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Hardware

Used Lenovo/HP/Dell computers

ServeTheHome made these popular in their tiny mini micro series. All 3 of the companies also have a laptop version of these, meaning came cpu, mem, disk expantion, etc.

Pros of the 1L machines:

  • Smaller footprint
  • Usually better I/O. e.g. more video out, more usb.
  • vPRO options for intel devices.

Pros of the laptops

  • Some of them can be powered via USB-C PD.
  • They come with a KVM already attached for debugging.
  • They come with a battery built in that can act as a UPS.

All prices are taken by searching for the model on ebay, take them with a grain of salt.

7th gen intel ( Kaby Lake )

1L machines

Brand Model Average price on ebay Notes
Lenovo M910t, M910s, M910q, M910x, M710q
Lenovo Thinkstation P320 Tiny
Dell Optiplex 3050 $90
Dell Optiplex 5050 $101.50
Dell Optiplex 7050 $121.88
HP 260 G3 $159 Lots of false positives on prices
HP Prodesk 400 G3 $86
HP Prodesk 600 G3 $87
HP Elitedesk 800 G3 35w $131.38
HP Elitedesk 800 G3 65w $127.45

Laptops

Brand Model USB-C PD Average price on ebay Info
HP HP EliteBook 840 G4 No $148.31
Dell Latitude 7480 Yes $123.16
Lenovo ThinkPad X270 Yes $123.52 1

Coffe Lake Intel CPUs

1L machines

Brand Model Average price on ebay Notes
Lenovo M720t, M720s, M720q, M920t, M920s, M920q, M920x
Lenovo ThinkStation P330 Tiny
Dell Optiplex 3060 $151
Dell Optiplex 5060 $192
Dell Optiplex 7060 $214
Dell Optiplex 3070 $190
Dell Optiplex 5070 $256
Dell Optiplex 7070 $315
HP Prodesk 400 G4
HP Prodesk 600 G4
HP Elitedesk 800 G4 35w $177
HP Elitedesk 800 G4 65w $172
HP Prodesk 400 G5
HP Prodesk 600 G5
HP Elitedesk 800 G5
ASUS PC PB60 $170 Only 2 listings
Apple Mac Mini Late 2018 $367

Hyperconverged USFF cluster

The idea is to use USB4/thunderbolt 4 as a NIC that can go 10Gbps+. Then use Proxmox + Ceph

I have heard that Ceph likes enterprise drives, but I haven't looked into enterprise drivers for Ceph yet.

Hardware

Item Cost Link
Intel Nuc 13 RNUC13ANHI3000U x3 $360/ea B&H2
DDR4 SODIMM Memory 32GB (2x16GB) x3 $70/ea B&H3
m.2 SSD 1Tb x3 $85/ea B&H4
2.5 SSD 1Tb x3 $99/ea B&H5
Total $1842

This configuration gives you:

  • 96GB of memory
  • 18 Total Cores (6 P cores, 12 E cores)
  • 3TB total NVMe storage, 2Tb usable.
  • 3TB total Sata storage, 2Tb usable.

The Minisforum MS-01 Is also a good option. The cheapest option is $439, but you get an i5-12600H, 10Gbe, vPro, and u.2 support.

Budget Proxmox Cluster.

This build doesn't have 10Gbps, doesn't have USB4, but if you replace the WIFI m.2 card you can get 2.5Gbps. I haven't seen testing of iops with Ceph over 2.5Gbps, would be interesting to see.

You could also go with a Lenovo M920(q) which has the option of a small PCIe port, and tool-less design, but it's about $50 more than the HP.

Item Cost Link
HP EliteDesk 800 G4 mini x3 $100/ea Ebay
DDR4 SODIMM Memory 32GB (2x16GB) x3 $70/ea B&H3
m.2 SSD 1Tb $85/ea B&H4
2.5 SSD 1Tb $99/ea B&H5
Total with no Raid $1062
Total with Raid 1 on m.2 NVMe $1317

This configuration gives you:

  • 96GB of memory.
  • 18 Total Cores.
  • 3TB total storage, 2Tb usable if you always replicate everything all data once.

Pros:

  • Takes 2 2280 m.2 NVMe SSDs so you could go raid 1 on there to increase redundancy.

Cons:

  • Limited to 2Gbe networking.
  • Not sure if Ceph would work over 2.5Gbe.
  • If no Ceph, data loose could occur.

  1. specs ↩

  2. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1782733-REG/intel_rnuc13anhi3000u_nuc_13_pro_kit.html ↩

  3. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1576450-REG/crucial_ct2k16g4sfra32a_32gb_kit_16gb_x.html ↩↩

  4. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1790804-REG/crucial_ct1000t500ssd8_1tb_t500_pcie_4_0.html ↩↩

  5. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1606520-REG/samsung_mz_77e1t0b_am_1tb_870_evo_sata.html ↩↩