All adapters
All power supplies
The RPQ upgrade includes these parts:
New 8U chassis and 8-socket midplane
A second Storage Book
A second Primary I/O Book
The RPQ upgrade may also require new parts:
Additional Compute Books (a minimum of four Compute Books required in the x3950 X6)
Additional power supplies (a minimum of four are required in the x3950 X6)
Additional I/O Books, network adapters, drives as needed
There are key considerations for this upgrade:
Processor support: Intel Xeon E7-4800 v2/v3/v4 processors cannot be used in an x3950 X6. If your
x3850 X6 has Compute Books with E7-4800 processors, then these must be replaced with
Compute Books with E7-8800 processors if you plan to upgrade to an x3950 X6. The memory in the
Compute Books can be reused in the x3950 X6, however.
All processors must be identical: All processors used in the x3950 X6 must be the identical. For
example, all E7-8850 v3 processors. A minimum of four processors are required.
The upgrade does result in some parts no longer being used (“parts on the floor”):
Existing 4U chassis and 4-socket midplane
Compute Books that are based on E7-4800 processors
Original x3850 X6 server may need to be ordered configure-to-order (CTO) or Special Bid: To
minimize “parts on the floor” (parts that cannot be used in the upgraded system), the original x3850
X6 should be configured with Compute Books containing E7-8800 processors. Since many
standard models of the x3850 X6 (see
Table 2
) contain E7-4800 processors, you may need to use
configure-to-order or order the server using Special Bid to create a server configuration with E7-
8800 processors.
Serial number swap: The RPQ upgrade process also involves transferring the x3850 X6 serial
number to the x3950 X6 chassis. This transfer makes the upgrade simpler from an asset or
depreciation management point of view. This transfer also means that the old 4U chassis will be
retired as it will no longer have a valid serial number.
Power supplies: Ideally all power supplies are the 1400W variant. Regardless of the selection, the
power supplies coexistence rules as described in the
Power supplies
section must be followed.
Additional power: Depending on your workload and configuration you may need to provision for
additional PDU outlets, cables and power capacity for your x3950 X6 server. Use the Lenovo Power
Configurator to determine your total power draw to assist you in provisioning adequate power. You
can download the Power Configurator from
https://support.lenovo.com/documents/LNVO-
PWRCONF
Additional rack space: An additional 4U of rack space is required when upgrading the x3850 X6 to
the x3950 X6, for a total of 8U of rack space.
Down time: In order to upgrade the x3850 X6 server to an x3950 X6 server you will need to allow for
down time. The server will need to be completely powered off and have some of its components
removed for re-installation into the new x3950 X6 server.
Processor options
The x3850 X6 supports up to four Intel Xeon E7 processors, either E7 v4 or E7 v3. Processors are installed
in Compute Books, one processor in each Compute Book. The following figure shows the components of
the Compute Book:
Lenovo System x3850 X6 (6241)
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