I realise this is an old video but I have just built my own Lenovo M720q tiny server inspired by Serve The Homes tiny server project. Runs vanilla ESXi which hosts a PfSense router, Windows 10 virtual desktop and a Linux NAS / DLNA server. Still got plenty of room for more too! Mine came with an i3-8100T, 4GB RAM, 128GB NVMe SSD, 802.11AC WiFi for £160 (GBP) I upgraded the CPU to a 9500T Hex core. (Make sure the BIOS is up to date!!) Upgraded the RAM to 32GB 2666Mhz, SSD to 512GB NVMe. Bought the PCIe x4 riser and an Intel i340-T4. Designed and 3D printed the mounting bracket. Also 3D printed a vertical stand. It really is a beast of a home server. PfSense has no issue routing my 300/50 Mbps internet with 2 vCPU's at less than 20% usage even with the other VM's working hard.
@@levskilevov4888 make sure the bios is up to date and you should be able to upgrade the CPU. Try eBay for the CPU but they're OEM so you don't see many. Maybe try CEX which is where I got mine. You can put other 9x00T CPUs in if you read the datasheet. I'm running a non modified version of ESXi 6.7 without issue so yes.
@@rachydamine9458 It's very crude but I think this is the one. If you do share, please credit this video and myself briefly. 1drv.ms/u/s!Au2YTv0sxAMlgeBi6CChyVdTlJ_jxQ?e=7362tG
Great review as always! One quick suggestion for the tiny, mini, micro series, is that it would be useful to know if the hdmi or DP port supports 4k@60hz. The specs on most these models don't state what HDMI or DP versions they have.
Those mini PCs are powerful. On the newer models of Lenovo you can add a video card. I wish I had bought the M720q. Nobody was selling them at the time. The design is better then the HP.
Have a Lenovo and a HP in the TMM queue, and two HP's on order. The one that will hopefully ship by Jan 31 has a GPU and people will be excited about. You are right on the design though.
I dont remember which one, M700 or M710, but i'm pretty sure we have one model that has support for 3x drive bats, the 2.5 inch drive, an vnme drive, and an M.2 sata drive, (or maybe 4 with wifi slot) I'll have to check when i get back to work
I just bought an M720q... and 64GB RAM, and a 4TB SSD. Planning to install proxmox, and on top of that pfSense, and various docker containers, Unifi, steam cache (hence the 4TB SSD), I run an XMPP server, etc etc. Very excited.
Does the M720q support 64GB RAM? Please let me know if this is working for you, I was planning to upgrade mine to 16GB, but if 64GB works, then I'll buy 2x32 GB
The big question is:Where we will find riser cards that are nor outrageously overpriced? May be IBM Lenovo "FRU 46C6796 PCIe x8 Riser Board Cisco MCS 7800" from ebay?
Curious at what config with the added NIC would be the sweet spot for deploying a mini-PfSense box. I wouldn't think the Pentium Gold would have the full instruction set that the latest build of PfSence would need. But would an i3 or i5 be the route to go?
I question the average person's need for even an i3 for a home pfSense box. My current box is running on a Celeron 3855U @ 1.60GHz. The only reasons I upgraded to that from a salvaged Neoware CA-10 thin client was for 1 more ethernet interface, GigE and the AES-NI capability of the CPU. The little old VIA C3 1.0A "Nehemiah" CPU @ 1ghz in the Neoware wasn't a long term option for pfSense when they announced the future requirement for AES-NI.
I got the Pentium Gold version too. I run Pfsense under ProxMox on it. Its plenty enough, i would say even overkill. The Cpu lacks only avx instructions, but it got all the others.Like AES virtualisation and so on.
hi, I've a problem with display port I plug DP to HDMI port and connect it with monitor but nothing happen, does my DP to HDMI converter broken? or maybe we need to do something to make DP works?
