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Lenovo Thinkcentre/ThinkStation Tiny (Project TinyMiniMicro) Reference Thread

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Phenic

Member
Mar 17, 2015
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Ideas on how to get an external SAS connection via the PCI slot on Lenovo tiny?

I want to build a mini nas from an m920x, using an HBA card in the PCI slot; TrueNas on Proxmox. I can't find any posts of anyone doing something similar from a hardware perspective. Mostly, I want to put a few HDs in an enclosure, with the option to add more later, and put both the enclosure and the machine in my network rack.

Option 1: Leaning towards something like this IT mode HBA, but would have to cut a slot in the back to pass through the SAS cable.
Option 2: Other recommendations?

Question: Aside from your own concepts of what a NAS should or shouldn't be, are there technical reasons why I shouldn't do this? Problems with HBAs and these minis, or other ways I could get an external SAS connection? Suggestions on HBA cards? Most seem like they'd be too big to fit.

________________________________
I love these Lenovo Tinys! Already put an i350 in an M720q which is now my pfSense router. For anyone interested, you can do the same for ~$200. i3-8300T m720q on Amazon for $139, then add a riser and NIC from ebay.
I did get a M920q to work with a LSI 9207-4e4i which was then connected to a Lenovo SA120 to run TrueNAS but I stopped when it was overkill for my needs.
 

bigfellasdad

Member
Apr 10, 2018
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I've just bought 2 m910q g4400t machines, I thought they all have the pcie slot, these don't!
I can still use them though, 4-5w at idle lol
 

TinyLenovo

New Member
Feb 1, 2023
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Just ordered an m920x with plans to run mirrored NVMe drives in the dual m.2s, but then I saw the note about lack of RAID support (on the p35 only?) and slightly confusing wording on the Lenovo spec sheet. See below.

Are the drives really limited to these sizes, or are these just limitations on configurations? e.g. I'd like to use 1TB 2.5 and m.2.

I'm interpreting the RAID preset limitation to mean that preconfigured RAID was only through special order, but that it's otherwise an available BIOS option for all units?


Storage Support Up to three drives, 1x 2.5" HDD + 2x M.2 2242/2280 SSD
• 2.5" HDD up to 1TB
• 2.5" SSD up to 256GB each
• M.2 SSD up to 512GB each
• Optional Intel Optane™ Memory,
^M.2 RAID RAID 0/1 support for M.2 SSDs (RAID preset only available via special bid mod)
 

bigfellasdad

Member
Apr 10, 2018
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I've got 1tb nvme m.2 in my m920q and m910q's. The maximum sizes will be the drives that lenovo sold not what's possible. I never use raid at the machine level.
 

zer0sum

Well-Known Member
Mar 8, 2013
849
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Anyone here added 2 x nvme drives and a half slim or tiny size sata ssd to an M90q?
I can't use a full size 2.5" ssd as I have a dual 10G nic in there :)

I know you can either buy a half slim drive or shuck a "full" size sata SSD and hope it's tiny inside.

But wanted to check if anyone had done it. Even better if you knew of an enterprise SSD that had high endurance :)

Half slim are really tiny (54mm x 39.8mm x 4mm) and almost perfect, but capacity and endurance aren't amazing
1675872177571.png
 
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life2b

Member
Jul 26, 2020
50
16
8
Anyone here added 2 x nvme drives and a half slim or tiny size sata ssd to an M90q?

I know you can either buy a half slim drive or shuck a "full" size sata SSD and hope it's tiny inside.

But wanted to check if anyone had done it. Even better if you knew of an enterprise SSD that had high endurance :)

Half slim are really tiny (54mm x 39.8mm x 4mm) and almost perfect, but capacity and endurance aren't amazing
View attachment 27053

I'm using Innodisk 3MG2-P as boot drive while using pcie in M90q gen 3.

It's MLC drive, cheap, and works great!

Innodisk 3MG2-P
 

life2b

Member
Jul 26, 2020
50
16
8
Have anyone tried to update microcode in m90q gen 3? I want to use 13th gen in m90q-3, but can't find any reference.
It would be just fine, right?
 

Phenic

Member
Mar 17, 2015
45
23
8
Anyone here added 2 x nvme drives and a half slim or tiny size sata ssd to an M90q?
I can't use a full size 2.5" ssd as I have a dual 10G nic in there :)

I know you can either buy a half slim drive or shuck a "full" size sata SSD and hope it's tiny inside.

But wanted to check if anyone had done it. Even better if you knew of an enterprise SSD that had high endurance :)

Half slim are really tiny (54mm x 39.8mm x 4mm) and almost perfect, but capacity and endurance aren't amazing
View attachment 27053
Someone did shuck a SSD on this thread and had a 10g nic in the pcie slot. You might need to scroll back a bit to look for the pics.
 

bigfellasdad

Member
Apr 10, 2018
74
40
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67
ive got one of the m920q's with a quad nic intel card and shucked ssd. insulate the ssd with anti static bag!
ive also got one with a small dual 2.5gb nic and a full size ssd without its carrier, again in an anti static bag!

Not pretty, but neither am i :)
 
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damex

Member
Apr 7, 2019
36
10
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i have been using m920q (vpro works!)+ 9900t + 32gb ram + 1t storage for last two weeks on esxi8. works well and it fits reasonably well on top of 10inch rack shelf. i plan to upgrade this machine to 10gbe with either Supermicro AOC-STGN-i2S (x520-t2) or Inspur YZCA-00311-101 (x540-t2). i ordered both to try.

anyway my question is about storage - is there some way to get 10gbe + extra storage (minisas?) for m920q/m720q for it to become a NAS? (and use multiple 15mm thick 2.5 inch drives)
maybe someone here tried combo nic+hba pcie adapter ? i can get that and then deal with tiny sas shelf (is there something readily available?) or maybe i get minisas from one of m2 slots? did someone try anything like that?

i would like to upgrade my synology ds620slim (it runs 6x5t 2.5hdd + 16gb ram) to something faster and current experience with lenovo tiny is pretty good. ds620slim is three (3!) rack unit tall and that is imho way too much :/
 
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Rttg

Member
May 21, 2020
71
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@damex there was an old thread here about a Data Direct HBA/NIC combo card, but it doesn’t look like half height/half length and would require some hackery with the case.
 

