Alternative to Minisforum MS-01?

[jester]

I'm using a Minisforum MS-01 in a single-host XCP-NG setup. Like many people here, I've found it to be often unreliable, and I can't necessarily narrow it down to something that I can get a warranty replacement for. At this point, it's crashing every couple of days at least, which is just not OK for me.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a replacement? I know it ticks a lot of boxes, which is why everyone was so excited about it in the first place, but first and foremost I need it to be a reliable server, albeit just for home use. I'm running a half-dozen VMs (with more on occasion), and I definitely need 10GB networking, at least 64GB memory, and enough cores to handle all the VMs. I'd be thrilled to get IPMI, too. What are people liking?

(I don't actually want this to be DIY, but this seems to be the subforum where the Minisforum is discussed, so....)

 

[zer0sum]

Lenovo M90Q is my go to low end tiny server, as you can find them for as low as sub $200 on Ebay, often with warranty remaining
Mine is setup with Proxmox and hosts 10+ VM's and LXC containers

Intel 10/11/12 series
64G memory (or 96G with m90q gen3)
1 x PCIe slot (half height)
2 x nvme slots
1 x sata
vPro for remote access

It works perfectly with a dual port 10G card

 

[jester]

Lenovo M90Q is my go to low end tiny server

[...]

It works perfectly with a dual port 10G card

Thanks very much. This may be a stupid question, but is there anything out there on _how_ to install a 10G card into this? Looking at the current models online, I can't see where the ports would go, and the user guide isn't too helpful either. I couldn't find a YouTube video that shows this either.

 

[unmesh]

Lenovo M90Q is my go to low end tiny server, as you can find them for as low as sub $200 on Ebay, often with warranty remaining
Mine is setup with Proxmox and hosts 10+ VM's and LXC containers

Intel 10/11/12 series
64G memory (or 96G with m90q gen3)
1 x PCIe slot (half height)
2 x nvme slots
1 x sata
vPro for remote access

It works perfectly with a dual port 10G card

Which dual NIC card are you using and were you able to buy a bracket for the network ports that is compatible with the M90Q?

 

[Greg_E]

My go to:

HP T740 or T755. Up to 64GB of DDR4 SODIMM (dual slot), takes a low profile PCIe 3.0x8 card (x16 slot), and is stable with XCP-ng, I have a three host pool running on these with a fourth that I'm using to play with backups (2TB local storage on this fourth). Also runs ESXi 8.0.3 (1 tb internal on each ESXi host).

T740 specifically, has an m.2 SATA drive (good for system OS) and m.2 NVME drive (I think PCIe 3.0 x 4 lanes but not certain here). I think the T755 is the same, but I might be wrong. T740 is 4 cores 8 threads, T755 is 6c/12t.

I'm using old Supermicro X520 based dual 10g SFP+ cards in all of mine, a better choice would probably be x710 based cards but I'm not sure what to look for or suggest. A couple threads to look at (scan down to the bottom of the first link):

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/mini-truenas-server-build.46107/

And

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/hp-t740-locked-bios-fix.46862/

The last link is in case you find a cheap one with the BIOS locked. Set up a pool of these and enjoy things like rolling pool updates so your VMs don't need to be shutdown when you update. They are working surprisingly well considering that I "warm migrated" the VMs from older HP DL360p servers with Xeon v2 processors (40 threads per host) and twice the ram.

If you go any route of replacement, set it up as a second pool, add this pool to your XO, then do the warm migrate from minisforum to new pool so you don't have to shut down and export your VMs. It worked surprisingly well and I only needed to fix a bit of the networking because I didn't properly configure and match the new pool to the old pool. Took longer than it should have to fix this, but doing it properly the first time would have been really fast!

 

[Andrew BlueVPS]

For XCP-NG setup alternatives, consider ASRock Rack 1U4L2-4L, Supermicro SuperServer E200-9B, Dell PowerEdge T40, HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus, Lenovo ThinkSystem ST50, and Intel NUC 11 Enthusiast. These servers offer reliability, performance, and features, with options like IPMI, 10GbE networking, and IPMI for remote management.

