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Technical rules for drives

The following notes describe the types of drives that your server support and other information that you must consider when you install a drive.

  • Depending on your server models, your server supports the following types of drives:

    • SAS/SATA HDD

    • SAS/SATA SSD

    • NVMe SSD

    For a list of supported drives, see: Lenovo ServerProven website

    Note

    VMware ESXi does not support ThinkSystem 2.5 U.3 6500 ION 30.72TB Read Intensive NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4 HS SSD.

  • The drive bays are numbered to indicate the installation order (starting from number “0”). Follow the installation order when you install a drive. See Front view.

  • You can mix drives of different types and different capacities in one system, but not in one RAID array. The following priorities are recommended:

    • Drive type priority: NVMe SSD, SAS SSD, SATA SSD, SAS HDD, SATA HDD

    • Drive capacity priority: the lowest capacity first

  • The drives in a single RAID array must be the same type, same size, and same capacity.

  • If you select 12 or 14 TB 3.5-inch SAS/SATA drives, only standard fan is supported.

  • For middle drive cage:
    • Only NVMe drives are supported.
      Note
      Only 7 mm NVMe drives are supported based on thermal consideration.

    • High-performance fan should be selected, and the supported ambient temperature is up to 30°C.

  • For rear drive cage:
    • Both SAS/SATA and NVMe drives are supported.
      Note
      For NVMe drives, only 7 mm NVMe drives are supported based on thermal consideration.

    • High-performance fan should be selected, and the supported ambient temperature is up to 30°C.

    • Supported processor TDP is 120/155 watts.

  • For 6 SAS/SATA +4 anybay backplane configuration

    Note
    2.5 or U.2 Gen4 NVMe drives (except Gen3 NVMe drives) are not supported.