Lenovo ThinkSystem SR685a V3 Server - System Overview
Additional Information
Designed for air-cooled data centers that demand GPU performance, the ThinkSystem SR685a V3 server features 12x memory channels per processor, providing a total of 24x DIMM slots. It supports up to 3TB of memory when all slots are filled with 128GB DDR5 RDIMMs. The front of the server includes 16x hot-swappable 2.5-inch drive bays that can be configured with PCIe 5.0 x4 NVMe drives. Additionally, the server board supports 2x M.2 NVMe drives, which can be installed via an M.2 adapter mounted on a tray between the processors. These M.2 drives are compatible with 2242, 2260, 2280, and 22110 form factors, offering flexible options for OS boot or additional storage.
The front of the chassis is equipped with 8x PCIe 5.0 x16 FHHL slots that support GPU Direct. At the rear, there are two configuration options: either 1x PCIe 5.0 x16 FHHL slot and 1x OCP 3.0 slot with a PCIe 5.0 x16 interface, or 2x PCIe 5.0 x16 FHHL slots. Additionally, the SR685a V3 includes a NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPU adapter, providing advanced capabilities for software-defined, hardware-accelerated IT infrastructures and operates at 400Gb/s. The system is powered by up to 8x hot-swappable, Titanium-level 2600W redundant power supplies. For cooling, it features 5x front-mounted fans dedicated to the CPU and 10x rear-mounted fans for the drive bays and GPU subsystem. System management is handled by the Lenovo’s XClarity Controller 2 (XCC2), which monitors parameters, issues alerts, and executes recovery actions to reduce downtime.