 

[louie1961]

Is size really a consideration? You can build a decent server (rack mount or standalone) for well under $1000, but hitting that 1 liter-ish size is kind of tough for DIY. I built my own on a Node 304 case and I love it. Draws just 40 watts running Proxmox, TrueNAS Scale, 5 VMs, 24 different Docker containers, 10GBE SFP+ networking and has 8 SSDs in it.

 

[jester]

Thanks very much for all the suggestions. I've been considering various of them. Currently talking offline to @WarlockSyno about options for the Lenovo Tiny series; if I can get a networking card into that (which, apparently, I can), it would seem to solve all of my problems. (I asked about this earlier in this thread; he in fact does have a YouTube video on the subject.)

Size isn't _absolutely_ crucial, and I have looked at some DIY solutions, but I don't need a graphics card (or any card other than a network card) and I don't need any disks other than a system disk, so if I can make something work at 1/10 the size of an ITX box, I might as well.

Will update! Meanwhile my Minisforum is still crashing every day.

 

[pimposh]

I had no size constrains and went with this.

Have multiple of them, running rock solid!

 

[louie1961]

Not for nothing, but perhaps you should try Proxmox instead of XCP-NG and see if that solves the problem. Proxmox and XCP-NG have different kernels which could make a difference.

 

[jester]

Not for nothing, but perhaps you should try Proxmox instead of XCP-NG and see if that solves the problem. Proxmox and XCP-NG have different kernels which could make a difference.

I did in fact start off with Proxmox (at that point with the intention of running TrueNAS on a Proxmox VM, and running other apps on it as well). I liked the UI, but for some reason, the build ran _incredibly_ hot all the time; even when unloaded the CPU was at near-max levels. I was unable to figure it out, and the Proxmox forums weren't helpful, so eventually gave up and installed TrueNAS on bare metal on that original box, and that solved that problem.

So when I got the Minisforum to host the VMs I'd originally planned to host on that machine, I'd already decided Proxmox wasn't for me.

 

[Greg_E]

If size, noise, heat, and power are not a factor, there are some used Supermicro big twin, fat twin, etc. that are quad node and usually a few drives per node. You will not beat the price using multiple Lenovo to provide the same number of hosts. But loud, hungry, and hot are the tradeoffs.

If you need only one, then a gen3 Lenovo with i9 looks really good after installing a network card and a bunch of ram. Gen 2 didn't really offer what I thought I wanted, and then the 5 BIOS locked HP T740 came up and I bought. The T740 is good enough after memory and networking upgrades (which you'll need to do on all of these).

And while the x520 10gbe cards look nice from a price point, if you buy a gen3 Tiny, I would look around for an x710 based card, or i226 if you only need 2.5 or gigabit. The x520 are PCIe2 which might slow some other things down. So far not an issue that I'm seeing on my T740, but I'll eventually upgrade to a PCIe3 card like the x710 and hope that power draw isn't too much for my little machines, heat is the enemy so you want cards that are low in power.

 

[WhiteNoise]

I think after so much talk of tinyminimacro and minipc, We are overfocused on this category (or maybe it's only me).
Yesterday, I was looking at HP Elite SFF (not Mini) and I thought you know man this is not bad at all.

Yes, it's little bit bigger but the power supply is inside.
You get your M.2 wifi, 2xm.2 SSDs and you have real PCIe slots to play with (4x16, PCIe 3x4, PCIe 3x1, PCIe 3x1). You can even put two 3.5" hard drives in there.

 

[Greg_E]

I have had the elite 800 at work, ran those for about 7 years until they started having issues. Using Prodesk 600 gen 6 right now, they are decent but not as good as the Elite series. Even out Z2 are not that great.

 

[jester]

Hey, just wanted to follow up.

I did end up getting a (new, top-spec) Lenovo M90q, loaded it up with RAM, and got a X520 with appropriate PCIe riser and fan shroud from @WarlockSyno (who was extremely generous with his time and advice!).

It has been absolutely rock-solid in every way. Spent a week fooling around with different configurations of using the Minisforum as another host in XCP-NG, but now I've moved everything to the Lenovo. No crashes at all, very fast, quiet, tons of extra cores and memory (for now), getting full 10GbE speeds, etc. And so small! Couldn't be happier, and wish I needed more hosts so I could buy more of these to play with!