Please recommend mini PC for HS4

[Pete]

Recently here have purchased a few Lenova M900's which are replacing a few Lenova M93 Tiny computers.

Little workhorse computers. Latest one here is running Ubuntu and Virtual box.

I see them on Woot here:

https://computers.woot.com/offers/le...yABEgJfXfD_BwE

I purchased my M900's from Mercari for less than $100 USD.

https://www.mercari.com

Not knocking HP here as I have a few HP laptops, touch tablets around.

Latest HP Tinker toy is the X360 which is OK as a laptop but not liking it much as a tablet.

[kenm]

Any thoughts on this?

https://computers.woot.com/offers/hp...?ref=w_gw_dd_3

HP is not my favorite. I volunteered for many years in a high school robotics program and during competitions the laptops we seemed to have the most problems with were HP. Those with the least problems were Lenovo and Asus. Dell was better than many but not as good as the top two. Dell business models seemed better than home models. Latitude and Precision (business) vs. Vostro and Inspiron (home)

[randy]

I may be in the minority, but one requirement I have is remote management. All of my Supermicro servers have IPMI allowing me to do almost everything remotely except for hardware replacement. I can mount an ISO or USB remotely and can even remotely restore the entire SSD. It is very useful when there is a problem and we're away from home. I tunnel in through a VPN and can control any of them. This is priceless when my wife calls me with a problem with the system and I'm 1000 miles away.

Not recommended on a production unit, but I have installed a fresh O/S remotely.

[John245]

I may be in the minority, but one requirement I have is remote management. All of my Supermicro servers have IPMI allowing me to do almost everything remotely except for hardware replacement. I can mount an ISO or USB remotely and can even remotely restore the entire SSD. It is very useful when there is a problem and we're away from home. I tunnel in through a VPN and can control any of them. This is priceless when my wife calls me with a problem with the system and I'm 1000 miles away.

Not recommended on a production unit, but I have installed a fresh O/S remotely.

I totally agree with your requirements. Should have done this earlier.

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John

[John245]

I may be in the minority, but one requirement I have is remote management. All of my Supermicro servers have IPMI allowing me to do almost everything remotely except for hardware replacement. I can mount an ISO or USB remotely and can even remotely restore the entire SSD. It is very useful when there is a problem and we're away from home. I tunnel in through a VPN and can control any of them. This is priceless when my wife calls me with a problem with the system and I'm 1000 miles away.

Not recommended on a production unit, but I have installed a fresh O/S remotely.

I don't imagine something that not can be done remotely. My Supermicroserver did never see any USB device, mouse, keyboard or monitor. Only the RJ45 ports are used.

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John

[randy]

I don't imagine something that not can be done remotely. My Supermicroserver did never see any USB device, mouse, keyboard or monitor. Only the RJ45 ports are used.

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John

Same! It allows me to spin up a backup server remotely and everything (3 OWServers, 8 Arduinos, weather station, 5 Z-Nets, 2 Hue hubs) hooks up and works with the new server.

[wpiman]

IPMI is fantastic.

[randy]

I totally agree with your requirements. Should have done this earlier.

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John

What IPMI client is that?

[shennecke]

IPMI Is this hardware or software based?

[RRR]

On thing to keep in mind, if you are going down the Windows path you need at least an 8th generation CPU if you want a free upgrade and support of Windows 11. At least eventually. Windows 10 EOSD is 10/25/25, if you are concerned with having a patched OS.

[randy]

IPMI Is this hardware or software based?

Hardware. It is built in the server. It can be added to any computer with a Raspberry Pi with PiKVM. Not quite as well integrated a built-in but I'm told it works well.

[John245]

What IPMI client is that?

Redfish.
Redfish is a more modern server management protocol designed to replace IPMI. It is based on HTTP and fixes many security issues. If possible, we recommend using it instead of IPMI, or using the KVMD API.

Source: https://docs.pikvm.org/ipmi/#ipmi-sol

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John

[email68]

This is what I chose for my HS4 update: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...0?ie=UTF8&th=1

I went with this one Mark. Thanks for the tip! I did the 256ssd with 16 ram.

I need three rs232's so I just ordered a usb to rs232 to add on.