Anyone have experience w/ Lenovo Thinkstation P320 and Thinkserver TS150 (or similar)? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-29 01:21 I'm currently running a P320 as my home server with a 1230 V6 CPU, but have been looking at upgrading to a 1245 V6 for transcoding with Intel QSV. Now I have the opportunity to buy a TS150 with a 1245 V6 for only a bit more than the CPU alone. I was going to jump on this right away because I figured the ThinkSERVER must be better than my ThinkSTATION, but comparing specs they seem extremely similar to me. Same chipset, similar size, similar PSU, both I think I could get 5 drives in, and both have AMT. Curious if I'm missing something here. Does anyone have any thoughts on if this would be an upgrade (other than the CPU of course) or are these 2 platforms really this similar? For reference, I'm running Truenas Scale as a file server plus a handful of apps. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dazchad · 2023-10-29 02:25 You might have better luck posting in hardware related subs. Maybe homelab? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A9-EE-78-6A-C8-9F · 2023-10-29 02:29 I've had experience with the R620 or whatever it's called The biggest pile of shit I've ever used. Sometimes if it shuts down there's a BIOS bug where you have to take out the CMOS battery for a few minutes for it to boot again. Otherwise it'll just boot to a black screen The I/O on it is horrendous too Stay so fucking far away. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the_grey_aegis · 2023-10-29 02:37 We’ve been using an SR670 for a while now as one of our main VSphere / ESXI hosts. Lenovo always offers free bios updates and patches which you can do easily with Lenovo BOMC. HP lock their critical updates/bios/firmware down behind support contracts - I’d say Lenovo are a good option for homelab users or those who don’t have budgets to pay for said contacts. As far as your question, why would you upgrade to something that has the same specs, yet is in a different form factor? At most you’d get some negligible benefits such as Lenovo’s equivalent to HP ILO if that is not already included in the Thinkstation. I’d upgrade the specs with a better Lenovo server if you can afford to. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EZarnosky · 2023-10-29 02:49 I got 5 ThinkStation P320 Tiny units last week (Lenovo ThinkStation P320 Tiny i7-7700T 16 GB 256 GB NVMe Quadro P600). On 3 (2 others are for a different project) I have increased the RAM to 32gb (later 64gb) and added 2 2tb NVMe. I've also added ASUS 2.5gbit USB adapters (used for Ceph). My plan is to use the 3 for a k3s cluster that will run 2 copies of plex (1 tv and 1 movies), \*arr, and a bunch of other apps. Currently I have spent the weekend trying to get Ubuntu 22.04 Server installed and the Quadro P600 recognized and patched (removing the streaming limits). I have also worked on Ceph this weekend, I am trying to get it running installed on the OS, not containerized. I intend to use the 2.5gbit network to replicate my k3s pod data. I am setting the Ceph pool to about 1.9tb, leaving only 100gb for the OS and local installs. So far Ceph has proven difficult for me as the only method I can find for a newer version (Quincy or Reef) is cepadmin which uses containers. So I am trying to use old instructions for Ceph to get the newer version working. This will be an evening/next weekend project. Couple things I have learned: * The built in hardware RAID does not work, Ubuntu will not recognize it so don't bother. Just built is as software RAID if you need it. * After the steps to get the Quadro P600 installed, Gnome is installed. I tried for 6 hours to get around this. I just wound up setting GRUB to a non GUI boot * F1 for BIOS & F12 for boot menu Yet to be done: * TailScale with TailScale Funnel * MetalLB for load balancing all traffic or of k3s * Rancher Configuration * Helm * Container config * rClone config to Google Drive (only for encrypted offsite backups of configs and secrets) * SMB/NFS connection to NAS for media library Lost of self induced headaches, but this project is also helping me learn k3s, Ceph and Helm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-29 02:50 Ahh ok thanks I may try that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-29 02:52 Oh man that's crazy. The P320 has treated me well so far (knock on wood), so maybe I shouldn't mess with a different lenovo. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-29 02:55 Yeah that's what I was confused about. It's also essentially the same form factor. I guess I assumed there would be more differences between the 2 models. I'm not very experienced with the server management tools and whatnot so didn't know if there was any benefit there. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-29 02:56 Yeah that's what I was confused about. It's also essentially the same form factor. I guess I assumed there would be more differences between the 2 models. I'm not very experienced with the server management tools and whatnot so didn't know if there was any benefit there. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-29 03:00 Yeah I have liked the P320 so far, but I do want to upgrade to a CPU with quicksync for Jellyfin and Frigate transcoding. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HolidayPsycho · 2023-10-29 03:04 Maybe it's common knowledge but anyway, thinkserver can't be turned to sleep. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A9-EE-78-6A-C8-9F · 2023-10-29 03:10 It's an older server that I inherited at work, Lenovo did put out a BIOS update that is supposed to fix it, but the funny part is when you try to flash it, they require an older version to be flashed first as a prerequisite but when you go to search for the file, Lenovo no longer has it for download. I've never had so much trouble with a server before ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-29 03:12 Not to me at least, so thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-29 03:28 That blows big time ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EZarnosky · 2023-10-29 03:39 I was going to try JellyFin as well, but my family lives on Plex, hard to take my parents and relatives off of it to something new. Also want to use Tdarr in a multi node setup to encode everything to HEVC and save me space. I split up my plex into two systems due to the size of my DB (over 40k movies and 6k tv series, plus anime), I get some type of corruption at least once a year. My coworker has 5 ThinkStation P330 Tiny until (they come with a Quadro P620). He is increasing the RAM to 64gb, adding 2 2tb NVMe, removing the video card (painful process), addins either a 10gbit NIC and running vSphere 8 on it (VMUG subscriotion FTW). That will be connected to his 10gbit NAS for iSCSI/NFS datastores. He is still in the early stages but taking his time to build it right. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EZarnosky · 2023-10-29 04:22 I just noticed that you have a normal ThinkStation, whereas I have a tiny. I recommend that you but your stack on the existing computer. Document everything from the OS install, the apps and connection. Try the Stack out to see if it works. if it is sluggish, then invest in RAM and CPU or another computer. In my opinion the OS and apps are the hardest part, the most time consuming and the true reason for hardware changes/upgrades. Something that would help your streaming is an Nvidia card, there is a way to patch the card to remove any stream limits (google it, its on github). Then enable hardware transcoding on Plex (not sure how to do this on JellFin, but there should be guides out there). Just be careful that whatever card you get can fit in any new system you might upgrade to, the Tiny units that I have only allow for 1 slot. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- disguy2k · 2023-10-29 10:52 The HP Z600 is good value for money. Units a few years old can be bought cheaply. They're quiet for the compute power on offer. There are hundreds of different configurations available all the time on eBay. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-29 13:37 Thanks when I expand my setup down the road I'll have to check it out ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-29 13:38 Thank you for the advice. As of now, everything is working fairly well. I was just curious if there was much value in swapping to the ts150 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chicagonyc · 2023-10-29 20:23 I am running Proxmox 8 on a Lenovo ThinkServer TS140. I swapped the i3 - 4130 CPU with an i7 4770S CPU, and installed 32 GB of DDR3 RAM. It is running 24/7 without any problems at all. I even installed a quadro GPU for pass through purposes to a Windows vm. It can hold a good number of 3.5 in drives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-30 14:15 Yeah, hard to move once things are set up. I have been liking Jellyfin over Plex though ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Living_Zebra · 2023-10-30 14:16 Appreciate the info ---------------------------------------------------------------------- literally_been_taken · 2023-11-02 10:18 Hi, what is your TS140 max HDD size? Thank you ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chicagonyc · 2023-11-03 04:02 Not sure what you're asking ... there's a limit on HDD size? I have 8Tb as the largest in mine, but I could just as well have installed 16Tb, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- literally_been_taken · 2023-11-03 05:20 Yes, there is a limit on HDD size, depending on BIOS usually. Thank you for your clarification. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kmisterk · 2023-11-06 18:53 ## Post Removed Hey, Living_Zebra! Thanks for your submission on selfhosted. 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