HBAs or external adapters, and up to two NICs. A PERC plus one network card therefore fills both slots.
The expansion slots are not hot-swappable.
Network cards: Intel 2 × 10GbE, Broadcom three- and four-port 10GbE, and Intel 4 × 1GbE; the LOM adds two 10/100/1000 ports.
Dell cautions that GPUs, network cards or other PCIe devices it has not validated void the system warranty if they cause damage.
06 — Power & cooling
2 power supplies, 300–500 W
A single cabled supply in a 120 mm form factor, with no redundancy option. Both choices — 300 W Bronze and 500 W Platinum — deliver their full rating anywhere from 100 to 240 V AC.
AC
300 W Bronze: 100–240 V AC at 4.6–2.3 A, 1250 BTU/hr; 82 / 85 / 82 % efficient at 20 / 50 / 100 % load (115 V AC).
500 W Platinum: 100–240 V AC at 7.0–3.5 A, 1920 BTU/hr; 90 / 92 / 89 % efficient at 20 / 50 / 100 % load (115 V AC).
Neither supply has a DC rating; Dell lists both for AC input only.
Cords are C13/C14, and the system can also connect to IT power systems with up to 240 V phase-to-phase.
All three of Dell’s acoustic test builds used the 300 W 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
OpenManage Enterprise with Power Manager, Service and Update Manager plugins
CloudIQ for PowerEdge
OpenManage Mobile
OpenManage 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
Kensington lock slot · filter bezel
Operating systems
Canonical Ubuntu Server LTS
Microsoft Windows Server with Hyper-V
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
VMware ESXi
08 — Compare
T150 → T160
Dell’s comparison of the T160 with the T150 describes a machine that shrank: rated 3U instead of 4U, 30.4 mm lower, 42.48 mm narrower and 44.95 mm shallower with the bezel, at the cost of one 3.5-inch bay and two PCIe slots.
Source: Dell PowerEdge T160 Technical Guide (August 2026, Rev. A06), Table 2 — features comparison of the PowerEdge T160 and PowerEdge T150.
The T160 family side by side
Dell’s towers step up from here: the T360 keeps the single socket, the 19 processors and 128 GB but holds up to eight 3.5-inch drives and supplies up to 700 W, and the T560 moves to two sockets and as many as 24 drive bays. The R260 and R360 put the T160’s processor and memory platform in a 1U rack chassis.
This modelSiblings and successorEach value from that model’s own verified spec file · bars scale per column
Four desk-side builds for offices without a rack. Every part is one the configurator accepts on the T160, and each build opens pre-filled for changes.
Small office
Quiet three-disk file server
Shared folders and a small directory for a team without an IT room: three 4 TB SATA drives cabled to the chipset under S160 software RAID, the 300 W Bronze supply and a four-core, 55 W Xeon 6325P. With no PCIe card, BOSS or 2.5-inch drive fitted, Dell’s thermal note does not call for the extra PCIe fan, and it is close to the Economy build Dell measured at 28 dB — two 16 GB DIMMs, the 300 W supply, no card or BOSS — though that test used a 70 W processor and a single 2 TB drive.
1 × Xeon 6325P — 4 cores @ 3.5 GHz, 55 W
2 × 16 GB DDR5-5600 ECC UDIMM — 32 GB
3 × 4 TB 3.5-inch SATA HDD, cabled to the chipset — 12 TB raw
S160 software RAID (SATA)
On-board 2 × 1GbE LOM
1 × 300 W Bronze cabled PSU
Windows Server 2025
Usable space depends on the RAID level set in S160; the T160 guide describes S160 as SATA software RAID without listing its levels.
A local backup copy that never leaves the office: three 12 TB SATA drives in RAID 5 on the H755 hold the repository, two SATA SSDs in the 2.5-inch cage carry the operating system, and a 10GbE card connects it to the network. Dell supports USB tape on the T160, and the rear panel has six USB ports to plug one into.
2 × 960 GB SATA SSD in the 2.5-inch cage — RAID 1 for the OS
PERC H755 adapter
Intel 2 × 10GbE (BT) PCIe adapter
1 × 500 W Platinum cabled PSU
Windows Server 2025
A PCIe card and 2.5-inch drives both bring in the high-performance PCIe fan. Dell’s five-drive test builds measured 29 dB idle at 25 °C but 52 dB under full load in 35 °C air.
For a shop, clinic or site office: a 65 W eight-core E-2468 with 64 GB, two direct-attached NVMe drives for the point-of-sale or practice database, and two 8 TB drives on a PERC H355 for files. The filter bezel keeps dust away from the components, and Dell rates the T160 for a 5–55 °C rugged environment as well as the usual ASHRAE ranges.
1 × Xeon E-2468 — 8 cores @ 2.6 GHz, 65 W
4 × 16 GB DDR5-5600 ECC UDIMM — 64 GB
2 × 1.92 TB NVMe Gen4, direct-attached in the 2.5-inch cage
2 × 8 TB 3.5-inch SATA HDD — RAID 1 on the PERC, one 3.5-inch position spare
PERC H355 adapter
Intel 4 × 1GbE PCIe adapter
1 × 500 W Platinum cabled PSU
Windows Server 2025
Keep a PERC in this build: Dell notes that with S160 software RAID, NVMe drives can disrupt Windows Server 2025 installation. The NVMe pair is direct-attached rather than behind the RAID card, so mirror it in the operating system if needed.
