My old laptop for self hosting just croaked, and I’m thinking of buying a 2nd hand mini pc, but this time I want to do it proper. I want to optimize the electricity consumption and specs needed/ future upgreadability, considering how expensive everything is now.
My use case is just for self hosting files (infrequent access and reducing reliance to google drive), and occasional dev workload via ssh. I’m thinking of buying a used optiplex with at least i6 gen cpu (SFF or micro form factor), but I want to see if there are better options.
There was a link posted in this subreddit about power consumption comparison of different mini pcs (raspberry pi, n100, etc), and I regret not saving it.
If anyone could suggest me better options it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
A lot of the SBCs or n150 pcs have limited RAM upgradeability.
You might look at the old HPE Proliant Microservers, like gen8 - gen 10. You can get them with 16GB ram included for $300. They’re low power and they use the cheaper ddr4 ram.
I find 8th gen i5 and i7 laptops under 200 all over eBay. Hard to beat.
After walking through CEX on the weekend I don’t know if you will beat second hand laptop pricing. The significantly higher availability of laptops seems to make them prices that just can’t be beaten.
Unless you can get away running a pi zero of course. Sorta tempted to get one but not sure how much I could get it to do. Would do data storage just fine, depending on how much space you need.
I’m a home-lab newbie but I built a NAS & Jellyfin server with a Raspberry Pi 5 and it works great. I got a SATA hat for it and it has 5x 8TB HDDs installed with ZFS RAIDZ1 in a custom 3D printed case. It can stream 4K on my network just fine. If there are other tasks you want your server to do or if you want to stream to multiple devices simultaneously I’m sure other people would recommend something more powerful but I just wanted to add my 2 cents. I picked up another Pi to set up tail scale (work in progress) and yet another Pi (open-box discount) to set up Immich (near-future project). I wouldn’t expect one Pi to handle all of those things simultaneously but I haven’t tried it.
Can you link your guide for the PI NAS and Jellyfin server? It might be my only option given prices.
A pi 5 will cost way more than a second hand mini pc.
Sure, I’ll check my notes when I get home
M1 Mac Mini is quiet, fast, low power consumption and reasonably-priced used.
While these points are valid, I feel for a homelab, one would want a headless system running *nix vs OS X.
Also, it doesn’t help that there is no bootcamp for ARM, least not that I’m aware. Because if that was the case, then yes running ARM64-based distros/software would be great. I’d actually love to see how the M1 runs ARM server software :)
I run Asahi Fedora Linux on this hardware. It was a straightforward install and has been problem-free since.
Oh dang. That’s pretty cool!
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters Git Popular version control system, primarily for code NAS Network-Attached Storage PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express PSU Power Supply Unit Plex Brand of media server package SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage SBC Single-Board Computer SSD Solid State Drive mass storage ZFS Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity
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Optiplex etc. with an Intel 8th gen “T” chips seem to offer the best bang for the buck + energy efficiency on the second hand market right now.
The main issue with these thin clients is the lack of SATA ports and power connections for them if you want to add some larger 2.5” SSD/HDD storage. Usually it is only one, but you can also use the DVD drive slot with an adapter in the mid sized versions.
If you want something that fits the SFF cube shape so you can throw it next to a TV or desk for video output, you can probably go for the SYS-A22GA-NBRT.
Easy to upgrade CPU & RAM later down the line if you start doing more stuff with it, plus space for dedicated GPU if you ever want to do heavy media server stuff.
Would avoid pi due to the underperformance for the price. Plus best bang for buck usable storage will always be HDDs. SD cards are nice but you have to disable journaling to keep the writes low as to not wear down usable blocks.
SYS-A22GA-NBRT
The $500,000 10U AI server or is there another one?
Supersized Form Factor
Recently I decommissioned a Dell T320 and replaced it with a Dell Optiplex 7020 SFF with the i7-4790 and 32 GB RAM all for right at the $200 mark. I’m running a total of 52 containers on it right now with load averages looking like 0.31, 0.51, 0.72. The Dell T320 running the same 52 containers cost me $40 USD per month to run. The Dell 7020 costs me $5-8 USD per month to run 24/7. If you wanted a wider tower, I set up a Dell 9020 for a friend of mine’s son who wanted to get into selfhosting at the age of 10. Similar running costs. I’ve got an Optiplex 3020 mini with 16 GB RAM and a 4 TB external drive running Proxmox quite well and costs probably $3 USD per month. I’m pretty well chuffed with the performance so far of the 7020, and in fact am eyeballing another one to replace a second Dell T320.
I honestly need to learn your ways and sell the rack of stuff in my basement. Right now I’ve got an old R720XD with 12 spinning metal drives and 2 SSDs, then another old Intel box the local government used for VOIP (I’ve only got 7 spinng rust and 1 SSD in there), then the R610 that I use for homeassistant and a few VMs…
I’ve also got a smaller desktop for jellyfin/Plex and an old MicroServer (gen8) for a firewall…
I could 100% save some power I just need to learn what I actually need.
Well, it all started way back when, with a misunderstanding in my mind about what a homelab is. Back then, in my mind a server was this big, honkin’, brutal piece of equipment. Over the years I came to realize that all that rack stuff, while cheap upfront on the used market, was costing me some serious bucks in energy consumption + the added load on the AC, even when electricity in my locale is relatively cheap. Since I already was invested, I didn’t want to redo everything and start from scratch. Then the ‘mini-racks’ started to be a thing with Lenovo’s and such. I saw that others were doing what I wanted to do with much less. So, now days, it doesn’t take much of a computer to run docker containers, Proxmox, etc. Far more energy efficient, doesn’t generate so much heat load, and significantly more quiet.
In the near future, my goal is to miniaturize my lab, and then build me a $4k AI machine. Out of the frying pan into the fire yes, but I haven’t had new equipment in well over 15+ years. I’ve always had used or refurb’s. I think it’s about time to treat myself.
Go for a n100 or even one with an Atom CPU. Get as much ram as you can afford…
Most n100 new mobos need ddr5, a few older ones only need ddr4 though. Either is unaffordable right now. Better off going for something second hand which uses ddr3. Will use a bit more power but the break even point vs an n100 + ram will probably be a decade at least.
Depending on what you are doing that may not be a good idea. The N100 is way overpriced and the Atom is very old and thus has limited I/O speeds and awful performance.
