R610 Memory upgrading with mixed memory

Question

Hello,

I have been searching for answer with mixed memory upgrading and I have found 2 answers what collide to each other. We want to upgrade our 4x r610 with 2 CPU's servers and have some load balancing. We also want to upgrade our r620.

Configuration at this moment, (all same speeds an banks etc)

R610 # 1 12 * 16 gb 192 gb
R610 # 2 12 * 16 gb 192 gb
R610 # 3 12 * 8 gb 96 gb
R610 # 4 12 * 8 gb 96 gb

R620 # 5 6 * 16 gb

We have bought 6x 16 gb to ad to the R620. This wont give any problem I think.

But we want to load balance our 610 servers. Our idea was to configure them like this 6 * 16 and 6 * 8. So that the Total ram is equilized and should have same load on. As the #1 and # 2 are quite busy now.

The configuration I wanted to use was as follows:

A1	A4	A2	A5	A3	A6	B6	B3	B5	B2	B4	B1
16	8	16	8	16	8	8	16	8	16	8	16

Now I have found 2 answers who collide to each other.

This LINK here tells me that the only problem with mixing memory is that you will not be able to populate the third channel. It will make slots A3,A6 - B3,B6 unusable.

But this LINK tells me that is OK to mix memory and third channel can be used. Look at the last picture. They have mixed 4 and 2 gb and the texts don't mention anything about the above statement.

So the question is, is possible to make the total ram equal each other of the R610. Or is this not smart and the configuration we have set-up now is the best option we can get, also performance wise.

Any advise is welcome.

Thanks in advance.

DELL-Chris H · Accepted Answer

Gerardogd,

To clarify this for you is fairly straight forward. The problem that was being stated on the first link was that they didn't have the proper number of dimms to fully populate all 3 memory channels, so if he didn't have enough dimms to cover all of channel 3, then those dimms that are in that channel would have to be removed. That was what was being stated. An example of this would be like the issue you are asking. If you have 12 slots on the servers and they are split into 3 channels, you then want to upgrade with say 8 8GB and 4 4GB dimms. You could do this up to the last channel, due to there being an off number then you don't have enough of both to cover pairing against all the channels.

That's not an issue with your case though, so not a concern. What you will need to do is place the 16gb dimms in the white tabbed slots and the 8GB dimms in the black. Then so long as you are in Optimizer mode in the BIOS for the memory mode then ýou should be golden.

In regards to the R620, you are correct, there shouldn't be any issue.

Let me know if this helps answer your questions.

GerardOGD · Answer

Dear Chris,

Thanks for the answer, and may I say swift, fast and clear! I think i have over read that part of the question I think, so that confused me. Going to do upgrade/change soon than.

Again thanks!

DELL-Chris H · Answer

Happy to help. Keep us in mind if you have any further questions or concerns.

PowerEdge Hardware General

R610 Memory upgrading with mixed memory

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