For a small number of virtual machines in an office: an eight-core, 95 W Xeon 6369P — the highest core count at 95 W that the T160 thermal matrix lists — with all four slots at 32 GB for 128 GB. Two NVMe drives hold the VMs, three 3.5-inch drives on the H755 hold file data, and BOSS-N1 keeps Hyper-V on its own hardware-RAID M.2 pair.
1 × Xeon 6369P — 8 cores @ 3.3 GHz, 95 W
4 × 32 GB DDR5-5600 ECC UDIMM — 128 GB
2 × 3.84 TB NVMe Gen4, direct-attached — VM storage
3 × 4 TB 3.5-inch SATA HDD on the PERC — RAID 5, 8 TB usable
PERC H755 adapter
BOSS-N1, 2 × M.2 in hardware RAID
Intel 2 × 10GbE (BT) PCIe adapter
1 × 500 W Platinum cabled PSU
Windows Server 2025
BOSS-N1 is not supported in ASHRAE A3/A4 conditions and makes the high-performance PCIe fan mandatory. With one cabled supply, a power fault stops every VM.
Our refurbished PowerEdge range is rack-only, so there is no like-for-like tower. If the server can live in a comms cabinet instead of under a desk, these earlier 1U models bring two sockets and more memory.
14G · re-certified
PowerEdge R440
1U rack · 2 × Xeon Scalable
16 DIMM slots · up to 1 TB DDR4
10 × 2.5" or 4 × 3.5" bays
iDRAC9
A rack-mounted alternative for offices that already have a cabinet and want more memory and drive bays than the T160 offers.
3 × USB 2.0 · 3 × USB 3.2 Gen1 · VGA · serial · dedicated iDRAC Ethernet · 2 × 1GbE
Internal
USB 3.2 Gen1
Video
Matrox G200eW, 16 MB · 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 BOSS-N1; no cards over 25 W or not Dell-qualified
Rugged environment
5–55 °C continuous operation
Acoustics
28 dB (Economy) / 29 dB (five-drive builds) idle and operating at 25 °C · 41–52 dB at 35 °C full load
12 — FAQ
T160 questions, answered from the documentation
What is the maximum memory of the Dell PowerEdge T160?
128 GB across four DDR5 slots, using 32 GB dual-rank UDIMMs. Only unregistered ECC modules are supported, in 16 GB or 32 GB sizes rated 5600 MT/s; operating speed is 4400 MT/s at most.
Which processors can the T160 use?
Any of 19 single-socket parts: nine Xeon 6300 series, eight Xeon E-2400 and the Pentium G7400 and G7400T. Core counts run from 2 to 12 and TDPs from 35 W to 95 W, though Dell’s thermal matrix lists 95 W parts only with six or eight cores.
How many drives does the T160 hold, and are they hot-swap?
Five at most: three 3.5-inch plus two 2.5-inch, for up to 63.36 TB by Dell’s figure. Dell’s guide calls them cabled drives in internal cages and never describes them as hot-swappable, unlike the hot-swappable bays in the R260 and R360 guides.
Does the T160 support a GPU?
No. Dell’s comparison table marks GPUs as not supported, and the guide cautions that GPUs or other PCIe devices Dell has not validated void the warranty if they cause damage.
What PCIe slots does the T160 have?
Two half-height, half-length slots on the system board, with no riser: slot 1 is an x8 connector with x4 bandwidth and slot 2 is x16 with full x16 bandwidth. A PERC adapter uses one of them; BOSS-N1 has its own internal slot.
How big, heavy and loud is the T160?
It stands 332.5 mm tall on its feet, 132.52 mm wide and 408.8 mm deep with the bezel, and weighs 11.64 kg with every drive fitted. Dell measured 28–29 dB at the bystander position at idle in 25 °C air and calls it appropriate for a quiet office.
What power supply does the T160 use?
One cabled 120 mm unit: 300 W Bronze or 500 W Platinum, both 100–240 V AC. There is no redundant option; for 1+1 supplies in Dell’s entry range, look at the R360 rack model.
How does the T160 compare with the T150?
Dell’s comparison shows a smaller 3U tower (the T150 was 4U), DDR5 instead of DDR4, Xeon E-2300 giving way to Xeon 6300 or E-2400, BOSS-N1 instead of BOSS-S2 and a 500 W Platinum supply in place of 400 W. It gives up one 3.5-inch bay — maximum capacity falls from 80 TB to 63.36 TB — and two PCIe slots.
Should I choose the T160 or the R260?
They share processors and memory. The T160 suits a desk or shelf and needs no rack; the R260 goes in a rack, has up to six 2.5-inch bays at the front and offers a 700 W supply option. Neither has redundant power.
Is the PowerEdge T160 end of life?
Its technical guide does not say: the August 2026 revision (A06) gives no end-of-sale or end-of-support date. For long-lived deployments, Dell’s service appendix does describe Post Standard Support, which can stretch hardware cover by up to five years once the initial seven years of ProSupport run out; our end-of-life checker shows current status.
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.
