User Guide

Lenovo ThinkSystem DS4200 Storage Array
Product Guide (withdrawn product)
The Lenovo ThinkSystem DS4200 is a versatile storage system designed to provide simplicity, speed,
scalability, security, and high availability for small to large businesses. The ThinkSystem DS4200 delivers
enterprise-class storage management technology in a cost-effective solution with a wide choice of host
connectivity options, flexible drive configurations, and enhanced data management features.
The ThinkSystem DS4200 is a perfect fit for a wide range of workloads, from specialized workloads such as
big data and analytics, video surveillance, media streaming, and private clouds to general purpose workloads
such as file and print serving, web serving, e-mail and collaboration, and OLTP databases. The DS4200 is
also suited very well for secure archive storage or a consolidated backup solution.
The ThinkSystem DS4200 supports up to 240 SFF drives with up to nine 2U DS Series external expansion
enclosures or up to 264 LFF drives with up to three D3284 5U enclosures. It also offers flexible drive
configurations with the choice of 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drive form factors, 10 K or 15 K rpm SAS and 7.2 K
rpm NL SAS hard disk drives (HDDs) and self-encrypting drives (SEDs), and SAS solid-state drives (SSDs).
The DS4200 can be scaled up to 3 PB of raw storage capacity.
The Lenovo ThinkSystem DS4200 enclosures are shown in the following figure.
Figure 1. Lenovo ThinkSystem DS4200 SFF (left) and LFF (right) enclosures
Did you know?
The ThinkSystem DS4200 supports Intelligent Real-time Tiering capabilities that help optimize system
performance, reduce costs, and simplify management. The base software includes the ability to move data
dynamically between SAS HDDs that are optimized for cost per IOPS and NL SAS HDDs that are optimized
for cost per GB. With the optional software license, the DS4200 supports hybrid tiering across HDDs and
SSDs.
The ThinkSystem DS4200 offers the flexible choice of 12 Gb SAS, 1/10 Gb iSCSI, and 4/8/16 Gb Fibre
Channel (FC) host connectivity protocols, with support for hybrid iSCSI and Fibre Channel connectivity at the
same time. The Converged Network Controller (CNC) design of the DS4200 makes the selection of iSCSI or
FC host connectivity as simple as attaching corresponding transceivers or Direct-Attach Copper (DAC) cables
to the SFP/SFP+ ports on the controller module.
The ThinkSystem DS4200 supports battery-free cache protection, which reduces maintenance costs and
provides permanent backup of unwritten cache data if there is a power failure.
Lenovo ThinkSystem DS4200 Storage Array (withdrawn product) 1