Project TinyMiniMicro: Reviving Small Corporate Desktops

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Geran

Active Member
Oct 25, 2016
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Has anyone found a good way to put these in a rack? (Other than just stacking them on a shelf.) I have a bunch of Dell OptiPlex 7040's that I've been using in my home lab. I'm at the point of wanting to start racking my equipment instead of everything being on a table. I'm just wondering if anyone has found a good clean looking rach mount solution for these mini and micro systems.
Here is an option: Lenovo Tiny 19" 1U Rack Mount by simbaja
 

cesmith9999

Well-Known Member
Mar 26, 2013
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I like that. but I would almost do a shelf and stack them vertically like build-a-blade...

and put a couple of fans in front to push air through...

Chris
 

tinfoil3d

QSFP28
May 11, 2020
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Hello. For complete newbies to the modern computers, are CPUs on these P330 tiny upgradable(removable)? Looking up i7-8700 on ark.intel they are Coffee Lake on FCLGA1151 which is probably same as LGA1151, which seems like a regular socket. Are these indeed swappable? Anyone ever tried Xeon-E CPUs in these lenovo 1lpcs? With ECC too maybe? Or maybe it's way too power-hungry?
I'm currently considering if I should go get a cheap config of P330 tiny and upgrade that with sfp+ hba, xeon and ecc sticks or would that be beyond 135w capacity.
 
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newabc

Active Member
Jan 20, 2019
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I think the Project TinyMiniMicro also can consider the low power consumption boxes(less than 15 watts) with passmark around 2500-3500 like Wyse 5070(intel J4105 and J5005).

The low power ones can do light weight duty like web scraping and minor analyzing, and send big things into the bigger machines or cloud VMs for deeper analyzing.
 

armandh

New Member
Nov 21, 2020
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St louis county mo
I have several, 3 of which are built on a slightly larger HP i5 platform
just right for a 3Tb mirror and a small SSD for the XigmaNAS OS and Swap file.
two of the 3 have a photo attached.
the traditional drive position for one of the 3 TB, a 5 to 3 inch bay adapter for the other
that with a screen for air flow. and in the previously unused 3" bay an adapter for the 2.5" SSD.

on top, and not meeting the original criteria, is a Z-box used as a web server
OS on a 4GB flash, single drive for the data

not in the frame is an old but reliable Liebert 1kw double conversion UPS
 

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Marsh

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May 12, 2013
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One neat thing about the HP 8300, it has a 80mm fan, part of the fan is used to cool PS,
the other half of the fan is used to cool the hard drive.
 

armandh

New Member
Nov 21, 2020
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St louis county mo
One neat thing about the HP 8300, it has a 80mm fan, part of the fan is used to cool PS,
the other half of the fan is used to cool the hard drive.
yes and I used a perforated metal screen in the 3 " opening of the 5/3 bay adapter to bring in air around the second drive
with the bottom of the bay adapter being mostly open the SSD below it gets air flow too

since mine are used for storage/back-up I spin the drives down after 30 minutes of idle
a bit of lag on spin up from a deep sleep but worth the power savings

the OS has more features/services than I will ever use.

network named Mon, Wed, Fri makes back up easy

2 other built in curb-side mini tower cases with Chinese wrecking yard Gigabit MOBOs have 2 mirrored Pools each.
 
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Iryngael

New Member
Mar 8, 2019
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Hello, I just grabbed an Optiplex 5080 Micro in a second hand shop to run as a secondary cluster node along my Optiplex 7060 Micro, unfortunately it has a password set on the BIOS and no pwd jumper on the motherboard unlike previous gen Optiplex Micro... Do you have any trick to manage resetting the password of this BIOS ?
Thanks a lot in advance !
 

tinfoil3d

QSFP28
May 11, 2020
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Guys, I just got email from lenovo japan that my order is shipped. I've ordered P340 mini back in April. Do you think I'm lucky now? It's only one month and ten days after all. Could have been three months or more...
 

