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Self hosting hardware - what are your experiences with Lenovo ThinkCentre as homelab server? (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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Hey guys, I was wondering if any of you have experience running their services on a Lenovo ThinkCentre, specifically a Lenovo ThinkCentre M70Q Gen1? From what I read they can be quite efficient when it comes to idle power draw.

I have the chance to buy a refurbished one for approx. €380, coming with a i5-10400T, 16 GB RAM and a 256 GB NVMe SSD. Do you guys think the price sounds fair?

I am mainly looking to expand my Proxmox single host setup comprising of an Intel N150 mini PC with a second node as backup. Maybe down the line if I can get my hands on another affordable mini PC I might dabble in setting up a Kubernetes cluster. But that's a project for another day 😄

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[–] 10 points 9 months ago (10 children)

I have 2 of them with older 6 core CPUs and 32gb each. I also added a 10g SFP card in the PCIe slot so they would have a bit more umph.

For 380 each I would not bother, and I would look at the Minisforum MS-01 as it has built in dual 10g SFPs and dual 2.5g RJ45's plus a PCIe slot.

https://minisforumpc.eu/products/ms-01?_pos=1&_psq=MS&_ss=e&_v=1.0

at ~80 euro's more you get more CPU, faster ram if you can find it, more storage, and more networking.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Are those custom 3d printed rack mounts for the ThinkCentres? Got an STL to share? I'd love to print rack mounts for mine (m910q)

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    I may, it was a massive work in progress that I never finished because life decided to beat the crap out of me for the last 3 years. I was trying to build a modular system that was 19" and 10" rack compatible and would have storage options as well. In this case its 2x Seagate external drives, and a WD external drive plugged in via USB3 and setup in a CEPH cluster.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    That looks nice, what sort of a container box is this? I always had just boxes all over the place, but now in a house where I got a chance to put it all into a neater place. So looking for something like your box there. Also appreciate any kind of price guide for it.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Nice setup! Is that a Minisforum below the optiplex?

    Haha I read your comment the wrong way around the first time thinking you got a Minisforum MS-01 for like €460. That would have been a great deal 😄

    Because searching for what a new MS-01 with i5 and 32gb RAM and 1TB SSD cost is more towards €700. Haven't found a lot of offerings for a used one in my region and buying new currently I think I would have to pay too much.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    Yes thats the MS-A1 which is a great little box but not as flexible as the MS-01. It lacks the PCIe slot, and only has 2x 2.5g Ethernet ports.

    You probably wont find the MS-01 used since its not like the Lenovo's with their mass market deployment as office PCs.

    As for price, https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256810143174659.html? I was looking at the barebones since the prices on DDR5 and NVME's are nuts right now. I have spare NVME drives so all I would need is RAM and I can find it cheaper than the resellers who mark it up when they install it for you.

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  • [+] 1 point 9 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)
    [removed by mod]
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