Lenovo IBM System RD450 Rack Server

Figure 1. Lenovo ThinkServer RD450

Did you know?

The ThinkServer RD450 provides a variety of drive configurations, including support for 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch hot-swap drives. Some configurations also support an internal tape drive and optical drive.

The RD450 is now also better managed with new support for Lenovo XClarity Administrator. Improved systems management means greater remote management capabilities for increased reliability and uptime.

The ThinkServer RD450 delivers impressive compute power per watt and incorporates energy-smart features for minimized costs and efficient performance. The 80 PLUS Titanium power supply units (PSUs) can deliver 96% efficiency at 50% load.

Key features

The RD450 is a versatile 2U two-socket business-critical server that offers improved performance and pay-as-you-grow flexibility, along with new features that improve server management capability. This powerful system is designed for your most important business applications and cloud deployments.

Combining balanced performance and flexibility, the RD450 is a great choice for small and medium businesses. It can provide outstanding uptime to keep business-critical applications and cloud deployments running safely. Ease of use and comprehensive systems management tools help make deployment easier. Outstanding reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) and high-efficiency design improve your business environment and help save operational costs.

Scalability and performance

The RD450 offers numerous features to boost performance, improve scalability, and reduce costs:

• Improves productivity by offering superior system performances with up to 14-core processors, up to 35 MB of L3 cache, and up to 9.6 GT/s QPI interconnect links.
• Supports up to two processors, 28 cores, and 56 threads maximize the concurrent execution of multi-threaded applications.
• Intelligent and adaptive system performance with energy efficient Intel Turbo Boost Technology allows CPU cores to run at maximum speeds during peak workloads by temporarily going beyond processor thermal design power (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 utilize the hardware for virtualization workloads.
• Intel Advanced Vector Extensions 2.0 (AVX 2.0) enable acceleration of enterprise-class workloads such as databases, enterprise resource planning, and others.
• Up to 2400 MHz memory speeds with two DIMMs per channel running at 2400 MHz, to help maximize system performance.
• Up to 1 TB of memory capacity with 64 GB LRDIMMs.
• The 12 Gbps SAS internal storage connectivity doubles the data transfer rate compared to 6 Gb SAS solutions to maximize performance of storage I/O-intensive applications.
• Flexible and scalable internal storage configurations provide for up to 184 TB of storage capacity (24x 7.68 TB solid-state drives) in a 2U rack form factor.
• The use of solid-state drives (SSDs) instead of or along with spinning drives (HDDs) can significantly improve I/O performance. An SSD can support up to 100 times more I/O operations per second (IOPS) than a typical HDD.
• The server offers up to six PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 I/O expansion slots.
• The RD450 provides Lenovo AnyRAID technology, a midplane RAID adapter that connects directly to the drive backplane without consuming a PCIe slot.
• With Intel Integrated I/O Technology, the PCI Express 3.0 controller is integrated into the Intel Xeon processor E5 family. This helps to dramatically reduce I/O latency and increase overall system performance.

Availability and serviceability

The RD450 provides many features to simplify serviceability and increase system uptime:

• Toolless cover removal provides easy access to upgrades and serviceable parts, such as processors, DIMMs, and adapters.
• The server offers hot-swap drives and support RAID redundancy for data protection and greater system uptime.
• The server offers redundant hot-swap power supplies and redundant fans to provide availability for business-critical applications.
• Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer significantly better reliability than mechanical HDDs for greater uptime.
• Built-in ThinkServer System Manager TSM continuously monitors system parameters and triggers alerts to minimize downtime.
• One- or three-year customer replaceable unit and onsite limited warranty (depending on model), next business day 9x5. Optional service upgrades are available.

Manageability and security

Powerful systems management features simplify local and remote management of the RD450:

• Support for Lenovo XClarity Administrator, providing autodiscovery, inventory tracking, monitoring, and call home capabilities.
• Includes ThinkServer System Manager (TSM) to monitor server availability and perform remote management. Optional TSM Premium added remote control and remote media.
• Support for Lenovo XClarity Energy Manager which captures real-time power and temperature data from the server and provides automated controls to lower energy costs.
• Embedded ThinkServer Deployment Manager (TDM) provides a complete set of provisioning capabilities from a single interface, automating many of the tasks associated with server provisioning.
• An optional Trusted Platform Module (TPM) enables advanced cryptographic functionality such as digital signatures and Windows BitLocker encryption, a Windows data protection feature. The server supports TPM 2.0 or TPM 1.2 depending on the TPM option selected.
• Intel Execute Disable Bit functionality can help prevent certain classes of malicious buffer overflow attacks when combined with a supporting operating system.
• Intel Trusted Execution Technology provides enhanced security through hardware-based resistance to malicious software attacks, allowing an application to run in its own isolated space, protected from all other software running on a system.

Energy efficiency

The RD450 offers the following energy-efficiency features to save energy, reduce operational costs, increase energy availability, and contribute to the green environment:

• Energy-efficient planar components help lower operational costs.
• High-efficiency power supplies with 80 PLUS Platinum and Titanium certifications.
• Intel Intelligent Power Capability powers individual processor elements on and off as needed, to reduce power draw.
• Low-voltage Intel Xeon processors draw less energy to satisfy the demands of power and thermally constrained data centers and telecommunication environments.
• Low-voltage 1.2 V DDR4 memory DIMMs consume up to 20% less energy compared to 1.35 V DDR3 DIMMs (even less than 1.5 V DDR3).
• Solid-state drives (SSDs) consume less power than traditional spinning HDDs.
• Lenovo XClarity Energy Manager provides advanced data center power notification and management to help achieve lower heat output and reduced cooling needs.

Locations of key components and connectors

The RD450 is available either with 3.5-inch hot-swap drive bays, 3.5-inch easy-swap drive bays or 2.5-inch hot-swap drive bays. The following figure shows the front of the server.