Iryngael

New Member
Mar 8, 2019
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Hello, I just grabbed an Optiplex 5080 Micro in a second hand shop to run as a secondary cluster node along my Optiplex 7060 Micro, unfortunately it has a password set on the BIOS and no pwd jumper on the motherboard unlike previous gen Optiplex Micro... Do you have any trick to manage resetting the password of this BIOS ?
Thanks a lot in advance !
I quote myself as I know a lot of people hate unanswered questions :
I contacted Dell support via Whatsapp, showed them my purchase invoice (the second hand shop had put the Express Service Code in the description) and proved I was the owner. They then sent me the master password (32 chars long). This is the only way with those new jumperless machines. This is made to limit stolen PCs to be reselled by thieves.

But a new issur has arisen :
this Optiolex 5080 has Intel ME has well as AMT. I can power on/off the machine via MeshCommander, I can use IDER as well as checking settings. Therefore, it is impossible to have remote desktop, which is very annoying.
Is it because that machine isn't vPro certified ? There is an i5-10500T inside, which is vPro enabled. Is it possible for me to enable this feature in some way ?

Thanks for your help.

BTW : I can confirm Optiplex 7060 and 5080 fully support 64GB of 2666MHz RAM (I used 2x32GB Crucial kits)
 
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unmesh

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Apr 17, 2017
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...

But a new issur has arisen :
this Optiolex 5080 has Intel ME has well as AMT. I can power on/off the machine via MeshCommander, I can use IDER as well as checking settings. Therefore, it is impossible to have remote desktop, which is very annoying.
Is it because that machine isn't vPro certified ? There is an i5-10500T inside, which is vPro enabled. Is it possible for me to enable this feature in some way ?

...
Full remote functionality does indeed require the unit to be vPro certified
 
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Geckoo

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Apr 21, 2016
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Which one of these 1liter systems has the posibility to power 3 displays (without VGA :) )
im looking for one for a project.
 

tinfoil3d

QSFP28
May 11, 2020
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On paper, I would say many of lenovo ones will. According to specs, CPU graphics supports up to 3 displays, and there are two ports(HDMI and DP) in most of lenovo 1l products, with ability to add one more DP or HDMI or even VGA as an option/FRU.
Personally I didn't try it because I've never ordered this part. And I don't expect it to be very high-res(intel CPUs resolution is limited to slightly above 4k 60fps total it seems). Maybe you can decrease framerate and double the resolution though, I won't bet on it too much.
 
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unmesh

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Apr 17, 2017
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Mine have two DPs and the VGA option though I've only connected the VGA and that too for debug since I normally run them headless.
 

drvcrash

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Jul 29, 2020
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I want to setup a 3 node vsan lab each with min 6 core, one nvme sdd, sata sdd , 64gb ram and vpro. What tiny box would do that? There are so many to choose from i keep getting lost in the choices
 

tinfoil3d

QSFP28
May 11, 2020
873
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Japan
I want to setup a 3 node vsan lab each with min 6 core, one nvme sdd, sata sdd , 64gb ram and vpro. What tiny box would do that?
As for lenovo almost any could, just choose the CPU you want or buy cheapest and add CPU yourself from psref compat list.
You won't have ECC though. I tried putting Xeon W into P340 Tiny but couldn't get it to power on with it at all.
 

maes

Active Member
Nov 11, 2018
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Which one of these 1liter systems has the posibility to power 3 displays (without VGA :) )
im looking for one for a project.
The newer ones with displayport are most likely to support MST. I have a 5060 micro that I use to run 3 Displayport displays that way (1 connected directly, 2 through a displayport MST hub).

AFAIK the Ryzen-based ones should be able to handle up to 4 monitors using those displayport MST hubs. The Intel-based ones cap out at 3.
 

Tcalp

Member
Oct 15, 2020
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What do you guys think is the best unit these days for a HTPC setup ? I'd obviously want HDMI -- preferably NVMe and support for 1-2 2.5" or 3.5" drives...