A little bigger than TinyMiniMicro... (question re memory types in a build)

[ccie4526]

Of course the TinyMiniMicro project is of great interest, but the inability to add an additional NIC to the unit (except in the case of certain Lenovo units, but then you lose the space to add a 2.5" disk) is somewhat limiting... so I'm going just a little bit bigger.

I've got access to a bunch (10+) of old Optiplex 7010 and 9020 SFF units, which of course have a couple of PCIe slots, as well as space for some 2.5" or a single 3.5" disk. It's also fairly well known that with the latest BIOS updates, it's possible to drop certain Ivy Bridge or Haswell Xeon processors into the units.

One of the big questions outstanding is what memory types are supported. It's known/accepted that using any of the i3/i5/i7 processors, you have to use unbuffered (desktop) memory in the unit. It's also known/accepted that Xeon processors support the use of ECC memory.

One thing I haven't been able to determine (and yes, I've tried the googles, my search-fu is sometimes weak), is whether one can use ECC memory in one of these Optiplex systems into which the latest BIOS update has been deployed, AND into which a Xeon processor has been installed.

Note the conditions there. Yes, I know ECC will not work if it's an i3/i5/i7 processor in the machine. It has to be a unit with a Xeon installed/running.

Anyone with personal knowledge of this? Or does anyone happen to have spare hardware lying around and can test?

(edit: grammar)

 

[ccie4526]

Looks like I finally figured out my answer. The machines use the Intel (IvyBridge) Q77 and (Haswell) Q87 chipsets respectively, and it appears those chipsets do NOT support ECC memory.

Apparently you need to have the C-series chipset (IvyBridge = C216) (Haswell = C222, C224, C226) in the respective architectures in order to have ECC support.

Edit to add: The Precision T1700 SFF has the C226 chipset and supports ECC.

Lesson learned.

 

[atflp]

Check Small Form Factor workstation machines, like HP Z240 SFF for example. Or older machines like Z220, Z210.
It is the one of the best machine that I found similar puposes.

- It supports Unbuffered ECC RAM modules with Xeon E3 processors
- It has TWO 3.5" drive bay, so you can use RAID1
- it has additional 2.5" SSD os HDD bay
- it has an nvme SSD slot on the motherboard.

I checked Lenovo SFF machines as well, but they supports only one 3.5" HDD bay. The DELL DT, SFF, USSF maschine neither support two 3.5" HDDs.

You can check Lenovo P300, P310, P320 machines, but they supports less features like the HP Z240 SFF has.