Lenovo ThinkSystem DM5100F is a NetApp ONTAP array designed for high-speed yet affordable storage. The new DM5100F uses all NVMe SSDs for analytics and AI workloads. Also new in this series is that the Lenovo DM series supports S3 object storage which allows block, file, and object storage in the same array.
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM5100F Overview
The Lenovo ThinkSystem DM5100F is a 2U system that is built in partnership with NetApp. Years ago Lenovo turned to NetApp to leverage Lenovo branded storage that utilize NetApp’s ONTAP storage platform. This is another machine in that lineage.
The system itself is a 2U 24-bay NVMe chassis that uses 25GbE for its cluster interconnect. The higher-end DM7100F utilizes 100GbE. Alongside these chassis is the DM240N storage expansion shelf as well as the ability to utilize cold storage tiering to move cold data off of the NVMe array and push it to more economical disk storage or the cloud. The solution can also replicate data to different clouds.
In the scale-out NAS configuration, one can get almost 9PB of raw capacity using 12x HA pairs and 576 NVMe SSDs. One can also operate as a scale-out SAN with half of that capacity. Each HA controller has 128GB of memory and 16GB of NVRAM these are half of what is in the DM7100F.
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM5100F Tech Specs
Here are the key specs for the DM5100F and some of its stablemates:
| Description | Specifications | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DM7100F | DM5100F | DM7000F | DM5000F | |
| NAS Scale-out | 12 High Availability pairs | |||
| Maximum SSDs | 5760 (576 NVMe + 5184 SAS) | 576 NVMe | 4608 | 1728 |
| Maximum Raw Capacity: All Flash | 88PB* / 78.15PiB* | 8.84PB / 7.85PiB | 70.5PB / 62.6PiB | 24.1PB / 21.5PiB |
| Effective Capacity (based on 3:1) | 264PB / 234.45PiB | 26.43PB / 23.47PiB | 211.5PB / 187.84PiB | 72.3PB / 64.2PiB |
| Maximum Memory | 3072GB | 1536GB | 3072GB | 768GB |
| SAN Scale-out | 6 High Availability pairs | |||
| Maximum SSDs | 2880 (288 NVMe + 2592 SAS) | 288 NVMe | 2304 | 864 |
| Maximum Raw Capacity | 44PB / 39.08PiB | 4.42PB / 3.92PiB | 35.3PB / 31.3PiB | 13.2PB / 11.7PiB |
| Effective Capacity | 132PB / 117.24PiB | 17PB / 15.1PiB | 105.9PB / 94PiB | 39.6PB / 35.17PiB |
| Maximum Memory | 1536GB | 768GB | 1536GB | 384GB |
| Cluster Interconnect | 2x 100GbE | 4x 25GbE | 4x 10GbE | 4x 10GbE |
| Per High Availability Array Specifications | Active-Active Controller | |||
| Maximum SSDs | 480 (48 NVMe + 432 SAS) | 48 NVMe | 384 | 144 |
| Maximum Raw Capacity: All-Flash | 7.37PB / 6.55PiB | 737.28TB / 670.29TiB | 5.9PB / 5.2PiB | 2.2PB / 1.9PiB |
| Effective Capacity | 22.11PB / 19.65PiB | 2.11PB / 1.87PiB | 17.7PB / 15.7PiB | 6.6PB / 5.8PiB |
| Controller Form Factor | 4U chassis with two High Availability controllers | 2U chassis with two High Availability controllers and 24 NVMe SSD slots | 3U chassis with two High Availability controllers | 2U chassis with two High Availability controllers and 24 SSD slots |
| Memory | 256GB | 128GB | 256GB | 64GB |
| NVRAM | 32GB | 16GB | 16GB | 8GB |
| PCIe Expansion Slots (maximum) | 10 | 4 | 4 | Not applicable |
| FC Target Ports (32Gb autoranging, maximum) | 24 | 32 | 8 | Not applicable |
| FC Target Ports (16Gb autoranging, maximum) | 8 | Not applicable | 24 | 8 |
| 40GbE Ports (maximum) | Not applicable | Not applicable | 8 | Not applicable |
| 25GbE Ports | 20 | 32 | Not applicable | Not applicable |
| 10GbE Ports (maximum) | 32 | Not applicable | 32 | 8 |
| 100GbE ports (40GbE autoranging) | 12 | 8 | Not applicable | Not applicable |
| 10GbE BASE-T Ports (1GbE autoranging) (maximum) | 16 | 4 | 12 | 8 |
| 12Gb / 6Gb SAS Ports (maximum) | 24 | Not applicable | 24 | 4 |
| Cluster Interconnect | 2x 100GbE | 4x 25GbE | 4x 10GbE | 4x 10GbE |
| Storage Networking Supported | FC, iSCSI, NFS, pNFS, SMB, NVMe/FC | FC, iSCSI, NFS, pNFS, SMB, NVMe/FC | FC, iSCSI, NFS, pNFS, SMB, NVMe/FC | FC, iSCSI, NFS, pNFS, SMB |
| OS Version | ONTAP 9.7 or later | ONTAP 9.8 or later | ONTAP 9.4 or later | ONTAP 9.4 or later |
| Shelves and Media | DM240N, DM240S | DM240N | DM240S | DM240S |
| Host/Client OSes Supported | Microsoft Windows, Linux, VMware ESXi | |||
| DM Series ALL-Flash Software | The ONTAP 9 software bundle includes a set of products that delivers leading data management, storage efficiency, data protection, high performance, and advanced capabilities such as instant cloning, data replication, application-aware backup and recovery, and data retention. | |||
