We check out Lenovo’s three new multi-node servers, which share the new 2U ThinkSystem D3 chassis: Intel-based ThinkSystem SD530 V3 (1U2S), Intel-based ThinkSystem SD550 V3 (2U2S), and AMD-based ThinkSystem SD535 V3 (1U1S).
We check out Lenovo’s three new multi-node servers, which share the new 2U ThinkSystem D3 chassis: Intel-based ThinkSystem SD530 V3 (1U2S), Intel-based ThinkSystem SD550 V3 (2U2S), and AMD-based ThinkSystem SD535 V3 (1U1S).
Lenovo ThinkSystem Multi-Node Servers
A multi-node server is a half-wide modular server that fits into a common blade form factor chassis, allowing maximum compute density. Instead of having an entire 2U blade for two CPUs, you can have up to four dual-CPU node servers in the same space.
Lenovo’s new multi-node servers are for dense compute workloads, such as energy-efficient transactional processing, cloud computing, HPC, big data analytics, hyperconverged infrastructure, and content delivery. Some of these servers have condensed storage and memory capacity to maximize compute density.
Here is the 2U ThinkSystem D3 chassis with three multi-node servers installed. The chassis has the unique ability to accommodate mixed 1U and 2U nodes and different CPU types.
The Lenovo ThinkSystem D3 chassis with three multi-node servers installed. This photo shows the SD530 V3 (upper left), SD535 V3 (lower left) and the SD550 V3 (right side and upside down)
The D3 chassis supports three power supplies (typically, only two are installed) shared among all servers in the chassis. The power supplies in the D3 chassis have 80 PLUS Platinum ratings for energy efficiency. The servers also have ASHRAE A2 compliance for operation in 35-degree C data centers. These ThinkSystem servers are designed for 24/7 operation.
Besides the power supplies, everything else (even cooling) is node-specific.
The ThinkSystem D3 chassis fits up to three power supplies shared by all nodes.
Thanks to hot-swap drives and toolless access to upgrades, such as fans, adapters, CPUs, and memory, Lenovo makes servicing these new models easy. These servers are also managed with Lenovo’s XClarity Controller embedded management engine, which has a GUI and standard Redfish REST APIs.
The multi-node servers can be easily pulled out, as illustrated below.
The ThinkSystem D3 chassis with the SD530 V3, SD535V, and SD550 V3 partially pulled out of the chassis.
Lenovo ThinkSystem D3 Chassis Specifications
| Components | Specification |
| Machine type | 7DD0 – 3 year warranty 7DD7 – 1 year warranty |
| Form factor | 2U rack-mounted chassis |
| Server support | Up to two SD550 V3 servers per chassis Up to four SD530 V3 servers per chassis Servers can be mixed in the same chassis |
| Servers per rack | Up to 42x SD550 V3 servers in 21 chassis per 42U rack Up to 48x SD550 V3 servers in 24 chassis per 48U rack |
| Systems management | None. Management is provided by each node. An incoming remote management connection can be shared using an optional daisy chain adapter. |
| Ports | None. |
| I/O architecture | None integrated. Use top-of-rack networking and storage switches. |
| Power supplies | Three hot-swap power supplies deliver power to all nodes installed in the chassis. They are either 1300W, 1600W (some markets), 2000W, or 2700W, with N+1 redundancy. They are the CRPS form factor and are either 80 PLUS Platinum or 80 PLUS Titanium certified. All power supplies installed must have identical part numbers. They require a 200-240 V AC, 50—or 60 Hz supply and are installed at the rear of the enclosure. |
| Power cords | One AC power cord for each power supply, C13 or C19, depending on the power supplies selected |
| Cooling | None. Fans are located within each server node. |
| Enclosure LEDs | Each power supply has AC, DC, and error LEDs. |
| Hot-swap parts | Power supplies |
| Limited warranty | Three-year customer-replaceable unit and onsite limited warranty with 9×5/NBD coverage. |
| Service and support | Optional service upgrades are available through Lenovo Services: a 4-hour or 2-hour response time, a 6-hour fix time, a 1-year or 2-year warranty extension, and software support for Lenovo hardware and some third-party applications. |
| Dimensions | Height: 87 mm (3.43 inches), depth: 898 mm (35.36 inches), width: 448 mm (17.64 inches). See Physical and electrical specifications for details. |
| Weight | Empty (without servers and power supplies): 11.8 kg (26.1 lb) Maximum (4x 1U servers and 3x power supplies): 47.8 kg (105.4 lb) |
Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530 V3 and SD550 V3 Overview
The ThinkSystem SD530 V3 and SD550 V3 are Intel servers based on 5th Gen Intel Scalable processors. The SD530 V3 is based on the 2U4N mini-node form factor, while the SD550 V3 is 2U2N. These servers can be mixed and matched in the ThinkSystem D3 chassis—for instance, a customer could choose to have two SD530 V3 and one SD550 V3, though it’s most common to have all the same model within the same chassis. (One ThinkSystem D3 chassis can fit four SD530 V3s or two SD550 V3s.)
