Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread

[Parallax]

I've started planning a 10GbE upgrade for my Tiny family and I was wondering if you kind folks could give me some guidance.

I see people have had success with the ConnectX-3 cards, and CX354A cards are available here on eBay - a little expensive post Covid but bearable. They're a bit ancient but I guess they're a known quantity. Are they the best option, I'm just surprised nothing newer is more power/heat efficient? The Supermicro cards and others are harder to find here but I can look for them, I'm not in a rush.

Any other thoughts, suggestions or experiences to share?

 

[Phenic]

I've started planning a 10GbE upgrade for my Tiny family and I was wondering if you kind folks could give me some guidance.

I see people have had success with the ConnectX-3 cards, and CX354A cards are available here on eBay - a little expensive post Covid but bearable. They're a bit ancient but I guess they're a known quantity. Are they the best option, I'm just surprised nothing newer is more power/heat efficient? The Supermicro cards and others are harder to find here but I can look for them, I'm not in a rush.

Any other thoughts, suggestions or experiences to share?

I use CX311 but have been looking at the Intel x710 cards.

 

[adman_c]

I've started planning a 10GbE upgrade for my Tiny family and I was wondering if you kind folks could give me some guidance.

I see people have had success with the ConnectX-3 cards, and CX354A cards are available here on eBay - a little expensive post Covid but bearable. They're a bit ancient but I guess they're a known quantity. Are they the best option, I'm just surprised nothing newer is more power/heat efficient? The Supermicro cards and others are harder to find here but I can look for them, I'm not in a rush.

Any other thoughts, suggestions or experiences to share?

I've personally used CX311A and the SuperMicro AOC-STGN-I2S. I can confirm that the SolarFlare 7XXX series will fit physically, but I absolutely would not put one in a Tiny, as they got pretty hot on an open-air testbench. Unless you're doing 40GbE I wouldn't choose the CX354A cards. They're bigger, use more power, and you need a QSFP to SFP+ adapter if you're just doing 10GbE.

 

[rafale77]

I was going to suggest the intel X550-T2 but just saw their current price... and wow, no, it's definitely crazy.

 

[Parallax]

I use CX311 but have been looking at the Intel x710 cards.

Did you have issues with the CX311s? Or, what's driving the interest in the x710s?

 

[Parallax]

I was going to suggest the intel X550-T2 but just saw their current price... and wow, no, it's definitely crazy.

Yeah second hand prices have gone up a lot in the last couple of months.

 

[Phenic]

Did you have issues with the CX311s? Or, what's driving the interest in the x710s?

I haven't had any issues with the CX311 cards. Only interest I have in the x710 is to try something different.

 

[Parallax]

I just got a M600, 10G9001UUS. I've can run OPNsense in live-USB mode, everything works great. But I can't install it. The M.2 slot is M keyed, and my NVME SSD physically fits fine, but is not detected. Since the slot is M keyed, that should mean that 4 PCIE lanes are available. In the BIOS it has settings to enable and disable the SATA controller, the M.2 slot, and SATA 1. All of those are enabled. I tried disabling the M.2 SATA, but the NVME still did not show up.

Does anyone know if there's a trick to getting the M.2 slot to work with NVME? Or does this slot just not work in general on the 10G9?

It's a model I'm not familiar with, but do you think it only supports SATA and not NVMe drives perhaps?

 

[joeribl]

I just got a M600, 10G9001UUS. I've can run OPNsense in live-USB mode, everything works great. But I can't install it. The M.2 slot is M keyed, and my NVME SSD physically fits fine, but is not detected. Since the slot is M keyed, that should mean that 4 PCIE lanes are available. In the BIOS it has settings to enable and disable the SATA controller, the M.2 slot, and SATA 1. All of those are enabled. I tried disabling the M.2 SATA, but the NVME still did not show up.

Does anyone know if there's a trick to getting the M.2 slot to work with NVME? Or does this slot just not work in general on the 10G9?

Look at the specs: https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sy...ntre_M600_Tiny/ThinkCentre_M600_Tiny_Spec.pdf

It doesnt mention any M.2 drive, just 2.5. However the Kingston Upgrade advisor indicates it is possible to use a M.2 SATA.

 

[Parallax]

Just for reference, if it serves anybody. I bought this Intel i210 adapter for the Mini PCIe slot of my M720q:

25.65US $ 5% OFF|Gigabit Mini M2 Akey Lan Card With Intel I210 Chipset A+e Key Port M.2 Network Card 1000m Adapter 210 Chip - Network Cards - AliExpress

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

a.aliexpress.com

The adapter fits perfectly beneath the Sata disk, no hacking required. The RJ45 connector can be mounted in the spare DB9 hole. The only remark i have is that it doesnt come with any screws. So you will need 1 screw (M2.5?) to mount the card and 2 M3 screws to mount the connector.

It is recognized perfectly in vSphere 7.0u3.

