My current setup consists of a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4gb RAM and a 1tb external SSD. I’m thinking of getting a used mini PC for around 100€ to replace that tho because it would give me a lot more power and especially RAM (I currently need to use an 8gb swap file). My plan so far is to get a used mini PC that’s quiet, has a built-in SSD and at least 8gb of RAM (16 would be better). Because of the built-in SSD, I could also sell the external SSD and buy an 8-12tb HDD instead.
Does anyone have recommendations for what mini PC to get or things that I should look out for?
Edit: Thanks for all the help! I decided on the Firebat T8 Pro Plus with 16gb RAM and 512gb internal storage because that really seems to be perfect for my use case.
I have a couple Lenovo tiny form factors: an M700 8GB w/ J3710 running Pihole on Ubuntu server—which is total overkill in both CPU and mem; and an M73, 4GB w/4th gen i3 running jellyfin server on Mint 21.3. Certain kinds of transcoding brings it to its knees but for most 1080p streaming it’s fine. Memory is a bit tight; 8G would be better. It has a usb3 2T drive for video files that runs more than quick enough. Serial adapters are available if you want to use the console.
The latter has been running for I think a couple years. The former I just set up.
But I’ve been shopping for newer gear for the Jellyfin server. I think you could get a Dell, HP, or Lenovo 6th gen TFF with 8G and 256-512G internal SSD within your price range.
I see some EliteDesk G800 G3 (6th gen Intel) tinys with no disk for $50-70 shipped on eBay in the US. I think those look the coolest by far :)
You could find one with no disk, no ram and config as you please and probably still come in under budget.
E-
My eventual plan for the Jellyfin server is a SFF, probably an HP with enough space to fit a couple of big HDDs, plus 16G ram and a newer CPU that can transcode on the fly without lag.
Actually, I found the Firebat T8 Pro Plus, which has an Intel N100, 16gb LPDDR5 RAM and a 512gb M.2 SSD. It’s more than 5 times faster than the Pi, has AV1 decoding and a power draw of 27W (not TDP, this number is from independent tests). It goes for 146€ on Aliexpress. It’s a little more than 100€ but for what I’m getting here, I think it’s worth it.
It’s half as much again! If your budget is that flexible you really should have mentioned it in the original post so that people could give you a wider range of options.
Translate it up by a couple of orders of magnitude and you get “I want to buy a car, I have €10,000 to spend” … “I found one for €15,000, it’s a little bit more but …”
I got an HP ProDesk 400 G2 with an i5 6500T, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for 99€. Works beautifully, and while it’s not as efficient as a raspberry pi, it idles around 6-7w and can run a bunch of VMs with Proxmox.
Is that a mini? I love those little 1L HP’s. I run 3 G2 800’s. These are very nicely built and therefore a joy to work on, and sip power when idling. Highly recommend. Also +1 for Proxmox.
When looking at these it seems I can only find models with “EU plugs” even though I am shipping to a US address, all the items with “US plugs” are greyed out. I assume the only difference is the wall socket, right? Are the sockets on the power supplies universal?
Just looked around and there are mini PCs for around 130€ with Intel N100 CPUs, which have a 6W TDP, AV1 decoding and they beat an i5 6500T (that one’s in a 130€ Dell Optiplex I found on ebay) in single core and gets close enough in multicore. Is there some kind of catch I’m not seeing with that CPU? Because it looks perfect for my use case.
One catch is that you have to assume it’s gonna be sending data to China or at least have a hidden backdoor, possibly both. That may not matter depending on what they are doing.
Another catch is that the hardware design is bad. They usually cheap out and those machines have close to no ESD protection on all I/O ports. A simple short in a USB device will most likely kill the motherboard and/or CPU.
The N100 has a reputation for decent performance and good power efficiency at a cheap price. It’s a basic quad core CPU with only efficiency cores (no performance cores) and no hyperthreading, but it comes with modern codec capabilities. It will certainly give you more power than a Raspberry Pi for everyday tasks, but don’t expect to do anything too demanding with it. If your needs are basic an N100 mini PC seems like a good option.
Can’t quite speak for the n100 but I got a n305 one of these “China PCs” it’s passively cooled (which was important since it’s running in my bedroom) and seems to have amazing performance for what I need (I put jellyfin on there). I’m quite happy after futzing around with ARM SBCs and external drives this just works so well.
