Today we are taking a look at a classic tower server from Lenovo. The Lenovo ThinkSystem ST250 V2 is in an interesting space as the end of the DDR4 generation using the Intel Xeon E-2300 series. For many, the ST250 series is a great platform to run SMB servers, and over time, this ST250 V2 may become a great option for those on a budget.
Lenovo ThinkSystem ST250 V2 External Overview
The server itself looks much like tower servers before it. Lenovo has a conversion kit that can turn this into a 5U rackmount server, but we did not have that.
On the top, we get a power button, ID light, service USB port, and a USB 3 port. Perhaps the more exciting feature to some are the two 5.25″ bays that can be used for devices like optical drives.
In the middle, our system did not come with anything installed, but this is a flexible bay that can be used for drives.
Our system had the four drive bays installed at the bottom of the chassis.
Moving to the rear, there are options for fixed 250W or 300W power supplies. Our test system had a single 550W PSU and the option to add a second for redundancy.
The rear center is a large fan next to the rear I/O. This system has a serial port, a VGA port, and four rear USB 3 Type-A ports. Networking is provided via two 1GbE NICs. The other NIC port is the out-of-band management port, but you can also use NIC1 as a shared NIC for management and data.
The bottom section has four PCIe slots. We have an optional dual 10Gbase-T Broadcom NIC installed in slot 2.
Next, let us get inside the system.
“Our system was interesting since it came with a single 550W redundant power supply.”
I think this should read non-redundant. I don’t see a second PSU in the photos!
There’s a fixed psu option on these. This has the redundant option, but it only has 1 of the two installed. It’s strange that there’s only 1 in here and there isn’t 2. So it’s a non-redundant power supply unless you add a 2nd, but it’s got the redundant psu option, and that’s what they’re saying.
Thank you for a good review of this successor to my beloved ThinkServer TS family. (For the less than avid fans, TS stands for Tower form factor, Single processor.)
Glad to see the rotation guide for the rubber feet has been added to the inside diagram. It can be hard to remember how when the machine you’re working on is also the Internet proxy, so no YouTube or Reddit.
The biggest issue I have with these “rackable” tower servers is that it’s harder than heck to actually source all the needed bits. Even just finding what part numbers to search for can be a big headache.