My new projects; a T540p and ....

[schen]

This is a bit of a turning point for me. Now that I'm not only back to spending time with the TP community, but am starting a project for the first time in a number of years. In this case, updating a lower-end bone-stock T540p. I had always wanted to play with a "full-sized" keyboard ThinkPad since my stock-in-trade were the "T" and "X" series machines. This being the last of the Ts that had a socketed processor. I had bought it before the Covid-crazed prices had gotten going to it's a cheap, making it that much more fun!

So, here's what's been done (partially) so far. I replaced the clunk-pad with a T450 item, but haven't gotten the driver problems straightened out yet so I'm using a mouse right now. Have a 1080 IPS screen, but don't have the necessary cable/body parts to get that going yet. Yesterday, the 42mm M.2 SSD showed up so that went and cloned to so that machine is running much nicer than with the stock Seagate 500Gb mechanical drive!

Other than getting the screen and Trackpad going, I'll probably upgrade the RAM to 16Gb. Anyone have any other thoughts on this? At the same time, I'm going back and forth on whether I should do a T400 or an R60 for a Linux box. I'd certainly welcome any thoughts or comments.

[axur-delmeria]

Both T400 or R60 would do well with Linux, IMO it really depends on personal preference at this point. T400 does have a few advantages though, like better CPU selection, DDR3 RAM, 300MB/sec SATA, not to mention SATA-based Ultrabay which makes HDD/SSD expansion a lot simpler.

16GB RAM sounds nice, but it comes down to whether you actually need it or just want to max it out because why not.

[schen]

Both T400 or R60 would do well with Linux, IMO it really depends on personal preference at this point. T400 does have a few advantages though, like better CPU selection, DDR3 RAM, 300MB/sec SATA, not to mention SATA-based Ultrabay which makes HDD/SSD expansion a lot simpler.

16GB RAM sounds nice, but it comes down to whether you actually need it or just want to max it out because why not.

I've thought a bit about goals that I want to accomplish with these other than "maxing them out", so let me throw out some thoughts that I've had. Starting with the new machine:

• T540p- I've always wanted a "workstation class machine but don't really have a need for it, so can't rationalize the cost of something like the "W Series" or "P Series". That of course would mean upgrading most if not all components.
  * Realistically that pretty much means RAM, Storage and CPU to start.
  * I'm obviously going to fix the design issues such as replacing the x40 series' unfortunate touchpad.
  * Lastly, to address the elephant in the room is of course whether I want to simple upgrade the TN screen with an IPS 1080p or go all the way up the the 3K version. I will say that I'm leaning towards the 1080p as a nod to my aging eyes.
  
  T400/R60- You are on the mark in that pretty much means Linux, which in the case of the R60 is the obvious use-case is as a platform to test various distros.
  * As far as upgrading it is concerned, there's not a lot to do given it's inherent limitations such as RAM and CPU socket.
  * That pretty much leaves me to the basics of getting the RAM up to 2-3Gb a small SSD and the CPU up from the stock T2500 to something along the lines of a $5-10 T7200 or T7400.
  * That leaves the T400 on which I'm leaning towards a more elaborate concept; that of a mobile file server. That leaves the actual physical upgrades to be fairly limited.
  * I might completely leave the CPU alone and just upgrade the RAM.
  * Where the majority of the work would be to put 2 fairly large drives (1 in the regular bay and the other in the Ultrabay) giving it something like 2Tb for storage
  * Then decide on a Linux distro that would be a decent load to run a file-server, maybe even FreeNAS!

Any thoughts or recommendations on this?

[axur-delmeria]

NAS? I'd go with a T400 with a P8400/8600. As for the HDDs, I'm not sure if any laptop drives are suitable for NAS use, but there's one guy in this forum trying to shoehorn a 15mm tall 2.5" enterprise HDD in an X61. Perhaps an R400 (with its 12.7mm Serial Ultrabay) would be a better candidate for something that big.

I'm also doing research on DIY NAS setups, and have seen openmediavault in a number of articles. Perhaps you should look into it.

[schen]

NAS? I'd go with a T400 with a P8400/8600. As for the HDDs, I'm not sure if any laptop drives are suitable for NAS use, but there's one guy in this forum trying to shoehorn a 15mm tall 2.5" enterprise HDD in an X61. Perhaps an R400 (with its 12.7mm Serial Ultrabay) would be a better candidate for something that big.

I'm also doing research on DIY NAS setups, and have seen openmediavault in a number of articles. Perhaps you should look into it.

I've had a bit of experience with this in the past, first self-building a couple of generations worth of servers with Windows Home Server, then moving on to FreeNAS which is what my current file server is running. However, where this weird idea started was a few years ago when I ended up with several A31s. Those machines had so many different bay combinations and if add a full-dock you'd have another one. So I built up one with CentOS configured as a file server and it worked. I'm a high school teacher and was sponsoring a computer club at the time and we were just playing around so the kids could experience the limitations of different hardware and gain experience with different OSs as well. Of course the A31 with PATA drive interface was limited so that one didn't go very far. So, when I was dismantling that machine recently, the idea resurfaced and I was thinking of what machines do I have laying around that I could do a "2.0" version on. I had the R60 and a T400 returned home to roost a month ago!

I think the T400 with a available bays capable of handling modern SATA drives might make a decent victim for this little project!