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Drive installation rules

Understanding the technical rules for drives helps you correctly install and configure drives in the system.

General rules​

  1. 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.

  2. The drives in a single RAID array must be of the same type (as in hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and so on), same size, and same capacity.

  3. For EDSFF drives, follow the numerical order of the drive bay sequence. Do not skip bays when installing EDSFF drives.

Mixing rules​

  1. You can use drives from different vendors.

  2. You can mix drives of different types and different capacities in one system, but not in one RAID array. And when you deploy a drive mix, install drives of lower capacity first.

  3. You can install a 2.5-inch solid-state/SAS/SATA drive in a 3.5-inch hard disk drive bay.

  4. Mixing EDSFF, U.2 or U.3 drives in one RAID array is not supported.

Special notes​

  1. When ThinkSystem M.2 NVMe 2-Bay RAID Enablement Kit is installed, the 7mm SATA drive cannot be installed.

  2. ThinkSystem M.2 NVMe 2-Bay RAID Enablement Kit cannot be installed into the 4 x 3.5'' chassis.

  3. Tri-mode RAID cards support U.3 NVMe SSDs but do not support U.2 NVMe SSDs

  4. When 7mm drives are installed, two PCIe adapters can be installed on the rear at most.

  5. When a Gen 3 M.2 SATA 2-Bay Enablement Kit is selected, at least one M.2 disk needs to be installed.

  6. When rear 2x2.5 SSDs are installed, only one PCIe adapter can be installed on the rear.