Hi! Long shot, but do these machines with pcie support bifurcation ? Im thinking of getting one with a low profile quad m.2 card for a low power home nas :D Cheers
Hi Could you take the base system and get the riser and network card from like AliExpress and install it yourself but still use the low wattage power brick or would it complain/not boot in that case? Keep up the gr8 vids...
Hi. I wanted to ask you, have you noticed any overheating problems with the Thinkcentres? I read from different forums that multiple people have had problems with them on multiple different generations in the past few years. People have said that the heatsink (or rather the heatpipes that connect to the heatsink) is inadequate. I'm looking to get a refurbished Thinkcentre or Dell Optiplex Micro and I'm leaning towards the Dell as it's cooling is assumed to be better. Any thoughts or input in this regard? Thanks!
Can you tell me what is the difference between this one m720q and the m920q? I can choose between those two with the same specs and can't seem to find any difrence.
I use one of these a m900 tiny for Home Assistant and another M900 tiny for Open Media Vault running Plex plus about 9 dockers. I also have a m700 and m710q
Do you think one of these units will comfortably run both a media server (Emby) and Home Assistant at the same time, drawing very low power? I'm totally bewildered with the models available. Ideally looking for a unit that can take 2 x 4 TB NVMe. Many thanks.
I got such machine and iam running Proxmox on it with pfsense, plex, nextcloud and some other stuff. Currently i got an intel 2x gbit card, 32gb ram and an pentium goldd T cpu. I wonder if i can put non T cpus in there? For example and i5 9400? The power adapter is 65W. Also out of curiosity would K cpus work in there?
Usually non-T CPU machines have bigger heatsinks, often more vents, different fans, bigger PSUs and such. I would stick to a T CPUs. It would likely be cheaper to just get a different unit than to swap to a non-T CPU.
I would like to get something bigger, around 2 litres, but with 65W TDP cpu's and place for dual slot low profile graphics. Does something like that exists?
Nice info. But could you revisit those small xeon/epyc servers and try the different ways of builds? qvl for those xeon/epyc is pretty bad and some trial and testing will be way helpful for us, homoserverpiens.
We are going to do more EPYC and Xeon builds soon. Indeed, I actually just built a dual-socket IBM Power9 machine for less than half of what a Raptor CS system costs. That series is coming as well. Earlier this week we did the HPE ProLiant EC200a which folks on the forums are buying for around $150 including the Xeon D-1518 CPU. Also, on these TMM units, we have a guide with this on Proxmox VE and have upcoming (soon) guides using as a pfSense firewall and as Plex transcoding servers. Lots to cover, little time.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo I really highly value your channel and it has very special depth that we can not find from other channel. With pcpartpicker.com not providing any xeon configuration, it would be great if you could try and build many combinations using Xeon sliver/gold/bronze, E, E3, E5, ... as much possible including with different ecc/non-ecc Ram which are not in the qvl, not to mention features like sr-iov, dpdk, 10gbe, gpu vfio path-through .. so much topics for homoserverpiens! (and a little bit of arm workstation and clusters of raspberry pi or jetson nano will be also great!)
@@broodjenoodles thank you, are you running 2x32 GB on your tinyPC or have you tested this? I'd really like to upgrade my M720q's RAM to 64GB, please let me know if you've tried this and if it worked.
@@bonganikhoza7142 no im not running 64gb although ive read on forums people have done it and it runs stable for them. I will get my m720q in a few days.
@@manw3bttcks Oh wow cool they changed it. It wasn't like that when I left the comment this morning. It has always been "ServeTheHomeVideo". I actually avoided it for a while in the past because I always assumed it was excerpts from actual articles, as channels with names like that often are. I'm glad they changed it, it looks like a "real" channel now instead of a secondary thought. Hopefully it helps them as well. It should also help analytics and help them with the mystical YT algorithm. If you look at RUclips suggestions people are always just searching "servethehome" and never "servethehomevideo", so it'll definitely be more relevant. It will also probably help when people see the mentioned in another video, or are searching after viewing the website. I still think they should have gone with "Serve the Home" or "Serve The Home". One worded titles seem a bit 2000s. but it's still much better than "ServeTheHomeVideo".