It is much more expandable than a single board computer. A small form factor allows for expandability in RAM and storage while being small and easy to work on.
I’d say the opposite - most people work fine on what’s available in minis/tiny today (which is surprisingly a lot).
It’s us power users/gamers that need more. Even then, some minis have impressive specs.
As for upgrading, well, it’s not like you can swap in the next gen of cpu - memory and storage are pretty much all you can upgrade even in a full desktop. Even video is limited to the generation of the motherboard.
thats kinda true. (even excluding gemini lynx user like myself) comps and phones have reached overkill for most users. therefore sff is totally fine for most users.
truth is… only reason i dont have a bigger pc is that i want flexibility to move apt if my landlord raises rent. thats literally the only reason.
otherwise i would have dual socket, 8 sticks memory, full sized gpu, etc.
i dont mind not having all that. although, it could be used for something… currently it would be used for nothing.
Go used on eBay. Also I wouldn’t recommend replacing a SSD with a HDD as hard drives tend to be much bigger. Many devices will have a m.2 slot and a small bay for a hard drive.
If you want more storage, get some sort of NAS or a external drive. You aren’t going to be able to sell used storage anyway.
Because of the built-in SSD, I could also sell the external SSD and buy an 8-12tb HDD instead.
If you’re going for a 3.5" HDD, then you’ll most likely have to look for a bit bigger form factor than TinyMiniMicro (Lenovo Tiny / HP Mini / Dell Micro series) - these computers can’t fit a 3.5" HDD.
If size isn’t a major concern, I’d go for the SFF variants of these computers - they are often cheaper than minis for same specs, but probably have a bit larger idle power draw and take up more space. As a bonus upside, you get some small PCIe slots in these computers, so yay for expansions.
I have external usb3 and usb-c raid arrays… You need to buy expensive enclosures, something that cost 100€+ to be safe, then it will work for a long time.
My older usb3 array (4 disks in a jbod) is almost 7 years old and kicking.
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I have a couple Lenovo tiny form factors: an M700 8GB w/ J3710 running Pihole on Ubuntu server—which is total overkill in both CPU and mem; and an M73, 4GB w/4th gen i3 running jellyfin server on Mint 21.3. Certain kinds of transcoding brings it to its knees but for most 1080p streaming it’s fine. Memory is a bit tight; 8G would be better. It has a usb3 2T drive for video files that runs more than quick enough. Serial adapters are available if you want to use the console.
The latter has been running for I think a couple years. The former I just set up.
But I’ve been shopping for newer gear for the Jellyfin server. I think you could get a Dell, HP, or Lenovo 6th gen TFF with 8G and 256-512G internal SSD within your price range.
I see some EliteDesk G800 G3 (6th gen Intel) tinys with no disk for $50-70 shipped on eBay in the US. I think those look the coolest by far :)
You could find one with no disk, no ram and config as you please and probably still come in under budget.
E-
My eventual plan for the Jellyfin server is a SFF, probably an HP with enough space to fit a couple of big HDDs, plus 16G ram and a newer CPU that can transcode on the fly without lag.
With that budget I find it hard to imagine you could beat the Raspberry Pi, but please post what you do find!
Actually, I found the Firebat T8 Pro Plus, which has an Intel N100, 16gb LPDDR5 RAM and a 512gb M.2 SSD. It’s more than 5 times faster than the Pi, has AV1 decoding and a power draw of 27W (not TDP, this number is from independent tests). It goes for 146€ on Aliexpress. It’s a little more than 100€ but for what I’m getting here, I think it’s worth it.
It’s half as much again! If your budget is that flexible you really should have mentioned it in the original post so that people could give you a wider range of options.
Translate it up by a couple of orders of magnitude and you get “I want to buy a car, I have €10,000 to spend” … “I found one for €15,000, it’s a little bit more but …”
I got an HP ProDesk 400 G2 with an i5 6500T, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for 99€. Works beautifully, and while it’s not as efficient as a raspberry pi, it idles around 6-7w and can run a bunch of VMs with Proxmox.
Is that a mini? I love those little 1L HP’s. I run 3 G2 800’s. These are very nicely built and therefore a joy to work on, and sip power when idling. Highly recommend. Also +1 for Proxmox.
Yeah, one of the USFF or whatever they call them.