Let’s start with the SD530 V3. Pulling it out of the 2U chassis, we can see that it’s asymmetrically shaped; the cutout next to the rear panel is where the common power supply connects. These servers are intended to be installed upside down on the right-hand side of the 2U chassis, so there are no left or right versions. The vapor phase heat sinks have been designed to function correctly regardless of the orientation.
Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530 V3 Node with both CPUs populated
The front ports include USB, serial, VGA, and a diagnostics port for the XClarity controller. The SD530 V3 supports two hot-swap E3.S 1T EDSFF drives accessible from the front panel. There’s also a pull-out tab for the server’s network info, model, and serial number.
From the back, the SD530 V3 has one OCP 3.0 slot and one low-profile PCIe x16 Gen 5 slot for a GPU, networking, or storage expansion. There’s also a remote management Ethernet port, additional USB ports, and a mini-DisplayPort.
Lenovo ThinkSystem D3 Chassis Rear View
Accessing the inside of the servers is much like a typical blade server, as the top panel slides rearward and away. Below are the sockets for the two 5th Gen Xeon Scalable CPUs. Each CPU has eight DIMM slots for 16 DIMMs; the server supports 2TB of memory with 128GB 3DS RDIMMs. The SD530 V3 supports one CPU up to 350W/64 cores/3.9GHz core speeds or two less powerful CPUs (each up to 205W/32 cores/3.9GHz). The rear CPU has an additional heatsink, illustrated in the image below, Lenovo’s Neptune Thermal Transfer Module, for enhanced cooling since the airflow reaching it isn’t as cool as it is for the first CPU.
The second CPU in the ThinkSystem SD530 V3 has an auxiliary cooler.
Two M.2 drives at the front of the server are for boot drives, which allow RAID 1. There’s also a Root of Trust module and a MicroSD card slot for XCC local storage.
Four simple-swap 40mm cooling fans sit behind the CPUs and pull air through the front. It’s uncommon in multi-node servers to put the cooling fans in the node itself, so Lenovo has done something unique here. This means the nodes don’t share fans, making them more independent. This design makes nodes the most efficient as their workload demands change in relation to one another.
The ThinkSystem SD530 V3 features four simple-swap 40mm cooling fans at the rear.
Now, let’s look at the SD550 V3. This server differs from the SD530 V3 on the front by offering six 2.5-inch SSD drives (SAS, SATA, or NVMe). The front panel is otherwise the same as the SD530 V3. The back of the server is similar to the SD530 V3, but the SD550 V3 adds a PCIe x16 Gen 5 slot that is full-height/half-length, enabling even more networking and GPU options.
The ThinkSystem SD550 V3 offers six 2.5-inch front SSD bays.
Internally, the SD550 V3 has two sockets and eight DIMM slots per socket, just like the SD530 V3. The difference is that the SD550 V3 has much larger CPU heatsinks and fans (three, not four), so it will run cooler and have superior power efficiency. Both CPUs can be up to 350W/64 cores/3.9GHz without penalty for installing a second CPU. The SD550 V3 also supports an internal RAID adapter.
The CPU heatsinks in the 2U ThinkSystem SD550 V3 are much taller for increased thermal efficiency.
Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530 V3 Specifications
| Components | Specification |
| Machine type | 7DD3 – 3 year warranty 7DDA – 1 year warranty |
| Form factor | Half-wide, 1U compute node. |
| Supported enclosure | ThinkSystem D3 Chassis, 2U high; up to 4 servers per chassis. |
| Processor | One or two 5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (formerly codenamed “Emerald Rapids”). With one processor installed, supports processors up to 64 cores, core speeds of up to 3.9 GHz, and TDP ratings of up to 350W. With two processors installed, supports processors up to 32 cores, core speeds of up to 3.9 GHz, and TDP ratings of up to 205W. |
| Chipset | Intel C741 “Emmitsburg” chipset, part of the platform codenamed “Eagle Stream.” |
| Memory | 16 DIMM slots with two processors (8 DIMM slots per processor) per node. Each processor has eight memory channels, with 1 DIMM per channel (DPC). Lenovo TruDDR5 RDIMMs and 3DS RDIMMs are supported up to 5600 MHz |
| Persistent memory | Not supported |
| Memory maximums | Up to 1TB of system memory (using either 8x 128GB 3DS RDIMMs or 16x 64GB RDIMMs) |
| Memory protection | ECC, SDDC, Patrol/Demand Scrubbing, Bounded Fault, DRAM Address Command Parity with Replay, DRAM Uncorrected ECC Error Retry, On-die ECC, ECC Error Check and Scrub (ECS), Post Package Repair |
| Drive bays |
|
| Maximum internal storage | 30.72TB using 2x 15.36TB E3.S EDSFF NVMe SSDs |
| Storage controller | 2x Onboard NVMe ports (Optional Intel VROC NVMe for RAID) |
| Optical drive bays | There are no internal bays; use an external USB drive. |
| Tape drive bays | There are no internal bays. Use an external USB drive. |
| Network interfaces | Dedicated OCP 3.0 SFF slot with PCIe 5.0 x16 host interface. Supports a variety of 2-port and 4-port adapters with 1, 10, 25, or 100 GbE network connectivity. As an option, one port can be shared with the XClarity Controller 2 (XCC2) management processor for Wake-on-LAN and NC-SI support. |
| PCIe slots | One PCIe 5.0 x16 slot with low profile form factor |
| GPU support | Supports 1x single-wide GPU |
| Ports | Front: One VGA port for video, one USB 3.2 G1 (5 Gb/s) port, external diagnostics port, and one DB9 serial port for local connectivity
Rear: One MiniDP port for video, one USB 3.2 G1 (5 Gb/s) port, 1x USB 2.0 port (also for XCC local management), 1x RJ-45 1GbE systems management port for XCC remote management |
| Cooling | 4x 40mm simple-swap dual-rotor fans with N+1 rotor-redundancy |
| Power supply | Supplied by the D3 Chassis. |
| Hot-swap parts | Drives |
| Systems management | Operator panel with status LEDs. Optional External Diagnostics Handset with LCD display. XClarity Controller 2 (XCC2) embedded management based on the ASPEED AST2600 baseboard management controller (BMC), XClarity Administrator centralized infrastructure delivery, XClarity Integrator plugins, and XClarity Energy Manager centralized server power management—XCC Platinum to enable remote control functions and other features. |
| Video | Embedded graphics with 16 MB memory with 2D hardware accelerator, integrated into the XClarity Controller 2 management controller. Two video ports, front VGA and rear Mini DisplayPort. Both ports can be used simultaneously if desired. The maximum resolution of both ports is 1920×1200 at 60Hz. |
| Security | Power-on password, administrator password, Trusted Platform Module (TPM), supporting TPM 2.0. |
| Operating systems supported | Microsoft Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, VMware ESXi, and Ubuntu Server. For specifics, including other operating systems that are Vendor-Certified or Tested, see the operating system support section. |
| Limited warranty | Three-year customer-replaceable unit and onsite limited warranty with 9×5 next business day (NBD). |
| Service and support | Optional service upgrades are available through Lenovo Services: 4-hour or 2-hour response time, 6-hour fix time, 1-year or 2-year warranty extension, software support for Lenovo hardware, and some third-party applications. |
