Lenovo ThinkSystem SR250 is an affordable, single-socket 1U rack server for small and medium businesses that need optimized performance and flexibility for future growth, along with enterprise-class reliability, management, and security.

The SR250 server offers a wide range of processors — from Intel Celeron to Intel Xeon E Series. With support for a memory capacity of up to 128 GB and internal storage of up to 32 TB, the SR250 server is an ideal choice for small- to medium-sized business, workgroups, distributed locations, and web-scale workloads.

Flexible and scalable internal storage configurations include up to ten 2.5-inch or four 3.5-inch drives with affordable software RAID or advanced hardware RAID protection and a wide selection of drive sizes and types, including NVMe PCIe SSDs, SAS/SATA SSDs, and SAS/SATA HDDs. Also, it features integrated dual-port 1 Gb Ethernet NIC and additional PCIe expansion slots for hardware RAID protection, network scalability, and external storage connectivity.

The next-generation Lenovo XClarity Controller, which is built into the SR250 server, provides advanced service processor control, monitoring, and alerting functions.

The following figure shows the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR250.

Figure 1 Lenovo ThinkSystem SR250

The SR250 server offers enterprise-class reliability features such as error correcting code (ECC), hot-swap components, and advanced RAID protection with flexible storage options at an affordable price.

The SR250 server has a mere 19.6-inch (498 mm) deep chassis, helping customers reduce their business footprint.

The SR250 server offers performance, energy efficiency, and serviceability features, such as NVMe PCIe SSDs, 80 PLUS Gold and Platinum certified power supplies, and easy access to upgrades and serviceable parts (such as memory DIMMs and adapter cards), which is not typically found in the single-socket value servers.

The SR250 server offers easy-to-use, enterprise-class manageability to monitor server availability and perform remote management with the built-in Lenovo XClarity Controller.

The SR250 server is a compact, cost-effective, single-processor 1U rack server that has been optimized to provide enterprise-class features to small-to-medium-sized businesses, retail stores, or distributed enterprises.

Scalability and performance

The SR250 server offers numerous features to boost performance, improve scalability, and reduce costs:

• Improves productivity by offering superior system performance with the Intel Xeon E Series processors with up to six cores, up to 12 MB of last level cache (LLC), up to 2666 MHz memory speeds, and up to 8 GT/s bus speed.
  
  
  
  • Choice of processors with up to six cores and up to 12 threads to enable the effective use of multithreaded applications.
  • Intelligent and adaptive system performance with energy efficient Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 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 (AVX) enable acceleration of enterprise-class and high performance computing (HPC) workloads.
• Provides memory speed, availability, and capacity of up to 64 GB memory with up to four 2666 MHz DDR4 ECC UDIMMs.
• Offers flexible and scalable internal storage in a 1U rack form factor with up to 10x 2.5-inch drives for performance-optimized configurations or up to 4x 3.5-inch drives for capacity-optimized configurations, providing a wide selection of SAS/SATA HDD/SSD and PCIe NVMe SSD types and capacities.
• Provides I/O scalability with the onboard LOM interface and up to three PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 I/O expansion slots in a 1U rack form factor.
• Reduces I/O latency and increases overall system performance with Intel Integrated I/O Technology that embeds the PCI Express 3.0 controller into the Intel processors.

Availability and serviceability

The SR250 server provides many features to simplify serviceability and increase system uptime:

• Offers ECC protection which provides error correction not available in PC-class “servers” that use parity memory.
• Provides easy access to upgrades and serviceable parts (such as memory DIMMs and adapter cards) with tool-less cover removal.
• Offers data protection and greater system uptime with a choice of affordable onboard SATA RAID or advanced hardware RAID redundancy, along with hot-swap drives (select models).
• Provides availability for business-critical applications with redundant hot-swap power supplies (select models).
• Allows preventive actions in advance of possible failure, thereby increasing server uptime and application availability with Proactive Platform Alerts (including PFA and SMART alerts) for memory, internal storage (SAS/SATA HDDs and SSDs, NVMe SSDs, M.2 SSDs), RAID controllers, and server ambient and sub-component temperatures.
• Continuously monitors system parameters, triggers alerts, and performs recovery actions in case of failure to minimize downtime with Built-in XClarity Controller (XCC).
• Provides quick access to system status, firmware, network, health, and alerts information via Virtual Operator Panel from the XClarity Mobile App running on the Android or iOS mobile device that is connected to the front USB port with XClarity Controller access.
• Speeds up troubleshooting tasks to reduce service time with diagnostics built into the XClarity Provisioning Manager.

Manageability and security

Powerful systems management features simplify local and remote management of the SR250 server and deliver enterprise-class data protection:

• Provides advanced service processor control, monitoring, and alerting functions with XClarity Controller, a next generation service processor.
• Improves Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) system setup, configuration, updates, simplified error handling, and operating system deployment with the embedded XClarity Provisioning Manager.
• Offers XClarity Essentials software tools that can help customers set up, use, and maintain the server.
• Increases uptime, reduces costs, and improves productivity through advanced server management capabilities with Lenovo XClarity Administrator that provides comprehensive hardware management.
• Provides on-the-go monitoring and management of devices in XClarity Administrator from anywhere with the Lenovo XClarity mobile app, which can help improve efficiency and reduce downtime risks.
• Centralizes infrastructure resource management with Lenovo XClarity Integrators for VMware vCenter and Microsoft System Center, extending XClarity Administrator features to virtualization management software tools and enabling users to deploy and manage infrastructure end-to-end.
• Offers advanced cryptographic functionality (such as digital signatures and remote attestation) with an integrated Trusted Platform Module (TPM) or optional Nationz TPM (available only in PRC).
• Keeps user data safe with Lenovo Business Vantage, a security software tool suite designed to work with the Nationz Trusted Platform Module (available only in PRC).
• Establishes a solid security foundation for workloads by delivering firmware that is securely built, tested, digitally signed, and verified prior to execution.
• Offers enterprise-class data protection with advanced RAID and optional self-encrypting drives.
• Provides faster, stronger encryption with industry-standard AES NI support.
• Helps prevent certain classes of malicious buffer overflow attacks with Intel Execute Disable Bit functionality, when combined with a supporting operating system.
• Enhances security through hardware-based resistance to malicious software attacks with Intel Trusted Execution Technology, allowing an application to run in its own isolated space, protected from all other software running on a system.
• Helps prevent unauthorized software from running on the server by protecting against boot block-level malicious software with Intel Boot Guard technology.
• Protects application code and data from disclosure or modification with Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX), enabling high-assurance security use cases, such as blockchain, identity and records privacy, secure browsing, and digital rights management (DRM).

The following figure shows the front of the SR250 server with four 3.5-inch drive bays.

Figure 2. Front view of the SR250: 4x 3.5-inch drive bays

The following figure shows the front of the SR250 server with eight 2.5-inch drive bays.

Figure 3. Front view of the SR250: 8x 2.5-inch drive bays