Lenovo ThinkSystem ST250 V2 Power Consumption and Noise
Our system was interesting since it came with a single 550W redundant power supply. Realistically, it probably could have used a 300W power supply and been fine.
The advantage is that the system has the ability to have a redundant power source with this configuration by simply adding another power supply.
A fairly full configuration like we have here will idle at around 45-50W and 36-39dba. We can get the system to use around 220W and hit 48dba without much of a challenge. Of course, if you were to configure a full set of 8x drives, four PCIe cards, and an 8-core processor, you could easily get that to go significantly higher.
STH Server Spider: Lenovo ThinkSystem ST250 V2
In the second half of 2018, we introduced the STH Server Spider as a quick reference to where a server system’s aptitude lies. Our goal is to start giving a quick visual depiction of the types of parameters that a server is targeted at.
This is not meant to be an ultra-high-density system by any means. The Intel Xeon E series along with the large form factor ensures that this is the case. At the same time, there is a step up in capability between this and some of the smaller tower server platforms. There is an option from Lenovo for a NVIDIA T1000 active air-cooled GPU in this platform, but we wish Lenovo added a few more.
Final Words
The Lenovo ThinkSystem ST250 V2 is an interesting machine. We had access to one of these, and thought it was worth looking at as it ends its main new sales push, but can still be found on some outlets. As this transitions into the off-lease market, it is going to be a nice machine for many folks. Comparing it to the Lenovo ST50 V2, the ST250 V2 is larger, but it also provides a lot more expandability and features. If you needed an 8-bay NAS, for example, then something like this with the full 8x 3.5″ drive bay configuration would be super.
This year we are going to push to have more systems from Lenovo, Dell, and HPE go through the review process. Part of the reason is that they tend to be high-volume systems that are popular when they are new, but also have long upcycling tails. We are also going to get back to doing more tower servers this year, and so we need to re-establish a baseline. If you want an Intel Xeon E-2300 system, then the ST250 V2 is extremely capable and offers a lot more expandability than smaller systems like the ST50 V2.
“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.