ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products • Hacker News Board

Re: ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products

#101

Post by squokko » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:12 AM UTC

RandomBK wrote: post #5

I find the development quite interesting, and it lends credence to the theory Intel's NUC line was technically profitable (or at least not horrifically in the red), but just didn't make strategic sense - especially from a 'competing with your own customers' view. While I never bought one of these NUCs myself, I've used quite a few deployed as thin clients and kiosk machines. Let's see what ASUS ends up doing with the…

Why would the business be horrifically in the red? It's commodity hardware at a slightly premium price.

Re: ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products

#102

Post by keithnz » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:15 AM UTC

Anyone using a NUC as a mini home server? How is it? or if you use something else as mini server what? and why?

I keep thinking of getting something which I can run multiple vms as needed for things like game servers, hosting docker containers, etc. load it up with a bunch of memory. I don't want anything too big/power hungry given most of the time it would likely sit idle.

Re: ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products

#103

Post by transpute » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:18 AM UTC

keithnz wrote: post #102

Anyone using a NUC as a mini home server? How is it? or if you use something else as mini server what? and why? I keep thinking of getting something which I can run multiple vms as needed for things like game servers, hosting docker containers, etc. load it up with a bunch of memory. I don't want anything too big/power hungry given most of the time it would likely sit idle.

Lenovo or HP mini PC with PCIe slot, https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/

Re: ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products

#104

Post by cout » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:22 AM UTC

Jabihjo wrote: post #46

I'm looking forward to this! A couple of years ago, I had decided to upgrade my self hosted solutions after running two NUCs non-stop that are almost ten years old (and still running!). Unfortunately, I decided to go cheap with the upgrade and I bought two Minisforum computers, and one of them decided to crap out after just 6 months. No word from support yet. I want to believe that I would have gotten much better sup…

Which model minisforum computer did you have? Mine also died suddenly. It was the fanless Kodlix GD41. I've read of other people with similar experience. What is it about these machines that causes them to fail so quickly? I would not buy from them again.

Re: ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products

#105

Post by Gabrys1 » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:23 AM UTC

keithnz wrote: post #102

Anyone using a NUC as a mini home server? How is it? or if you use something else as mini server what? and why? I keep thinking of getting something which I can run multiple vms as needed for things like game servers, hosting docker containers, etc. load it up with a bunch of memory. I don't want anything too big/power hungry given most of the time it would likely sit idle.

https://androidtvbox.eu/ecs-liva-x-bay-trail-mini-pcs-suppor...

I've been using this with Debian for years. My only complain is I needed one of the HDMI fake (or real) devices for the device to boot.

I really like it's an amd64 and not an ARM. Allows to run software released as binary for Linux desktop.

I have a USB-3 hard disk convected (Toshiba) and that's the slowest thing on the device.

Re: ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products

#106

Post by adrian_b » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:23 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #51

lmz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the bandwidth numbers a PCIe 3 x4 slot (like those used for M.2 slots) should be good for 4x SATA 3 ports, no "serialization" required. There's this https://www.tomshardware.com/news/silverstone-turns-one-m2-s... but it's only x2 and theoretically a bottleneck.

Thats my hope. So I may be "meh, we've moved on, M.2 is the universal glue" about this now.

Yes, ASUS makes one-liter small PCs with two M.2 PCIe 4.0 sockets, e.g. PN53 (AMD) or PN64-E1 (Intel Raptor Lake; the -E1 is essential, PN64 is a very different worse computer). Beelink, Minisforum and others also make similar small computers with two M.2 2280 sockets.

If the bottom cover is removed, one can add two of these adapters from M.2 key M to five SATA ports:

Delock Converter M.2 2280 Key B+M male to 5 x SATA with heat sink

https://www.delock.com/produkt/64051/merkmale.html?g=1818

In this way one can connect up to eleven SSDs/HDDs to such a small computer (it already has one SATA port). Making an improvised support for them is easy, e.g. one can reuse the removable cage from an old computer case. One can make a cut through the bottom cover for passing the SATA cables and the internal SSD/HDD cage can be removed if it gets in the way.

Re: ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products

#107

Post by ChuckMcM » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:24 AM UTC

RandomBK wrote: post #5

I find the development quite interesting, and it lends credence to the theory Intel's NUC line was technically profitable (or at least not horrifically in the red), but just didn't make strategic sense - especially from a 'competing with your own customers' view. While I never bought one of these NUCs myself, I've used quite a few deployed as thin clients and kiosk machines. Let's see what ASUS ends up doing with the…

This was a good move on their part, I've got at least 6 different generations of NUC machines around, but I also have the ASUS PN50 which is a pretty solid "tiny desktop" / "mac mini" type of setup. Completely agree with the whole "why are you competing with us" question really creating channel conflict at Intel.

Re: ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products

#108

Post by Arn_Thor » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:25 AM UTC

keithnz wrote: post #102

Anyone using a NUC as a mini home server? How is it? or if you use something else as mini server what? and why? I keep thinking of getting something which I can run multiple vms as needed for things like game servers, hosting docker containers, etc. load it up with a bunch of memory. I don't want anything too big/power hungry given most of the time it would likely sit idle.

For me it's been great. When I finally found RAM and an SSD that was supported(!!), the experience got rock steady. On a headless Ubuntu server I'm hosting Home Assistant, Plex (the hardware transcoding and tone mapping is fantastic on a 12th gen Intel CPU), have tested out some "arrs" and I can tell there's plenty of headroom for more applications. The only thing is the fan noise when it really gets going. But I gather the 13th gen NUCs are much quieter. Considering a chassis swap in future.

But the tradeoff for a small NUC is a big power brick.

Re: ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products

#109

Post by stefandesu » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:26 AM UTC

keithnz wrote: post #102

Anyone using a NUC as a mini home server? How is it? or if you use something else as mini server what? and why? I keep thinking of getting something which I can run multiple vms as needed for things like game servers, hosting docker containers, etc. load it up with a bunch of memory. I don't want anything too big/power hungry given most of the time it would likely sit idle.

I have an HP EliteDesk Mini PC as a mini home server. It's doing a great job, but the fans get quite loud when under load. It's an older model though.

If I had to replace it, I'd probably opt for some kind of similar devices, but using a modern low-powered AMD chip instead of Intel.

Re: ASUS to manufacture and sell Intel’s NUC products

#110

Post by akira2501 » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:33 AM UTC

keithnz wrote: post #102

Anyone using a NUC as a mini home server? How is it? or if you use something else as mini server what? and why? I keep thinking of getting something which I can run multiple vms as needed for things like game servers, hosting docker containers, etc. load it up with a bunch of memory. I don't want anything too big/power hungry given most of the time it would likely sit idle.

I've got about a dozen fanless Celeron based NUCs out there for remote automation and other small scale server use. I'm a huge fan of the platform.