Choice of HP vs Lenovo SFF for ESXi

Which one should I get?

  • Lenovo M70s

  • HP ProDesk 400 G7


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devilsinkpot

New Member
May 20, 2022
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transnational
Hi

I can get used machines from my workplace. My goal is to use one of those for a homelab ESXi server.
My price for both is identical. The specs are similar but not exactly and now I'm seeking advice/experience to make the best choice.

The specs I have for the actual contenders are:
Lenovo M70sHP ProDesk 400 G7
CPUi5-10500i5-10500
ChipsetH470Q470
RAM (both: DDR4-2666)1x 8GB1x 16GB
RAM slots42
PCI slots1x PCIe x4, 1x PCIe x16 (2 total)2x PCIe x1 gen3, 1x PCIe x16 gen3 (3 total)
SDD256G NVMe512G NVMe
NIC1x Intel I219-V1x Intel I219-LM

I'd upgrade either one to 32GB and I'd put in an Intel NIC that is supported by ESXi 7.

The HP looks better from the bare specs, yet the Lenovo has almost 1.5x the listing price of the HP.

Do you know these machines? Can you give me some insights or advice which one to chose?

Glad for any help!

D*
 

Bjorn Smith

Well-Known Member
Sep 3, 2019
876
481
63
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r00t.dk
Hi

I can get used machines from my workplace. My goal is to use one of those for a homelab ESXi server.
My price for both is identical. The specs are similar but not exactly and now I'm seeking advice/experience to make the best choice.
I would grab Lenovo - simply because it has 4 RAM slots - which means you will almost with 100% certainty be able to get more total RAM in the Lenovo than in the HP machine - and RAM is good if you intend to run VMs - and more RAM is better :)
 

gregsachs

Active Member
Aug 14, 2018
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I'm also getting seriously pissed at hp drivers-I have an 800g2, which uses bastardized intel 530 drivers. Those are not available/will not install on latest build of Win10, and all other drivers produce flickering with dual displayports. Haven't seen that with the lenovos at work.
 

m4dm4n

New Member
Jun 2, 2022
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0
1
I would grab Lenovo - simply because it has 4 RAM slots - which means you will almost with 100% certainty be able to get more total RAM in the Lenovo than in the HP machine - and RAM is good if you intend to run VMs - and more RAM is better :)
As far as I can see, both have 64GB memory limit.
 

BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
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The more memory you could give to ESXi, the more VMs you could run on it. Both CPU and Chipset support 128GB and so should the desktops, regardless of what OEM manuals say. I agree with Bjorn - the more memory slots - the more likely you could get to 128gb memory.

VMware says both LM and V versions of I219 should be supported by 7.0U3

A few more differences between chipsets.

Until you intend to install 40Gig faster networking or with all-nvme-flash monster , I'd not be too concerned with PCIe - Lenovo gets my choice.

Plus horrible experience with some recent HP desktop hardware/build issues.