| Ambient temperature | Up to ASHRAE Class A2: 10°C – 35°C (50°F – 95°F) |
| Dimensions | Width: 222 mm (8.7 inches), height: 41 mm (1.6 inches), depth 908 mm (35.7 inches) |
| Weight | Maximum: 7.6 kg (16.76 lb) |
Lenovo ThinkSystem SD550 V3 Specifications
| Components | Specification |
| Machine type | 7DD2 – 3 year warranty 7DD9 – 1 year warranty |
| Form factor | Half-wide, 2U compute node. |
| Supported enclosure | ThinkSystem D3 Chassis, 2U high; up to 2x SD550 V3 servers per chassis. |
| Processor | One or two 5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (formerly codenamed “Emerald Rapids”). Supports processors up to 64 cores, core speeds up to 3.9 GHz, and TDP ratings up to 350W. |
| Chipset | Intel C741 “Emmitsburg” chipset, part of the platform codenamed “Eagle Stream” |
| Memory | 16 DIMM slots with two processors (8 DIMM slots per processor) per node. Each processor has eight memory channels, with 1 DIMM per channel (DPC). Lenovo TruDDR5 RDIMMs and 3DS RDIMMs are supported up to 5600 MHz |
| Persistent memory | Not supported |
| Memory maximums | Up to 2TB by using 16x 128GB 3DS RDIMMs |
| Memory protection | ECC, SDDC, Patrol/Demand Scrubbing, Bounded Fault, DRAM Address Command Parity with Replay, DRAM Uncorrected ECC Error Retry, On-die ECC, ECC Error Check and Scrub (ECS), Post Package Repair |
| Drive bays |
|
| Maximum internal storage | 92.16TB using 6x 15.36TB 2.5-inch SAS/SATA SSDs 92.16TB using 6x 15.36TB 2.5-inch NVMe SSDs |
| Storage controller | Onboard NVMe ports (Optional Intel VROC NVMe for RAID) Onboard SATA ports Support for Internal (CFF) RAID adapter for SAS/SATA drive support |
| Optical drive bays | No internal bays; use an external USB drive. |
| Tape drive bays | No internal bays. Use an external USB drive. |
| Network interfaces | Dedicated OCP 3.0 SFF slot with PCIe 5.0 x16 host interface. Supports a variety of 2-port and 4-port adapters with 1, 10, 25, or 100 GbE network connectivity. As an option, one port can be shared with the XClarity Controller 2 (XCC2) management processor for Wake-on-LAN and NC-SI support. |
| PCIe slots | One or two PCIe x16 full-height half-length (FHHL) slots, based on the number of processors installed:
1-processor configurations:
2-processor configurations:
|
| GPU support | Supports 2x single-wide GPUs |
| Ports | Front: One VGA port for video, one USB 3.2 G1 (5 Gb/s) port, external diagnostics port, and one DB9 serial port for local connectivity
Rear: One MiniDP port for video, one USB 3.2 G1 (5 Gb/s) port, 1x USB 2.0 port (also for XCC local management), 1x RJ-45 1GbE systems management port for XCC remote management |
| Cooling | 3x 60mm simple-swap dual-rotor fans with N+1 rotor-redundancy |
| Power supply | Supplied by the D3 Chassis. |
| Hot-swap parts | Drives |
| Systems management | Operator panel with status LEDs. Optional External Diagnostics Handset with LCD display. XClarity Controller 2 (XCC2) embedded management based on the ASPEED AST2600 baseboard management controller (BMC), XClarity Administrator centralized infrastructure delivery, XClarity Integrator plugins, and XClarity Energy Manager centralized server power management—optional XCC Platinum to enable remote control functions and other features. |
| Video | Embedded graphics with 16 MB memory with 2D hardware accelerator, integrated into the XClarity Controller 2 management controller. Two video ports (front VGA and rear Mini DisplayPort); both can be used simultaneously if desired. Maximum resolution of both ports is 1920×1200 at 60Hz. |
| Security | Power-on password, administrator’s password, Trusted Platform Module (TPM), supporting TPM 2.0. |
| Operating systems supported | Microsoft Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, VMware ESXi, and Ubuntu Server. For specifics, including other operating systems that are Vendor-Certified or Tested, see the operating system support section. |
