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Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

thesizzle.com.au

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Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#111

Post by rasz »

cpach wrote: post #97
rasz wrote: post #70

no, buy a third gen i5 laptop with a broken screen, or even just a motherboard from one. Lenovo X220/X230 motherboards (with 4xcore i5 ~3GHz) are $30-50. PCIE, USB 3.0, SATA, real 1Gbit ethernet, everything Raspee lacks.

That’s tempting! Any suggestions on how to mount the motherboard outside the laptop case?

I leave mine in original cases. There is maybe even a possibility of making it drastically smaller by cutting off right side pcb section with USB/audio/mpcie port, but I havent investigated it yet.

also http://hackaday.com/2017/04/17/broken-yoga-becomes-firewall/

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#112

Post by cosmeen »

throwanem wrote: post #3

A somewhat controversial claim, but only until you discover that it's the low-profile home server use case under discussion here. I'd go with a Qotom box for that, but something like this would be about as good and, at the cited prices, a fair bit cheaper - and wouldn't involve the same US Customs import encumbrance that I've found Qotom hardware to entail, besides. But I think it would depend on being able to find u…

There are also the Intel NUC's and the Gigabyte Brix.

A video with some of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6O_j0-UZb4

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#113

Post by lucaspiller »

voltagex_ wrote: post #33
nerdwaller wrote: post #14

If you're in a bigger company, the IT department may have some smaller PCs like this to get rid of. Mine gave a bunch out, I have a Dell optiplex - but instead of the thin client it's a small i3, with a 320gb hdd and 6gb ram. It's dead silent and runs all the home server things like a champ, oh - and it was free. But I'd still own a number of raspberry pis since they're great for hacking or just to support a cool mis…

Do the Foundation make money when you purchase a Pi?

In 2015 they had a net income of £2.8m (it's a registered charity so they can't distribute profits) [0].

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06758215/filing-h...

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#114

Post by dom0 »

cottsak wrote: post #32

Still won't be good for a file server, backup server, media server if you care about decent write/read speeds. Sure it will prob read fast enough for your biggest 4K MKVs but those CPUs are always the limiting factor in disk IO performance. Get a fast SSD, get a platter disk - who cares! So you've got 100MB/s of throughput on your gigabit eth. Too bad! These CPUs do AT BEST 30-40MB/s write theoretical - most folks ge…

Well these are the old Atoms, which are responsible for the bad rep of the brand.

"Neither fast nor efficient, but it surely is slow!"

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#115

Post by Kali909 »

therealunreal wrote: post #107
phaedrus441 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first I've heard of Qotom, can you elaborate?

It seems they're popular for routers running pfSense. Just make sure you get a CPU that supports AES-NI, because pfSense 2.5 requires it.

I didn't know it was mandatory, thought it was just practically necessary for VPN tunnels etc.

http://www.pcengines.ch/apu2.htm

I've recently bought one of these and it's been great so far. Though its a NanoBSD currently you can squeeze an SSD in there.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#119

Post by akie »

l8rlump wrote: post #72
morganvachon wrote: post #22

For anyone who needs it, here's Dell's technical guide: http://www.sayresd.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/PC-Dell-De... There are some Amazon sellers who have put together complete systems running Windows 7 or 10 for around US $100: https://smile.amazon.com/Dell-OptiPlex-FX160-1-6GHz-Windows/... If you're buying one to use as a server this won't matter to you, but if you want a tiny Linux or BSD desktop, you may want…

He said he's running Plex on it. I wonder what the underlying OS is.

Linux, because he mentions running a LAMP stack.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#120

Post by simias »

rocky1138 wrote: post #45

Another option is just to use an old laptop. This is what I tend to do for media servers, TV computers, and the like. People give away or throw away perfectly usable machines all the time.

I used to do that for my media server/HTPC. The problem in my experience is that laptop fans are pretty noisy. Actually evenn the power supply can be noisy, many of them have a very audible AC hiss. Maybe it's because I tend to buy cheap laptops.

A few months ago I decided to build myself a super quiet replacement, I took a small well ventilated case[1], put an underclocked i3 in it, a fanless heatsink[2] on top, a super quiet power supply[3] and it's amazing. For about 350 euros I have a completely silent and rather powerful HTPC. A lot more expensive than the computer in TFA obviously, but well worth it if like me you can't stand fan noises.

[1]http://www.coolermaster.com/case/mini-itx-elite-series/elite... [2]https://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/alpine-11-passive.html [3]http://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/248

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