Lenovo has unveiled its DE6500 and DE6800 block storage arrays, built on NetApp’s EF50 and EF80 platforms, while NetApp is promoting its ultra-fast Novus ONTAP system built for zettabyte-scale AI factories.
The vendor rolled out these storage arrays alongside high-performance Neptune liquid-cooled servers. The Lenovo ThinkSystem DE6800 and DE6500 platforms are engineered for scale and strong performance, tuned for high-throughput, latency-sensitive block workloads. The DE6800 suits high-throughput applications that demand dependable storage, whereas the DE6500 delivers cost-effective high performance alongside streamlined deployment and administration.
Dan McNamara, SVP and GM, Compute and Enterprise AI at AMD, stated: “As AI and HPC workloads converge, organizations need infrastructure that delivers outstanding compute performance, energy efficiency and flexibility at scale. The new Lenovo ThinkSystem platforms powered by 6th Gen AMD EPYC Server CPUs help customers accelerate demanding workloads – from engineering and scientific research to AI inferencing and agentic AI – while laying a more efficient, scalable foundation for ongoing innovation.”
NetApp’s EF-series products are all-flash arrays with 24 NVMe drive bays and run Santricity OS. They deliver fast block storage without the extra features and complexity found in NetApp’s ONTAP-based all-flash SAN (ASA) and block-only A-Series lines. These systems were announced in March and offer more than 110 GBps read and 55 GBps write bandwidth, with capacity up to 1.5 PB within a 2 RU chassis.
NetApp EF50 (left) and EF80 (right).
In their Lenovo-branded DE6500 and DE6800 forms, they operate Lenovo SAN OS and System Manager. The product positioning is outlined below:
DE6500: Entry-to-midrange platform for mixed workloads. It fits databases and analytics, backup and recovery, general SMB use cases, low-latency applications, video surveillance, and technical computing.
DE6800: Higher-performance system offering roughly 3× the IOPS and around 2.7× the throughput of the DE6500, plus extra memory and faster host ports including 200Gb interfaces. It targets AI, big data analytics, Oracle and SQL databases, HPC, and real-time analytics.
Detailed specifications can be found in Lenovo’s official DE6500 and DE6800 product guides.
Novus
NetApp is now discussing deployments of its disaggregated ONTAP storage variant Novus within Nebul, a European sovereign cloud hosted in the Netherlands. Nebul also runs DDN EXAScaler, Infinia, NetApp ONTAP and VAST Data’s AI OS.
Novus is now generally available. It is designed to boost utilization across millions of GPUs and supports an aggregate throughput ceiling of 100 TB per second. It enters the high-performance AI factory storage software market somewhat late and must compete against established parallel file system offerings such as DDN’s EXAScaler Lustre platform, IBM Spectrum Scale, Quobyte, VDURA, BeeGFS, Dell Lightning, Hammerspace GDE, newer disaggregated hardware and object-native DDN Infinia, HPE Alletra MP, Everpure EXA, WEKA Neural Mesh, and VAST Data’s AI OS.
Its key advantage lies in ONTAP compatibility, meaning NetApp existing customers can adopt it more easily than most competing alternatives.
Willem Hendrickx, SVP and GM for EMEA and LATAM at NetApp, commented: “Neoclouds and GPU-as-a-Service providers are building AI factories at a scale traditional storage architectures were never designed to support. As data sovereignty requirements rise, AI providers such as Nebul must also build infrastructure to meet compliance, security and multi-tenancy rules for regulated sectors including government, healthcare and biotech.
“Novus combines cutting-edge architecture built ground-up for modern AI factories with proven capabilities from the NetApp Platform to prepare and secure data for AI, giving customers a faster, lower-risk path from AI pilot to full production rollout.”
NetApp notes Novus is already gaining traction with neocloud providers, who are exploring joint models to bring NetApp-powered AI infrastructure to global end users. Additional details on Novus are available from NetApp.
It remains to be seen whether Lenovo will adopt Novus and integrate it into its AI storage lineup.
Beijing Qianxing Jietong Technology Co., Ltd.
Sandy Yang/Global Strategy Director
WhatsApp / WeChat: +86 13426366826
Email: yangyd@qianxingdata.com
Website: www.qianxingdata.com/www.storagesserver.com
Business Focus:
ICT Product Distribution/System Integration & Services/Infrastructure Solutions
With 20+ years of IT distribution experience, we partner with leading global brands to deliver reliable products and professional services.
“Using Technology to Build an Intelligent World”Your Trusted ICT Product Service Provider!
Your message must be between 20-3,000 characters!
English
