Summary of Server Differences
Unless budget is extremely tight or you need GPUs, I would always recommend the Dell PowerEdge R730xd over the Dell PowerEdge R730. The GPU capability is the only benefit of the R730 over the R730xd. Almost all other specs are exactly the same except the R730xd has more drives and more places to put drives. Dell did a great job with some of the 13th generation servers by adding drive bays in the rear of the server. With the R730xd, you get 50% more drives up front and then an optional two additional drives in the rear of the server. That gives a lot more flexibility. You can use larger drives and save the extra bays for future expansion, or use more smaller drives, which can decrease cost while increasing IOPS. You do sacrifice the ability to have a DVD drive in the server, but that is a small price to pay when almost everything is loaded through iDRAC.
If you do need to save a few hundred dollars on your server build, then you can still feel confident with the Dell R730. It is a great, well‑balanced server with a lot of power, just not as many drive options as the R730xd.