The Lenovo ThinkSystem SR850 V2 provides the advanced capabilities of four of the new third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, however if you wish, you can start with two processors and 24 DIMM slots and then easily expand by adding the processor & memory expansion tray to easily scale up to four processors and 48 DIMMs.

The SR850 V2 has space for 24x 2.5-inch drive bays, all 24 of which can be configured as NVMe drive bays, or AnyBay drive bays which support SAS, SATA or NVMe drives. NVMe drives are high-speed, low-latency storage, ideal for high-performance local storage or you can mix them with SAS or SATA SSDs or HDDs for storage tiering.

The flexible ThinkSystem SR850 V2 server supports third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable Gold or Platinum processors and can scale from two to four processors. Built for standard workloads like general business applications and server consolidation, it can also accommodate high-growth areas such as databases and virtualization. The ThinkSystem SR850 V2’s agile design permits rapid upgrades for processors and memory, and its large, flexible storage capacity helps to keep pace with data growth.

With the capability to support up to 48 DIMMs, four sockets, up to 24 drives for internal storage, up to 7 PCIe slots plus a dedicated OCP 3.0 slot for 1, 10 or 25 GbE networking, the SR850 V2 provides unmatched features and capabilities in a dense 2U rack-mount design.

Scalability and performance

The SR850 V2 offers numerous features to boost performance, improve scalability and reduce costs:

• Supports two or four 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Processor Scalable processors, allowing you to start with two processors and then upgrade to four when you need it.
• Supports Gold and Platinum level processors in the Intel Xeon Processor Scalable Family. Processors supported have up to 28 cores, core speeds of up to 3.9 GHz, and TDP ratings of up to 250W.
• The SR850 V2’s processor expansion tray design enables you to start with two processors and 24 DIMM sockets and upgrade to four processors and 48 DIMM sockets when you need it, helping lower initial costs and manage growth.
• Up to four processors, 112 cores, and 224 threads maximize the concurrent execution of multithreaded applications.
• Enhanced inter-processor communications with six UPI connections between adjacent processors ensures increased CPU I/O throughput.
• Supports the new bfloat16 instruction set for Enhanced Deep Learning Boost
• Intelligent and adaptive system performance with Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 allows processor cores to run at maximum speeds during peak workloads by temporarily going beyond processor TDP.
• Intel Hyper-Threading Technology boosts performance for multithreaded applications by enabling simultaneous multithreading within each processor core, up to two threads per core.
• Intel Virtualization Technology integrates hardware-level virtualization hooks that allow operating system vendors to better use the hardware for virtualization workloads.
• Intel Speed Select Technology supported on some processor models, enables increased core Turbo Boost frequency on specific individual cores to maximize application performance.
• Enhanced Intel Deep Learning Boost provides built-in acceleration with the Vector Neural Network Instruction set (VNNI) and new bloat16 instructions. These are designed to deliver significant, more efficient Deep Learning (Inference) acceleration for high-performance Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads.
• Intel Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (AVX-512) enable acceleration of enterprise-class workloads, including databases and enterprise resource planning (ERP).
• Support for up to 48 TruDDR4 memory DIMMs operating at up to 3200 MHz means you have the fastest available memory subsystem and memory capacity of up to 12 TB with 48x 256 GB 3DS RDIMMs.
• Supports configurations of 2 DIMMs per channel to operate at the 3200 MHz rated speed of the memory DIMMs.
• Supports the new Intel Optane Persistent Memory 200 Series for advanced in-memory database applications, dense-virtualization; up to 24 PMem Modules can be installed in conjunction with regular system memory. PMem modules are up to 512 GB each, for a total of up to 12 TB of Persistent Memory (3 TB per processor).
• The use of solid-state drives (SSDs) instead of, or along with, traditional spinning drives (HDDs), can improve I/O performance. An SSD can support up to 100 times more I/O operations per second (IOPS) than a typical HDD.
• Up to 24x 2.5-inch drive bays — supporting combinations of SAS or SATA HDDs, SAS or SATA SSDs, and NVMe PCIe SSDs — provide a flexible and scalable all-in-one platform to meet your increasing demands. Up to 24x NVMe drives are supported, maximizing drive I/O performance in terms of throughput, bandwidth, and latency.
• The server has a dedicated industry-standard OCP 3.0 small form factor (SFF) slot, with a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, supporting a variety of Ethernet network adapters. Simple-swap mechanism with thumbscrews and pull-tab enables tool-less installation and removal of the adapter. Supports shared BMC network sideband connectivity to enable out-of-band systems management.
• Up to 7 PCIe 3.0 slots in addition to the OCP 3.0 Ethernet slot to maximize I/O capabilities.
• New high-speed RAID controllers from Broadcom provide 12 Gb SAS connectivity to the drive backplanes. A variety of RAID adapters are available, with cache up to 8 GB and support for all 24 drives in the server on a single controller. The RAID 940-16i 8GB Flash adapter supports RAID volumes with NVMe, SAS or SATA drives.
• Supports up to two externally accessible 7mm hot-swap drives with RAID functionality, in addition to the 24 front drive bays. These 7mm drives are ideal for operating system boot functions.
• Integrated SATA controller with Software RAID (Intel RSTe) support for up to 8x drives with basic RAID functionality with no additional adapter needed.
• Supports Intel VROC (Virtual RAID on CPU) which enables basic RAID functionality on the onboard NVMe ports of the server, with no additional adapter needed. This feature enables RAID on NVMe drives without the need for a separate RAID adapter.