| Limited warranty | Three-year customer-replaceable unit and onsite limited warranty with 9×5 next business day (NBD). |
| Service and support | Optional service upgrades are available through Lenovo Services: 4-hour or 2-hour response time, 6-hour fix time, 1-year or 2-year warranty extension, software support for Lenovo hardware, and some third-party applications. |
| Ambient temperature | Up to ASHRAE Class A2: 10°C – 35°C (50°F – 95°F) |
| Dimensions | Width: 222 mm (8.7 inches), height: 82 mm (3.2 inches), depth 898 mm (35.4 inches) |
| Weight | Maximum: 11.76 kg (25.93 lb) |
Lenovo ThinkSystem SD535 V3 Overview
The ThinkSystem SD530 V3 is an AMD version of the Intel-based ThinkSystem SD530 V3. The main difference is that it only supports one CPU, but that’s not necessarily a disadvantage since its single AMD EYPIC 9004 series chip can sport up to 128 cores, which is more than the SD530 V3 can support even when it’s equipped with two CPUs. The ThinkSystem SD535 V3 can support more total cores than the SD530 V3; the latter supports only 64, even with two CPUs installed. The SD535 V3 also supports more memory per socket, with 12 DIMM slots supporting 1.5TB using 128GB 3DS RDIMMs.
Here, we can see the single CPU socket and surrounding DIMM slots. Air cooling in the SD535 V3 is the same as the SD530 V3, with four simple-swap 40mm rear fans. Onboard storage includes two M.2 boot drives. A SAS/SATA RAID adapter is also supported for configurations with six front 2.5-inch SSDs.
The AMD-based ThinkSystem SD535 V3 only supports one CPU but can have up to 128 cores.
The SD535 V3’s front and rear ports are identical to those of the SD530 V3, with USB, serial, VGA, and a diagnostics port for the XClarity controller; likewise, on the rear, you’ll find remote management Ethernet, two USB-A ports, mini-DisplayPort video output, one OCP 3.0, and one PCIe x16 Gen 5 PCIe slot.
The ThinkSystem SD535 V3’s cooling comes from four simple-swap fans. The CPU has 12 DIMM slots for up to 1.5TB of memory.
Lenovo ThinkSystem SD535 V3 Specifications
| Components | Specification |
| Machine type | 7DD1 – 3 year warranty 7DD8 – 1 year warranty |
| Form factor | Half-wide, 1U compute node. |
| Supported enclosure | ThinkSystem D3 Chassis, 2U high; up to 4 servers per chassis. |
| Processor | One 4th Gen AMD EPYC 9004 series processor. Supports processors up to 128 cores, core speeds up to 4.1 GHz, and TDP ratings up to 400W. |
| Chipset | Not applicable (platform controller hub functions are integrated into the processor SOC) |
| Memory | 12 DIMM slots with 12 memory channels from the processor (1 DIMM per channel, DPC). Lenovo TruDDR5 RDIMMs and 3DS RDIMMs are supported up to 4800 MHz |
| Persistent memory | Not supported |
| Memory maximums | Up to 1.5TB of system memory using 12x 128GB 3DS RDIMMs |
| Memory protection | ECC, SDDC, Patrol/Demand Scrubbing, Bounded Fault, DRAM Address Command Parity with Replay, DRAM Uncorrected ECC Error Retry, On-die ECC, ECC Error Check and Scrub (ECS), Post Package Repair |
| Drive bays |
|
| Maximum internal storage |
|
| Storage controller | Onboard NVMe ports (No support for RAID) Onboard SATA ports (No support for RAID) Support for Internal (CFF) RAID adapter or PCIe adapter for SAS/SATA drive support |
| Optical drive bays | No internal bays; use an external USB drive. |
| Tape drive bays | No internal bays. Use an external USB drive. |
| Network interfaces | Dedicated OCP 3.0 SFF slot with PCIe 5.0 x16 host interface. Supports a variety of 2-port and 4-port adapters with 1, 10, 25, or 100 GbE network connectivity. One port can be shared with the XClarity Controller 2 (XCC2) management processor for Wake-on-LAN and NC-SI support. |
| PCIe slots | One PCIe 5.0 x16 slot with low profile form factor |
| GPU support | Supports 1x single-wide GPU |
| Ports | Front: None; Rear: One MiniDP port for video, one USB 3.2 G1 (5 Gb/s) port, 1x USB 2.0 port (also for XCC local management), 1x RJ-45 1GbE systems management port for XCC remote management |