I realise this is an old video but I have just built my own Lenovo M720q tiny server inspired by Serve The Homes tiny server project.
Runs vanilla ESXi which hosts a PfSense router, Windows 10 virtual desktop and a Linux NAS / DLNA server. Still got plenty of room for more too!
Mine came with an i3-8100T, 4GB RAM, 128GB NVMe SSD, 802.11AC WiFi for £160 (GBP)
I upgraded the CPU to a 9500T Hex core. (Make sure the BIOS is up to date!!)
Upgraded the RAM to 32GB 2666Mhz, SSD to 512GB NVMe.
Bought the PCIe x4 riser and an Intel i340-T4.
Designed and 3D printed the mounting bracket. Also 3D printed a vertical stand.
It really is a beast of a home server. PfSense has no issue routing my 300/50 Mbps internet with 2 vCPU's at less than 20% usage even with the other VM's working hard.
Hello. Where is possible to buy 9500T Hex core? Mine is with Intel Pentium Gold G5400T 3.10gHz. Is it compatible with VMware ESXi?
@@levskilevov4888 make sure the bios is up to date and you should be able to upgrade the CPU.
Try eBay for the CPU but they're OEM so you don't see many. Maybe try CEX which is where I got mine. You can put other 9x00T CPUs in if you read the datasheet.
I'm running a non modified version of ESXi 6.7 without issue so yes.
Hello, mind sharing the 3D designs if you still have them available ? Thanks
@@rachydamine9458 It's very crude but I think this is the one. If you do share, please credit this video and myself briefly.
1drv.ms/u/s!Au2YTv0sxAMlgeBi6CChyVdTlJ_jxQ?e=7362tG
Great review as always! One quick suggestion for the tiny, mini, micro series, is that it would be useful to know if the hdmi or DP port supports 4k@60hz. The specs on most these models don't state what HDMI or DP versions they have.
Yes, good point. My m710q for example has decent displayports (4k 60), but hdmi via passive adapter/cable is just FHD.
Those mini PCs are powerful. On the newer models of Lenovo you can add a video card. I wish I had bought the M720q. Nobody was selling them at the time. The design is better then the HP.
Have a Lenovo and a HP in the TMM queue, and two HP's on order. The one that will hopefully ship by Jan 31 has a GPU and people will be excited about. You are right on the design though.
I would love to see that intel extra nic installed
I dont remember which one, M700 or M710, but i'm pretty sure we have one model that has support for 3x drive bats, the 2.5 inch drive, an vnme drive, and an M.2 sata drive, (or maybe 4 with wifi slot) I'll have to check when i get back to work
Hello Patrick from STH.
How do the Lenovo Tiny model numbers work? Even a sales rep couldn't explain it....
I just bought an M720q... and 64GB RAM, and a 4TB SSD. Planning to install proxmox, and on top of that pfSense, and various docker containers, Unifi, steam cache (hence the 4TB SSD), I run an XMPP server, etc etc. Very excited.
How’s that going for u? Just ordered mine super excited
@@alexitanguay hey! Working out well, very pleased
Does the M720q support 64GB RAM? Please let me know if this is working for you, I was planning to upgrade mine to 16GB, but if 64GB works, then I'll buy 2x32 GB
can someone tell me why m720q tiny is no longer available nowadays? how much does it cost i7 9th gen 16gb of ram nowadays?
The big question is:Where we will find riser cards that are nor outrageously overpriced? May be IBM Lenovo "FRU 46C6796 PCIe x8 Riser Board Cisco MCS 7800" from ebay?
If you find a source, please let me know.
Curious at what config with the added NIC would be the sweet spot for deploying a mini-PfSense box. I wouldn't think the Pentium Gold would have the full instruction set that the latest build of PfSence would need. But would an i3 or i5 be the route to go?