Lenovo refers to the form factor as “Tiny”
+1 for HP minis (second hand). -1 for Proxmox, LXD/Incus ftw.
If I were you, I would look at the chinese offerings on aliexpress. If you carefully read the spec sheets, you can find excellent price/performance
When looking at these it seems I can only find models with “EU plugs” even though I am shipping to a US address, all the items with “US plugs” are greyed out. I assume the only difference is the wall socket, right? Are the sockets on the power supplies universal?
Just looked around and there are mini PCs for around 130€ with Intel N100 CPUs, which have a 6W TDP, AV1 decoding and they beat an i5 6500T (that one’s in a 130€ Dell Optiplex I found on ebay) in single core and gets close enough in multicore. Is there some kind of catch I’m not seeing with that CPU? Because it looks perfect for my use case.
One catch is that you have to assume it’s gonna be sending data to China or at least have a hidden backdoor, possibly both. That may not matter depending on what they are doing.
Another catch is that the hardware design is bad. They usually cheap out and those machines have close to no ESD protection on all I/O ports. A simple short in a USB device will most likely kill the motherboard and/or CPU.
I can’t comment on the performance but yeah… 6500t is what, 8 years old at this point? N100 is a year old. Tech can improve a lot in that time.
The N100 has a reputation for decent performance and good power efficiency at a cheap price. It’s a basic quad core CPU with only efficiency cores (no performance cores) and no hyperthreading, but it comes with modern codec capabilities. It will certainly give you more power than a Raspberry Pi for everyday tasks, but don’t expect to do anything too demanding with it. If your needs are basic an N100 mini PC seems like a good option.
Can’t quite speak for the n100 but I got a n305 one of these “China PCs” it’s passively cooled (which was important since it’s running in my bedroom) and seems to have amazing performance for what I need (I put jellyfin on there). I’m quite happy after futzing around with ARM SBCs and external drives this just works so well.
my guess is: quadrennial lenovo usff/sff . the intel nuc is nice&easy to uprade the limited set of parts for ultra longterm use.
i dont think alot of ppl need a super small comp. it comes with disadvantages. harder or more limited upgrades.
It is much more expandable than a single board computer. A small form factor allows for expandability in RAM and storage while being small and easy to work on.
I’d say the opposite - most people work fine on what’s available in minis/tiny today (which is surprisingly a lot).
It’s us power users/gamers that need more. Even then, some minis have impressive specs.
As for upgrading, well, it’s not like you can swap in the next gen of cpu - memory and storage are pretty much all you can upgrade even in a full desktop. Even video is limited to the generation of the motherboard.
thats kinda true. (even excluding gemini lynx user like myself) comps and phones have reached overkill for most users. therefore sff is totally fine for most users.
truth is… only reason i dont have a bigger pc is that i want flexibility to move apt if my landlord raises rent. thats literally the only reason.
otherwise i would have dual socket, 8 sticks memory, full sized gpu, etc.
i dont mind not having all that. although, it could be used for something… currently it would be used for nothing.
I love the Dell Micros. I’m rocking three 7060 micros in my lab atm. All running Proxmox.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 5 acronyms.
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Go used on eBay. Also I wouldn’t recommend replacing a SSD with a HDD as hard drives tend to be much bigger. Many devices will have a m.2 slot and a small bay for a hard drive.
If you want more storage, get some sort of NAS or a external drive. You aren’t going to be able to sell used storage anyway.
If you’re going for a 3.5" HDD, then you’ll most likely have to look for a bit bigger form factor than TinyMiniMicro (Lenovo Tiny / HP Mini / Dell Micro series) - these computers can’t fit a 3.5" HDD.
If size isn’t a major concern, I’d go for the SFF variants of these computers - they are often cheaper than minis for same specs, but probably have a bit larger idle power draw and take up more space. As a bonus upside, you get some small PCIe slots in these computers, so yay for expansions.
I can also buy an adapter and plug the drive in over USB. It would be nicer if it fit inside but it’s not that important.
USB is not really a reliable connector for storage purposes. I’d highly recommend against USB.
I have external usb3 and usb-c raid arrays… You need to buy expensive enclosures, something that cost 100€+ to be safe, then it will work for a long time.
My older usb3 array (4 disks in a jbod) is almost 7 years old and kicking.
GMKtec G3