The MiniPC Revolution • Hacker News Board

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#31

Post by wishfish » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

ibaikov wrote: post #13

I agree and already got two minipcs I selfhost a lot of stuff now. I just now realized it is basically the future Gabe Newell predicted and wanted to make with Steam Machines [1], but he was wrong by targeting gamers and a little too early (perhaps?). Maybe they will succeed precisely because of this revolution. I got soooo tired setting up a gaming system for parties on my projector. There are so many various proble…

Looks like they'll be trying out the console / small box form factor again.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Valve-Fremont-Upcoming-console...

I'm glad they are. There's probably a sizeable market for a console that runs PC games smoothly at 1080. And could double as a PC. If they get it to the size of an XBox Series S or smaller, I would probably get one.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#32

Post by LtWorf » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:42 PM UTC

kylemaxwell wrote: post #30

These look like fun technology, but I don’t even know what the use cases would be anymore. I don’t need something to control my lights: I have an actual light switch for that. I don’t have endless terabytes of media that I need to serve within my household, so I just don’t know anymore what I would use this stuff for. Twenty or thirty years ago, I loved having a home lab, but these days I’m just not sure what I would…

How ableist of you :)

The thing is that once lights are computer programmed, you can program them. For example I had made a program to stop playing music after I leave home because I hated to put the music off and then walk out, but I also didn't want the music to play all day while I was out.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#33

Post by rkagerer » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:42 PM UTC

Counterpoints:

- Specs are too limited for my needs (storage capacity for backup / home NAS purposes; compute power for local AI work; throughput for local high speed network traffic shaping; etc)

- can't upgrade over time (right now I'm averaging 15 years for my boxes, with incremental upgrades like storage, RAID adapters, memory, CPU etc, and I don't need to go through the days-long hassle of reformatting, reinstalling and reconfiguring OS's, services and software).

- less supported over time (I can still download driver upgrades in some cases, and find solutions if I run into something unexpected as the vendor is still in business and supporting the legacy model).

Full sized machines aren't difficult to build, and I've had great luck with second hand enterprise-targeted parts (eg. for a long time years back, used Mellanox Infiniband cards were dirt cheap on eBay because universities were upgrading to later generations, they were an order of magnitude faster than NIC's available at competing price points at the time, and as a bonus had lower latency). Older Areca RAID cards were great for SATA drives, easily upgradeable to new models, and I still have a few kicking around in production today.

Meanwhile neighbors have thrown out piles of ewaste and wasted time after their commodity junk failed unexpectedly.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#34

Post by LtWorf » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:43 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #29

LarMachinarum wrote: post #18

having had quite a bunch of MiniPCs, mostly from reputable brands (Intel NUC series back when Intel had those, then Gigabyte Brix series, then some cheapo china ones), I have moved away from those, because every single one of them (independently of the brand) ended up dying spuriously not long after warranty end and in any case far sooner than any µATX desktop would (in fact I've very rarely had any of the latter die…

My 2008 Mac mini is still running, so it can be done. I'm shocked that Intel NUCs weren't more reliable for you.

Only one of my rpis ever broke, the 1st one I ever bought.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#35

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

giardini wrote: post #26

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does a "dead light" mean in this context? Your landlord isn't changing your bulbs? I've mostly lived in 100+ year old homes with old janky wiring and have never had a light fixture die, just bulbs.

It likely means the OP has poor handyman skills and wisely has chosen not to learn by him/her self due to safety hazard. After all, these circuits are usually ~110 volts and there is almost always an unintended ground nearby (a water or gas pipe, a wet bathtub, etc.).

Learn how to change a lightbulb? Is that a handyman level skill?

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#36

Post by JKCalhoun » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:46 PM UTC

Not a home lab, but I have one mini-PC dedicated to driving a CO2 laser (that needs Windows). Another one dedicated to StepMania (an open DDR clone).

They're cheap enough that I don't mind dedicating one (or two) for specific tasks.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#37

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:46 PM UTC

micromacrofoot wrote: post #28

giardini wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a small price (probably less than the cost of a "home assistant controlled floor standing lamp") you could buy parts to repair the bathroom lighting? Better yet, pay someone to do it (and maybe show you the hows and the hazards). Then you could be living like a true American. And without risking the "standing lamp" falling into your bathtub!

it's the landlord's responsibility, you're a sucker if you pay a dime to fix what they own... especially considering the unfamiliarity with previous work and safety risks involved

yeah agreed that tenants should buy smart appliances to replace non-functioning fixtures instead!

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#38

Post by mrbluecoat » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:46 PM UTC

Intel chips dominate this space (with a far better price per GHz ratio than ARM or RISC-V); sad to see their slow downfall. Agree with others that you need active cooling to avoid premature burnout.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#39

Post by layer8 » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:47 PM UTC

kccqzy wrote: post #4

> You can get MiniPCs with 4-6 internal M.2 slots that are great for building a NAS with. Where can I find that? My current Intel NUC has two M.2 slots and a SATA connection. If I were to relax the definition of a MiniPC to include mini ITX then yes I can find these, but given how the author talks about being all-in-one, I doubt the author is talking about mini ITX builds.

There are SSD NASes that fit the description, and products like the Beelink ME mini.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#40

Post by usagisushi » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:47 PM UTC

D13Fd wrote: post #21

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #15

I have a homelab which is a zimaboard, a dumb netgear switch, and six mini-pc's (5560U/16GB/500GB). The zimaboard runs pfsense & an nginx reverse proxy, then all six of the mini-pcs run proxmox. 4 mini-pcs run k8s clusters (talos) and the other two run home services and selected one-offs (home-assistant, plex, bookstack, build-tools, gitea, origin servers for a subset of projects). It was a lot easier to set up than…

This does sound like a massive PITA. what is the point of it? What are you using it for?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Proxmox/comments/s92fk7/my_wife_is_...

A man can turn the means into the purpose.