I question the average person's need for even an i3 for a home pfSense box. My current box is running on a Celeron 3855U @ 1.60GHz. The only reasons I upgraded to that from a salvaged Neoware CA-10 thin client was for 1 more ethernet interface, GigE and the AES-NI capability of the CPU. The little old VIA C3 1.0A "Nehemiah" CPU @ 1ghz in the Neoware wasn't a long term option for pfSense when they announced the future requirement for AES-NI.
I got the Pentium Gold version too. I run Pfsense under ProxMox on it. Its plenty enough, i would say even overkill. The Cpu lacks only avx instructions, but it got all the others.Like AES virtualisation and so on.
With the Intel NIC expansion card this could be a nice pfSense box
We have a guide going live over this weekend for using a single NIC TMM node with pfSense.
Can this be used to watch RUclips in 4K without stutter?
Help, not working no post. It was ok just suddenly one day when I turn it on. Tried everything except removing the CMOS battery.
5:00 would the missing instructions actually cause app failure or just a small slow down?
I've heard the M720q Tiny can unofficially do 64gb with 2x 32gb dimm, can anyone confirm this? if you've done this what memory did you use?
Yes.
hi, I've a problem with display port
I plug DP to HDMI port and connect it with monitor but nothing happen, does my DP to HDMI converter broken? or maybe we need to do something to make DP works?
Hi!
Long shot, but do these machines with pcie support bifurcation ?
Im thinking of getting one with a low profile quad m.2 card for a low power home nas :D
Cheers
Hi
Could you take the base system and get the riser and network card from like AliExpress and install it yourself but still use the low wattage power brick or would it complain/not boot in that case?
Keep up the gr8 vids...
With the lower end processors and add in NICs this is likely OK but we did not try it
Does this device support a '0 RPM mode' i.e., turning the fan off when the CPU temperature is low enough?
Unfortunately not
Hi. I wanted to ask you, have you noticed any overheating problems with the Thinkcentres? I read from different forums that multiple people have had problems with them on multiple different generations in the past few years. People have said that the heatsink (or rather the heatpipes that connect to the heatsink) is inadequate. I'm looking to get a refurbished Thinkcentre or Dell Optiplex Micro and I'm leaning towards the Dell as it's cooling is assumed to be better. Any thoughts or input in this regard? Thanks!
Can you tell me what is the difference between this one m720q and the m920q?
I can choose between those two with the same specs and can't seem to find any difrence.
The only difference i have found so far is that the m720q has one m.2 slot and the m920q has two
I use one of these a m900 tiny for Home Assistant and another M900 tiny for Open Media Vault running Plex plus about 9 dockers. I also have a m700 and m710q
Do you think one of these units will comfortably run both a media server (Emby) and Home Assistant at the same time, drawing very low power? I'm totally bewildered with the models available. Ideally looking for a unit that can take 2 x 4 TB NVMe. Many thanks.
@@adiands850 I do not see why these devices could not do both. Home Assistant is not that heavy.
@@majorpayne4795thanks for the reply. I ended up ordering a refurbished a HP EliteDesk with has two NVMe slots. Should hopefully arrive next week!
I got such machine and iam running Proxmox on it with pfsense, plex, nextcloud and some other stuff. Currently i got an intel 2x gbit card, 32gb ram and an pentium goldd T cpu. I wonder if i can put non T cpus in there? For example and i5 9400? The power adapter is 65W. Also out of curiosity would K cpus work in there?
Usually non-T CPU machines have bigger heatsinks, often more vents, different fans, bigger PSUs and such. I would stick to a T CPUs. It would likely be cheaper to just get a different unit than to swap to a non-T CPU.
Is it okay to use the procie from this m720 and change the mobo to tax?
Hi! I am thinking of buying this model but have a sfp port on it. Do lenovo offer these customization?
