Perfect 1L Homelab in 3 Upgrade Tiers Project TinyMiniMicro

We take a 35W 1L PC from HP and do three levels of customization. We have a base low-cost option for upgrades. We have a Tier 1 upgrade package with 2.5GbE, fast PCIe Gen4 NVMe storage, and 64GB of memory. We then go all the way to a Tier 2 upgrade package with 10Gbase-T, 8TB of NVMe with ZFS, and even 96GB of memory. We then swap from Windows 11 Pro to Proxmox VE 8 to make this Project TinyMiniMicro node the ultimate Intel Core #Homelab virtualization node.

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Timestamps
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00:00 Introduction
01:13 Tier 0 - Base Configuration
02:30 Tier 1 - 64GB, 4TB, 2.5GbE
05:52 Tier 3 - 96GB, 8TB, 10Gbase-T 10GbE
09:39 Proxmox VE 8 Setup as a Virtualization Host
13:11 Power Consumption and Noise
14:07 Other Ideas for Cheap 10Gbase-T Switches and Using Mini PCs
17:17 Wrap-up

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Other STH Content Mentioned in this Video
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HP Units

Dell Units

Lenovo Units

[ServeTheHomeVideo]

Since folks are asking a lot about costs. The idea was just to give folks an idea of what is possible and there is a lot of variability here.
- ~$500-$515 for the base we used, but there are options for less than that.
- Maybe $25-30 for an extra 16GB DIMM. 64GB is like $150-200, 96GB $279
- $29 for the 2.5GbE NIC. $129 for the 10Gbase-T NIC,
- SSDs from $50 to $400 each depending on speed/ capacity.

I think all-in on the top-end config we would have spent around $1.5K

[FrenziedManbeast]

This video was definitely a step up in quality from a lot of the round-ups, or quick looks. Focusing on a single unit of hardware, going into what it has, upgrade paths, and a sample OS configuration/use case is far more useful than just a pile of different mini PCs all mixed together. I think you'll build a higher quality, longer lasting body of work by focusing on these "hardware journeys", and then after you get three or four put together maybe do a year in review, etc.

By having a continuum of builds we can all appreciate how hardware evolves and opens up new configuration possibilities, etc. Plus then you have an encyclopedic body of work to further harvest for a "let's review all the cool stuff added over the past three gen!" type videos. Anyway that's just my $0.02 - everyone knocked it out of the park with this one, bravo!

[absolutrichiek]

Did something similar at a lower cost. Took my Lenovo M715 with an old Ryzen 2400GE and swapped the Wi-Fi card for a 2.5GbE. Has a 4TB SSD, a 1TB boot nvme, and 16 GB ram. All in for under $350

[ericneo]

That 10GbE what a find. I love seeing this stuff and the potential it has.

[Airbag]

The small 10Gbe module blew my mind.. If there was a way to pop in a couple of 3.5" drives it'd be perfect. That said let me tell you that a 10Gbe with 11W idle is a feat.. most systems you can build will NOT support PCie APM and will prevent the CPU from going down to C8..
Patrick can you confirm if this CPU is indeed able to hit C8 while idle with the 10Gbe module?😊

[domantlen]

This might be the most viable solution for portable openshift lab i've seen so far. I mean 96GB of RAM is indeed game changer here.

[danachimov]

Thank you so much. Just built my homelab based on this setup. Affordable, great performance, small footprint, low power usage. Couldn't be more pleased.

[SilentDecode]

I recently put a HP Prodesk 400 G6 on my rack. That machine runs Debian 11 with docker containers. Nice small machines.

But, I like the Lenovo M720q's I have, a bit more, as they have PCIe slots.

In total in my rack:
HP Prodesk 400 G6, i5-10500T, 2x 8GB DDR4-2666, 128GB 2, 5" SATA bootSSD, 1TB WD SN770 for data. Running Debian 11 with Docker Compose.
2x Lenovo M720q, i5-8500T, 2x 16GB DDR4-2400, 1TB NVMe SSD. Running ESXi 8 native.
Intel NUC7i3BNK, i3-7100U, 8 + 16GB (24GB total), 500GB NVMe SSD. Running ESXi 8 native with vCenter installed on it.

[davidaraujo]

Last week you promised and now you delivered! Thanks !
I'm looking to setting up my first virtualization homelab and this is the perfect product for me !

