What's New - August 2022

Many new drive options and support extensions of existing drives were announced this month.

New drive families

This month, we announced the following new drive families for use in ThinkSystem servers:

• ThinkSystem 5400 PRO Read Intensive SATA 6Gb SSDs
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1634
• ThinkSystem 5400 MAX Mixed Use SATA 6Gb SSDs
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1635
• ThinkSystem PM1653 Read Intensive SAS 24Gb SSDs
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1636
• ThinkSystem PM1655 Mixed Use SAS 24Gb SSDs
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1637

Figure 1. ThinkSystem PM1653 Read Intensive SAS 24Gb SSDs, available in capacities up to 30.72TB

New capacities in existing drive families

We also announced added drive capacities and form factors to existing drive families:

• ThinkSystem U.2 P5520 Read Intensive NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs - added 7.68 TB and 15.26 TB capacities, and added trayless drives for water-cooled servers
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1588
• ThinkSystem U.2 P5620 Mixed Use NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs - added 6.4 TB and 12.8 TB capacities
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1589
• ThinkSystem U.3 PM1733a Read Intensive NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs - added 30.72 TB capacity
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1592
• ThinkSystem U.3 7450 PRO Read Intensive NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs - added trayless drives for water-cooled servers, and added E1.S form factor drives
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1590

Support extensions

In addition, we expanded support of the following drives to now be supported by most ThinkSystem servers:

• ThinkSystem U.3 7450 PRO Read Intensive NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1590
• ThinkSystem U.3 7450 MAX Mixed Use NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1591

And the following drives were extended to the SR860 V2 and SR850 V2 servers:

• ThinkSystem U.2 P5520 Read Intensive NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1588
• ThinkSystem U.2 P5620 Mixed Use NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1589

Replacement part numbers for 2.4TB HDDs

On the SR645 and SR630 V2 the following drive option part numbers have been announced:

• ThinkSystem 2.5" 2.4TB 10K SAS 12Gb Hot Swap 512e HDD v2, 4XB7A83970
• ThinkSystem 2.5" 2.4TB 10K SAS 12Gb Hot Swap 512e HDD FIPS v2, 4XB7A84038

The above drives are replacing the following drives which are now withdrawn from these two servers:

• ThinkSystem 2.5" 2.4TB 10K SAS 12Gb Hot Swap 512e HDD, 7XB7A00069
• ThinkSystem 2.5" 2.4TB 10K SAS 12Gb Hot Swap 512e HDD FIPS, 7XB7A00070

Note: This announcement and withdrawal only apply to the SR645 and SR630 V2.

We are now providing DCSC configurator support for installing Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the ThinkSystem SR655 server. This new addition will enable customers to use the AMD-based 2U rack server as a high-performance workstation.

Figure 2. Lenovo ThinkSystem SR655 now runs Windows 10 and Windows 11

Not all adapters and components are supported; for example Fibre Channel and InfiniBand adapters are not supported. For ease of configuration, additional Base CTO models have been announced to assist building a configuration that can be used with the client operating systems. The product guide provides the specifics about what components are supported.

In addition, the following GPUs have been announced for use with a Windows 10/11 configuration:

• ThinkSystem NVIDIA RTX A2000 12GB PCIe Active GPU
• ThinkSystem NVIDIA RTX A4500 20GB PCIe Active GPU
• ThinkSystem NVIDIA RTX A6000 48GB PCIe Active GPU

For all the details, see the ThinkSystem SR655 product guide.

Note that a Windows client license for the system cannot be ordered from Lenovo nor can the OS be preloaded on the system in the factory. For a Windows license and for preloads, please contact your Lenovo business partner.