I have not seen this from the factory and have not seen Lenovo qualify a solution, but the PCIe riser should allow this type of expandability.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo thanks! Then I am going to buy it
Just know you will need to source the riser and likely make a rear IO solution (3D print it for example)
I would like to get something bigger, around 2 litres, but with 65W TDP cpu's and place for dual slot low profile graphics. Does something like that exists?
Hi. I'm trying to figure out if M720q Tiny Intel Core i5 is better than M630e Tiny Intel Core i5. Does it have better performance?
Does this unit have eGpu support?
I've just picked 3 of these up in various configs...
Nice little boxes and arent exactly slow with the i5-8400 or the i7-8700(T) in them..
is it working if this does not have ssd?
You can set these up to boot with a HDD as well. We generally add SSDs if they do not have them
@@ServeTheHomeVideo hi, i have the same unit. it has a power but no display. can u tell me how to fix? i dont think its the ram. its almost new.
Nice info. But could you revisit those small xeon/epyc servers and try the different ways of builds? qvl for those xeon/epyc is pretty bad and some trial and testing will be way helpful for us, homoserverpiens.
We are going to do more EPYC and Xeon builds soon. Indeed, I actually just built a dual-socket IBM Power9 machine for less than half of what a Raptor CS system costs. That series is coming as well. Earlier this week we did the HPE ProLiant EC200a which folks on the forums are buying for around $150 including the Xeon D-1518 CPU. Also, on these TMM units, we have a guide with this on Proxmox VE and have upcoming (soon) guides using as a pfSense firewall and as Plex transcoding servers. Lots to cover, little time.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo I really highly value your channel and it has very special depth that we can not find from other channel. With pcpartpicker.com not providing any xeon configuration, it would be great if you could try and build many combinations using Xeon sliver/gold/bronze, E, E3, E5, ... as much possible including with different ecc/non-ecc Ram which are not in the qvl, not to mention features like sr-iov, dpdk, 10gbe, gpu vfio path-through .. so much topics for homoserverpiens! (and a little bit of arm workstation and clusters of raspberry pi or jetson nano will be also great!)
Great review as always STH! is it possible to install a single 32GB 3200MHz CL22 RAM on a Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q Tiny Desktop PC i5-8400T?
It should be, i thought it unofficially supported 64gb ram (2x32)
@@broodjenoodles thank you, are you running 2x32 GB on your tinyPC or have you tested this? I'd really like to upgrade my M720q's RAM to 64GB, please let me know if you've tried this and if it worked.
@@bonganikhoza7142 no im not running 64gb although ive read on forums people have done it and it runs stable for them. I will get my m720q in a few days.
Hi, I have one of these but it only provides around 35 fps and it's really bad. How do i make it better ?
m720q comes in with i5 8500t
Why is this channel called "ServeTheHomeVideo"? It looks clunky af. Why not just change it to "Serve the Home"? Or even STH?
Not sure what you mean, the channel IS called "ServeTheHome" already
@@manw3bttcks Oh wow cool they changed it. It wasn't like that when I left the comment this morning. It has always been "ServeTheHomeVideo". I actually avoided it for a while in the past because I always assumed it was excerpts from actual articles, as channels with names like that often are.
I'm glad they changed it, it looks like a "real" channel now instead of a secondary thought. Hopefully it helps them as well.
It should also help analytics and help them with the mystical YT algorithm. If you look at RUclips suggestions people are always just searching "servethehome" and never "servethehomevideo", so it'll definitely be more relevant. It will also probably help when people see the mentioned in another video, or are searching after viewing the website.
I still think they should have gone with "Serve the Home" or "Serve The Home". One worded titles seem a bit 2000s. but it's still much better than "ServeTheHomeVideo".
Overpriced and underpowered.
Base price isn't that bad, but all of the options are killers.
That is why we are taking a later in cycle look at these to see used prices. At well under $200 not so bad.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Stolen can be even cheaper, but there is some odd appeal in new stuff with warranty etc.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Also, it's not obvious why i350 is needed on such anemic machine. Who'd want to run VMs on this ?