| Cooling | 4x 40mm simple-swap dual-rotor fans with N+1 rotor-redundancy |
| Power supply | Supplied by the D3 Chassis. |
| Hot-swap parts | Drives |
| Systems management | Operator panel with status LEDs. XClarity Controller 2 (XCC2) embedded management based on the ASPEED AST2600 baseboard management controller (BMC), XClarity Administrator centralized infrastructure delivery, XClarity Integrator plugins, and XClarity Energy Manager centralized server power management—optional XCC Platinum to enable remote control functions and other features. |
| Video | Embedded graphics with 16 MB memory with 2D hardware accelerator, integrated into the XClarity Controller 2 management controller. Rear Mini DisplayPort video port. Maximum resolution of both ports is 1920×1200 at 60Hz. |
| Security | Power-on password, administrator’s password, Trusted Platform Module (TPM), supporting TPM 2.0. |
| Operating systems supported | Microsoft Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, VMware ESXi, and Ubuntu Server. For specifics, including other operating systems that are Vendor-Certified or Tested, see the operating system support section. |
| Limited warranty | Three-year customer-replaceable unit and onsite limited warranty with 9×5 next business day (NBD). |
| Service and support | Optional service upgrades are available through Lenovo Services: 4-hour or 2-hour response time, 6-hour fix time, 1-year or 2-year warranty extension, software support for Lenovo hardware, and some third-party applications. |
| Ambient temperature | Up to ASHRAE Class A2: 10°C – 35°C (50°F – 95°F) |
| Dimensions | Width: 222 mm (8.7 inches), height: 41 mm (1.6 inches), depth 898 mm (35.4 inches) |
| Weight | Maximum: 8.32 kg (18.34 lbs) |
ThinkSystem Ordering and Customization
Lenovo’s ThinkSystem SD530 V3, SD550 V3, and SD535 V3 are configurable through Lenovo’s Data Center Solution Configurator (DCSC). Starting configurations are available, including General Purpose and AI & HPC. Unique configurations can be built through the System x and Cluster Solutions configurator. Base models have a one- or three-year warranty.
ThinkSystem Performance and Benchmarks
Though we aren’t testing these new ThinkSystem multi-node servers in our lab (yet), Lenovo has run benchmark tests on them and broken several records. You can view the results via the links below.
-
- ThinkSystem SD535 V3 Sets 2 World Records with New SPECPower on Windows Benchmark Result
- ThinkSystem SD535 V3 Sets World Record with New SPECPower on Linux Benchmark Result
- ThinkSystem SD550 V3 Sets 6 World Records with New SPECjbb on Linux & Windows Benchmark Result
- ThinkSystem SD535 V3 Sets 6 World Records with the New SPECjbb on Linux and Windows Benchmark Result
- ThinkSystem SD530 V3 and SD550 V3 Deliver Impressive Multi-Node SPECpower Benchmark Results
Final Thoughts
The ThinkSystem SD530 V3, SD550 V3, and SD535 V3 provide excellent performance for compute-intensive workloads. A single 2U ThinkSystem D3 chassis can accommodate four SD530 V3 or SD535 V3 servers or two SD550 V3 servers, offering incredibly high compute density compared to traditional blade servers. It’s important to note that these servers are genuinely focused on compute density, so they are not ideal for storage-heavy or GPU-heavy applications.
(For that, check out our related piece on Lenovo ThinkSystem SR685a V3 and SR680a V3 GPU Servers)
Reliability and uptime are also paramount on these servers. The only components that the nodes share in the ThinkSystem D3 chassis are the power supplies, with everything else, even cooling, being node-specific, so component failure is localized to the node itself.
Although we haven’t yet run performance tests on the new ThinkSystem servers, Lenovo has already published record-breaking results in several applications. Overall, we find these new ThinkSystem multi-node servers highly impressive for their intended use and look forward to getting them in our lab.
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