TBH - I am basically spending short 10 min brainstorming sessions on what I want to capture for all of these as I go through them. I have a feeling that we are hitting the point where there are too many units to have to go back and re-batch run.
Right now it is figuring out what is at:
- Segment Level - these are all similar sizes, so talking about common traits/ what to look for
- Vendor-specific - these vendors have certain design directions and small differences between their offerings that you can see across their portfolios. Also, potentially this is Intel, AMD, Dell, HP, Lenovo so five parts
- Model-specific - features, options, performance
Then the output is a set of content aligned to the data we are collecting/ lessons learned.
Well, You can think of Dell/HP/Lenovo as the 3 major vendors of enterprise class desktop lines (that’s the Optiflex/EliteDesk/ThinkCentres respectively), and each of the vendors also have specific members of the family targeting for different demographics.
For example, in the Optiplex line Dells have the 3000s for value customers, the 5000s for the mainstreams, the 7s for large institutions, and the 9s for professionals. The difference is a beefier heat sink and higher grade discrete video choices.
Then there are the different designations for Intel versus AMD...the industry tends to use a trailing "0" for the Intel, and "5" for the AMD machines.
For example, HP tends to use the model number 705 to designate AMD based hardware, and 800 for Intel based.
However, the most important distinction to consider is that each vendor comes with 3 categories for their enterprise desktop machines, which is grouped according to their internal volume (length x width x height), and are typically denoted in liters. While knowing the dimensions is important, knowing the volume is essential. It informs on how much you can fit inside, how much heat wicking capacity they can have, and how much shelf space you'll need.
The abbreviations are taken from HP, but they translate well across lines and families. Here's what the volume ranges are:
Minitower (MT) ~ 13 to 20 L
Small Form Factor (SFF) ~ 7 to 13 L
Desktop Mini/Micro/Tiny (DM) ~ -.5 to 2 L <- Those are the "corporate NUCs" that I talk about
There are stragglers between those different size ranges - for example, HP used to have a Ultra-Small form factor (USFF)...which goes between the SFF and the DM. The "big" thin clients from HP (t620+, t730, t740) that I work with are between 3-4L. Apple Mac Minis are around 2L in size.
Don't confuse the SFFs with the DMs as they are not directly comparable - SFFs tend to have bigger power supplies, use desktop components and actual PCIe cards. They are cheaper on the secondary market because they are bigger, takes up more shelf-space (both at the consumer and at the retailer/reseller), and as Rodney Dangerfield put it "don't get much respect at all", simply because of how many are dumped by enterprises who cycles through them off-lease, and how desktops are simply not the main focus for IT procurement. I am personally not a big fan of SFFs since they are similar to build-your-own MIniITX machines, but minus the smaller footprint. Some of the later SFFs also engineered out the reasons why you'll want one, namely, the 4 RAM slots, or extra PSU capacity. In some ways the only reason why you'll want one is MAYBE the over-capacity heatsink/cooling fan setup that allows the owner to swap out a weak Celeron with a quadcore Core i7 down the line without much ancillary work. The flip side is that they are cheap, and most have decent enterprise warranties, often still valid at the time of purchase from a secondary market. If/when i get one, I place support calls to get the vendor to send me a new motherboard and whatever life limited component they tend to have based on my extensive experience of knowing what would likely fail, and what steps to take to get them to send a replacement board.
Consumer level SFFs like the HP 290s are not great ideas: cost engineered to be just "good enough" to last maybe 2-3 years with heavy use, and sold originally with 1 year base level warranties that are....well, not worth the paper that it's printed on (anyone who dealt with "consumer-side" support with long phone queues and mail-in servicing will know my pain - I have relatives who treat me like I am their personal IT helpdesk, and they always buy the cheap crap from Best Buy, oh, the irony inherent in that store name). The service depots are likely out of replacement parts for them, and when you get them, the warranties are usually done and over with. When they die, you are SOL. There are hidden costs to "cheap", like buying a secondhand Mercedes from the 90s. Sure, they are cheap and can often be tank-like reliable, but the second they break down? Money pits - the spare parts are just so expensive due to their relative scarcity.
Now as for the DMs, they are corporate NUCs, but they can have nice features, like a pair of M2 slots (might be SATA, might be NVMe), they might have a single quiet blower to cool itself down (tends to use laptop components), and the power supply tends to be external (usually the power bricks from the manufacturer's enterprise laptop lines). They are usually very densely packed, well-engineered, somewhat user-serviceable but doesn't offer much in terms of upgrades. Some might have discrete graphics options residing in an MXM slot.
Normally these machines will not be super-cheap, but thanks to the numbers produced and the preferences from some businesses to hide their computers on mounting kits behind the LCDs (making them much more demanded), when they go on the secondary market post-lease, they can be rather cheap as well. Of course, machines like that can be replaced by thin clients as well...