[ytdlgandalf]

I have an older one and retrofitted an extra nic by means of an m2 i210 on it. Serves as nat router for my ftth deployed by kubernetes. So much overkill for home environment, but very cool if i may day so myself. These things are awesome

[stefanbehrendsen]

I have 4 of these in a stack running proxmox and ceph, cause I wanted a really cheap way to get a ceph cluster up and running for testing and learning.
Not exceptionally viable with 1gb nics, but with 1gb AND 10gb I could see it being a useful cluster - and ceph allows for HA without needing a centralized SAN or other kind of storage.

[MTS_IT]

I had g0 as a server for years! this thing just works - probably the only good thing HP ever made!

[SelfSufficient]

Great video ! I checked for i7’s on eBay and unfortunately they all appears to be $900+ vs the $500 that you landed. I do look forward to finding one eventually.

[anthonyjhicks]

Sharing a similar working upgrade config I'm using. I have a Proxmox Cluster of *three* HP EliteDesk 800 G6 Mini PC i5-10500T’s I picked up on eBay. Configured Proxmox HA between selected VMs on the nodes and Proxmox Replication keeps everything in sync every 15 mins. Failover tests have worked well with VMs moving nicely between the Nodes if I yank a network cable to simulate a failure. Upgraded each of these three with:
1 x Crucial RAM 64GB Kit (2x32GB) DDR4 3200MHz CL22 CT2K32G4SFD832A
2 x Crucial P5 Plus 1TB M.2 PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD - Up to 6600MB/s - CT1000P5PSSD8

Each pair of Crucial SSDs is running in ZFS Mirror as in Patrick’s video. Overall very happy with this home lab setup and love having three of these for *mostly* worry free redundancy. Gives me 36 CPUs and 192MB to play with, allowing some headroom for VM failovers between the Nodes if needed.

Might be time to upgrade to 10GbE in these for the fun of it.

[xellaz]

Powerful, sips little power, and at a decent price. What a combination! I would definitely consider buying one of these with all the upgrades already done. Specifically the 10GbE version. I would have a lot of fun setting this up! 🤤👍

[adubs.]

I guess its too late to find these for a reasonable price now. Everyone snatched them up.

[joshhardin]

I *REALLY* like this idea in terms of form factor and overall density. I could easily see myself 3d printing a 1 or 2u server rack bracket for a few of these, but I feel like this stuff is *really* expensive for what you get. for an insignificant increase in volume, you can get something like a "Dell OptiPlex 7070 SFF i7-9700 3.0GHz, 32 GB, 250GB SSD" for under $400 which is 8c/16t 4.7ghz, upgradable to 64gb ddr4 per dell (others have tested up to 128gb and ddr4 is cheap now) and most importantly has a half-height pcie slot which gives you a lot of i/o options (for example my go-to of a $40 intel x540-t2 dual port 10g ethernet adapter also from ebay) or optionally 2-4 more m.2 drives, or heck, you could install a pcie sas HBA and use it as the head for a cheap as chips external jbod sas DAE, and then an m.2 10g network adapter if you needed a storage solution.

Personally, I think I may end up picking up a treo of said 7070 units for a proxmox cluster. with some 2 port m.2 adapters, keep the 32gb of ram for now (upgrade later if/when i need to when i find a cheaper ram deal), and i'll probably drop a 2tb m.2 ssd in each (maybe 2) and do ceph with erasure coding in order to spread the vm data around performantly between nodes. for HA. haven't decided yet though. the 7070 *is* certainly larger than the mini hp units presented here, but it's still pretty small sff in the great scheme of things.

[shawnmendrek]

To all those cannot afford $4k pc labs, , to STH, thank you. I taught myself about PC since 9, I laarned a lot . So can you. W e may not asked for help, but we c an still learn. This video is a prime example, he could ie and make you buy ov erpriced BS he does not. God bles you sir. Saved my pockets and other s.

[Zarathustra-H-]

Also, be careful with those Sabrent Rocket 4's. They have a reputation of failing without warning, and when they do Sabrent generally doesn't want to cover RMA unless you register within the first few days of buying them, which is really shitty.

[travnewmatic]

Wow this is really end-game homelab hardware, thanks so much for sharing