Lenovo System x3750 M4 Rack Server

Description

Lenovo's System X3750 M4 is designed for supporting high-level computation and analysis. The 2u chassis offers high-density memory and storage with support for up to 16 drives and 1.5TB of memory. The 2+2 design means you can start out with just two processors and quickly scale to four processors with a CPU memory tray increasing the affordability of the system.

Performance

This platform will support either, two or four E5-4600 v2 processors with 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 cores, and a 30MB cache. Processors three and four will require the optional CPU memory tray, which stacks on top of the motherboard and is connected to the motherboard by two QPI links featuring data transfer rates of up to 8.0 GT/s each.

Storage

Several different storage options allow administrators to configure the system to support a variety of applications using 2.5-inch SAS/SATA HDDs or SSDs. Up to four 4-drive backplanes can be installed on this system, each requiring one SAS connector and a separate controller for greater performance. There are also configurations supporting 8-drive backplanes and up to 16 2.5-inch drives. An integrated ServerRAID on a chip will support up to eight SAS drives. If you will be installing more than eight drives additional RAID controllers or SAS HBAs are available to support the full range of RAID options. Support for 1.8-inch solid-state drives has recently been discontinued on this model.

Memory

Each processor has four memory channels, and each channel supports three DDR3 RDIMM or LRDIMM memory modules for 12 slots total. With a two processor configuration this system will support up to 24 memory modules. The addition of the CPU/Memory tray will add two more processors and double the amount of supported memory with 24 more memory slots. With 32GB modules, and two processors the system will support a maximum of 768GB of memory. Adding the CPU memory tray, and populating with 32GB memory modules, will increase the supported memory to 1.5TB.

Expansion

The motherboard supports up to eight PCIe expansion slots, with five located on the system board. Up to three additional expansion can be activated using one of two optional risers. All slots are PCIe 3.0 and support low-profile cards on the motherboard and full-height, half-width cards on the optional PCIe riser cards. A dedicated mezzanine LOM socket provides a choice of 1GbE or 10GbE saving your PCIe slots for other options.

Management

VMware ESXi for integrated virtualization can be installed using a USB memory key inserted into the USB socket inside the server. Other management features are handled by the installed OS or by Lenovo’s proprietary management tools including:

• Integrated Management Module II (IMM2)
• Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) 2.0
• Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) version 3
• Common Information Model (CIM)

The Integrated Management Module II (IMM2) gives administrators advanced service-processor control, monitoring, and also features an alerting function. The IMM can be updated to Advanced licensing for additional functionality and enables remote presence and blue-screen capture. The front of the system comes with either a pop-out light path diagnostics panel or standard light path diagnostics panel on the front of the server.

Summary

The Lenovo System x3750 features outstanding flexibility and expandability. The 2+2 processor socket design allows Administrators to start out with just two processors and quickly add more processing power and memory with the addition of a CPU/Memory tray. It also features several integrated components and management features increasing the affordability and resiliency of the system.