That is terrific, I looked for one for a while and seems you found it - well done.

Unfortunately it seems on the P350 Tiny there's not a suitable place to mount the port at the rear if you're using the PCIe slot. For a moment there I was all excited at the idea of 2x 1GbE and 2x 10GbE in there, plus an SSD (and 2x m.2 underneath)! I wonder if you could run the ribbon cable out the back somehow? Hmmmm.

 

[adman_c]

That is terrific, I looked for one for a while and seems you found it - well done.

Unfortunately it seems on the P350 Tiny there's not a suitable place to mount the port at the rear if you're using the PCIe slot. For a moment there I was all excited at the idea of 2x 1GbE and 2x 10GbE in there, plus an SSD (and 2x m.2 underneath)! I wonder if you could run the ribbon cable out the back somehow? Hmmmm.

Now you're just getting greedy--2x 10GbE and 1x GbE + SATA SSD + 2x NVME not enough for you?

 

[joeribl]

That is terrific, I looked for one for a while and seems you found it - well done.

Unfortunately it seems on the P350 Tiny there's not a suitable place to mount the port at the rear if you're using the PCIe slot. For a moment there I was all excited at the idea of 2x 1GbE and 2x 10GbE in there, plus an SSD (and 2x m.2 underneath)! I wonder if you could run the ribbon cable out the back somehow? Hmmmm.

No, on the M720q there is also no suitable place if you are using the PCIe slot. So it is more suited for the M710, 910 etc. The ribbon cable is not quite long enough to run it out the back (but you could replace it with a larger one).

 

[Danjo]

The 135W adaptor didnt make a difference, but I will see when the 01AJ940 riser turns up.

At the moment I'm trialling a HP Elitedesk 800 G5 as a replacement. Its physically larger but with an equivlant CPU with turbo turned off the idle consumption seems comparable. I'd rather use the M720Q though...

If the 01AJ940 adapter works I'll work out the pinout differences between that and the 01AJ902. It might be useful to people in the future.

As a conclusion to this story, the 01AJ940 adaptor worked perfectly. The LSI HBA was detected straight away. No idea why the 01AJ902 wouldn't work, but this information might be useful for people in the future.

 

[Helzy]

Tiny5 vs Tiny4

 

[cadillac]

Hi guys, is anyone with m90q using Intel RST RAID with Debian 11 Bullseye? I can create the volume in the BIOS/UEFI(latest,M2WKT57A) , but the volume is not visible in the installer partitioner.

 

[Parallax]

Hi guys, is anyone with m90q using Intel RST RAID with Debian 11 Bullseye? I can create the volume in the BIOS/UEFI(latest,M2WKT57A) , but the volume is not visible in the installer partitioner.

Wow, there is a lot of hate online for RST in Linux.

I think if you drop to a command shell when the install fails (ctrl + left alt + F3) and type in

modprobe intel-rst

... it should work when you go back to the install screen (ctrl + left alt + F5 for the graphical installer).

But there seems to be limited benefit and it adds some instability, if you believe a random bunch of people online.

What are you trying to achieve? If you want to boot Debian off a mirrored boot disk, you don't need RST.

DebianInstaller/SoftwareRaidRoot - Debian Wiki

wiki.debian.org

 

[Parallax]

Would anyone in the UK be interested in the 5c50w00877 Tiny6 x16 riser if I'm sourcing a batch from China via Superbuy? They're about £29-30 each plus (your share of) shipping + handling costs.

 

[Parallax]

Now you're just getting greedy--2x 10GbE and 1x GbE + SATA SSD + 2x NVME not enough for you?

I think I'm contractually obligated to do the maximum with each Tiny I own, no?

 

[cadillac]

Wow, there is a lot of hate online for RST in Linux.

I think if you drop to a command shell when the install fails (ctrl + left alt + F3) and type in

modprobe intel-rst

... it should work when you go back to the install screen (ctrl + left alt + F5 for the graphical installer).

But there seems to be limited benefit and it adds some instability, if you believe a random bunch of people online.

What are you trying to achieve? If you want to boot Debian off a mirrored boot disk, you don't need RST.

DebianInstaller/SoftwareRaidRoot - Debian Wiki

wiki.debian.org

Thanks for the suggestion, but no such module. I'm mirroring two NVME drives, wanted to check the performance of RST because my bet it should perform the best, and with the least stolen cpu. mdraid handles native RST on Linux and i can not see any devices on the IO ports besides a single SATA port. I'm afraid that this is the same as with the P350, but will try a Microsoft Windows install tomorrow. Pure SW raid (mdraid) cuts throughput in half of individual disk in a raid1 volume. ZFS performs much better read wise. BTRFS is the worst performing. 2xCrucial P5Pro 512Gb, 10500T, 32G

 

[Helzy]

The windows install routine will pick up the volume whether RAID 1/0 so if that doesn't work, it's a different issue for sure.