TinyLenovo

New Member
Feb 1, 2023
14
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Okay, so I got my 2nd tiny, a m920x. I'm hooked!

I'm planning to install Proxmox and I have 2x M.2 NVMEs and a SATA SSD mounted.

Question 1: I'd like to run the M.2's mirrored. What's the best way to do this in Proxmox? I believe the BIOS HW RAID configuration won't be recognized by Linux, and therefore won't work with Proxmox?

Question 2: Is it better to run the OS off the mirrored drives, or run the OS off the single SATA and use the mirror for my VMs?
 
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life2b

Member
Jul 26, 2020
50
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Okay, so I got my 2nd tiny, a m920x. I'm hooked!

I'm planning to install Proxmox and I have 2x M.2 NVMEs and a SATA SSD mounted.

Question 1: I'd like to run the M.2's mirrored. What's the best way to do this in Proxmox? I believe the BIOS HW RAID configuration won't be recognized by Linux, and therefore won't work with Proxmox?

Question 2: Is it better to run the OS off the mirrored drives, or run the OS off the single SATA and use the mirror for my VMs?
1. Use ZFS mirror. Proxmox has an inherent ZFS feature.
2.I would run a virtual machine on a mirrored drive. If your SATA drive fails, you can simply reinstall Proxmox on another drive and import the ZFS mirror.
 

TinyLenovo

New Member
Feb 1, 2023
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If your SATA drive fails, you can simply reinstall Proxmox on another drive and import the ZFS mirror.
Thanks! I haven't had to restore a Proxmox install yet, thankfully. I'm assuming this import means a new install of PVE can see all the VMs and data on a drive from the previous PVE instance? (I'll dig into Proxmox docs instead of spamming this thread), but just want to confirm my high-level understanding.
 

damex

Member
Apr 7, 2019
36
10
8
i just managed to get AOC-STGN-I2S v1 inside m920q. seller did send me v1 instead of v2. i didn't expect this to happen but but returning is so troublesome here and i guess i will just keep it (65-70$~ for used card with little scuffs but nothing major). i wanted v2 to use extra space for bare sata ssd mount.

to get it running on m920q - you need to remove bios whitelist. m920q won't complain about whitelist on boot and just not show pcie card anywhere (even lenovo's diagnostic tool) if whitelist is present.

to remove bios whitelist - boot bios update tool (you will need to reflash bios. settings could be preserved) -> choose to update Machine Type or Serial Number (you can update for both of them, i prefer keeping Serial Number) as 'INVALID'.
from now on there won't be a bios whitelist but it will beep on boot saying that Machine Type and Serial Number is invalid and continue booting. i think that is also a good thing that you know machine successfully posted and ready to proceed with OS boot :)

one can use stock lenovo baffle with AOC-STGN-I2S v1 to mount inside m920q.
mounting hole does not align but nothing on a board interfere with baffle.

one can use rubber fan 'screw'/'mount' like my blue noctua ones -> push 'rubber screw' through the bottom of baffle mount hole completely till thic k piece -> push 'rubber screw' through network card mount where screw was -> cut bottom part 1-2mm away from being flush -> cut top part aligning with sfp port height.

there will be a gap between gpu and baffle but it will be supported by rubber screw and it will let let gpu sit firm enough. gap will become smaller after gpu is mounted. nothing bad would happen if network card is mounted and gets pushed from top or side :) one can easily use a bit of 'force' to plug/unplug sfp connectors without worrying about destroying whole thing.



11.jpg
12.jpg13.jpg14.jpg
 
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Parallax

Active Member
Nov 8, 2020
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London, UK
Are the drives really limited to these sizes, or are these just limitations on configurations? e.g. I'd like to use 1TB 2.5 and m.2.

I'm interpreting the RAID preset limitation to mean that preconfigured RAID was only through special order, but that it's otherwise an available BIOS option for all units?
You can certainly put in larger NVMe drives than Lenovo specified. I'm running 2TB ones and I can't see why 4TB wouldn't work.

On the RAID option all we know is that sometime between the Mx20q and the M90q Gen 2 Intel removed general RST RAID support and the BIOS RAID option nowadays only supports Intel drives. So it will probably work with any two drives in yours given its model, but in general even so I wouldn't advise it (the Linux support for this setup is poor, for example). There is some discussion back in the thread on this topic.
 

damex

Member
Apr 7, 2019
36
10
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any idea if we can get a power button on back side of the case? i would like to turn m920q around having network ports on the front.
i think button itself might fit on wifi antenna slot but how about connection? is there some pins or something on motherboard where we could connect it to start machine with?
 

damex

Member
Apr 7, 2019
36
10
8
I just got second m920q and AOC-STGN-I2S v2. installation is the same as for v1. I tested it with the only baffle i have and can’t put it to use yet since second baffle didn’t arrive yet

Whitelist tldr - keep both serial and model as ‘INVALID’ to disable bios pcie whitelist.

turns out you need to put both (!) serial and model as ‘INVALID’ during bios flash to get rid of pcie whitelist. Not just serial or model. If machine boots with whitelist disabled and card is detected - it is gonna keep it that way and one can roll back either serial or model to actual value. I”haven’t managed to get it to be enabled back yet.