Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series offers price-performance optimization

The critical function of data storage becomes more apparent as businesses grow and become more data driven. While data processing speed and basic storage may not be an issue when the business starts, faster data processing and reliable storage become increasingly important in line with growth.

Bringing the business to the next level requires being smart about spending and investments. For many SMBs, the tech side of things may a forté and trying to figure out which data storage solution is most fitting for the business could be daunting.

Ideally, storage would be simple to use, have all the functionality and reliable performance the business needs, and easy on the money—something entry-level, but with enterprise-level capability. That’s the niche filled by the Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series storage solutions.

The Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is designed to provide price-performance optimized storage, for deployment in medium to large businesses. Ideal workloads include big data and analytics, technical computing, backup and recovery, and other storage I/O-intensive applications.

The range is divided into two sub-series: DE All-Flash Systems and DE Hybrid Systems. (The all-flash systems and are denoted by an “F” at the end of their model assignations: DE6000F and DE4000F.)

The ThinkSystems DE6000F is the higher end of the all-flash systems with up to 1.84PB of raw storage capacity and 1M IOPS with 21GBps of read bandwidth. On the other hand, the ThinkSystems DE4000F supports 300K IOPS with 1.47PB maximum storage and 10GBps read throughput.

The speed of the all-flash arrays means they can handle real-time data analytics on expanding datasets, an excellent advantage for a growing business. Scaling down isn’t a problem with the all-flash systems as the storage is rewritable and non-volatile. Aside from their configuration flexibility and simplicity, the all-flash storage systems are cost-effective.

“Lenovo all-flash storage offered the best price per TB, and the pre-sales experience was head and shoulders above the competition, making it an easy decision to go with Lenovo,” said Simon Fortt, technical manager at De Facto Software, after replacing its old storage area network system with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE4000F. The company develops custom enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, e-commerce websites, and mobile apps for UK-based businesses in various industries.

Meanwhile, the DE Hybrid Systems have flash storage and hard disk drives (HDD), with spinning disks to store data on a rotating platter. There are three models in the series which accept both 2.5” and 3.5” drives: DE2000H, DE4000H, and DE6000H (notice the H in their last letter). The ThinkSystem DE2000H is suitable for small offices and remote/branch offices of large enterprises and can scale up to 1.47PB of raw storage capacity.

The top end of the hybrid series geared towards medium to large businesses, with the ThinkSystem DE6000H going up to 4.3PB of raw storage capacity in the base configuration. It can go even reach 8.64PB with optional Features on Demand upgrade.

The key features of the Lenovo DE Series include:

• Optional synchronous mirroring licensed function for continuous data availability.
• Intuitive, web-based GUI for easy system setup and management.
• Designed for 99.9999% availability with redundant hot-swap components, including controllers and I/O modules, power supplies, proactive maintenance, and non-disruptive firmware upgrade.
• Rich storage management functions come with the system, including Dynamic Disk Pools (DDP), thin provisioning, snapshots, and asynchronous mirroring.
• DDP technology allows spare capacity to be distributed across all physical drives in the storage pool. This translates to significantly faster rebuild time and reduced exposure to multiple drive failures.

Thin provisioning optimizes DDP efficiency by allocating storage space based on the minimum space required by each application at any given time. Applications consume only the space they are using, not the total space that has been allocated to them.

This allows customers to purchase storage they need today and add more as application requirements grow. That’s just the kind of technology leveraged by huge companies that can pay for hyperconverged storage – but at a small business price point.

Snapshots enable the creation of copies of data for backup, parallel workloads, testing, and development and the copies are available almost immediately (up to 2048 snapshot targets per system).

Asynchronous mirroring provides storage system-based data replication between the storage systems containing primary (local) and secondary (remote) volumes by using asynchronous data transfers over iSCSI or Fibre Channel communication links at set intervals (both storage systems must have licenses for asynchronous mirroring). Synchronous mirroring, meanwhile, allows the data replication to happen online and in real-time.

Lenovo ThinkSystems DE Series is built for speedy performance, simplicity, reliability, and affordability. It serves the need of businesses to make the most from their technology investments, with low and fair pricing on dependable and scalable enterprise-grade storage solutions.

To find out more, reach out to a Lenovo representative near you to discuss your requirements or queries.