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The MiniPC Revolution

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Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#101

Post by aborsy »

Does anyone have recommendation for a mini PC with min 2 sata ports for two 3.5” HDDs, min 2 NVMe for ssd storage, one ssd or eMMC for OS, and 64GB of RAM, with the ability to power up the HDDs from the miniPC (not requiring external power source)?

The HDDs are installed in a case externally. An external PCIe slot to support those 4 mixed drives via an adapter would work too. I tend to avoid usb HDDs enclosures, since usb connection doesn’t work well with ZFS.

That would be a cool ZFS NAS.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#102

Post by p_ing »

ortusdux wrote: post #14
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.

https://www.bee-link.com/products/beelink-me-mini-n150 Currently in Pre-order, but $210 for 6 slots and an N150

Roughly 1GB/s for each NVMe.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#104

Post by Havoc »

aborsy wrote: post #101

Does anyone have recommendation for a mini PC with min 2 sata ports for two 3.5” HDDs, min 2 NVMe for ssd storage, one ssd or eMMC for OS, and 64GB of RAM, with the ability to power up the HDDs from the miniPC (not requiring external power source)? The HDDs are installed in a case externally. An external PCIe slot to support those 4 mixed drives via an adapter would work too. I tend to avoid usb HDDs enclosures, sinc…

You do get ones with up to 6 nvme slots, but they'll be running at reduced speed. Generally X1 gen3

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#105

Post by slipperydippery »

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…

Video drivers & hardware are a plague on both Windows and Linux. Hell, adding a discrete video card to the config was even a way to increase your odds of serious problems with a Mac by a large multiple, back in the Intel Mac days. Any complaint-session online by Mac owners tended to be dominated by folks rocking non-Intel video chips in their MacBook.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#106

Post by geerlingguy »

shadowpho wrote: post #44
clueless wrote: post #5

what are some hardware people would recommend (specifically looking for power efficiency)?

N100/n97/n150 are all perfect (about the same perf). 6-10w idle (similar to rasp pi) but 4-10x more perf.

Just to adjust the numbers a little, the Pi idles at 2-4W (for similar RAM spec), and the N100/150 are only about 2-4x more performant (with a slight bit less efficiency), for most tasks, in real-world benchmarks.

(Not saying they're not a good value, but you'd have to cherry pick a few benchmarks to say there's 4-10x performance.)

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#107

Post by aborsy »

Havoc wrote: post #104
aborsy wrote: post #101

Does anyone have recommendation for a mini PC with min 2 sata ports for two 3.5” HDDs, min 2 NVMe for ssd storage, one ssd or eMMC for OS, and 64GB of RAM, with the ability to power up the HDDs from the miniPC (not requiring external power source)? The HDDs are installed in a case externally. An external PCIe slot to support those 4 mixed drives via an adapter would work too. I tend to avoid usb HDDs enclosures, sinc…

You do get ones with up to 6 nvme slots, but they'll be running at reduced speed. Generally X1 gen3

Yeah I know, like Beelink 6 NVMe. But NVMe storage is not affordable at high capacities. So, I want two +14 TB HDDs for cold slow storage, and two 4 TB for fast warm storage for VMs, containers, databases, and applications.

I also need a lot of RAM for proxmox VMs and containers. The CPU in my experience need not have many cores. I mean truenas itself virtualized demands 8GB of RAM.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#108

Post by JdeBP »

fransje26 wrote: post #90
JdeBP wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, note that in some countries (like mine) there are tighter regulations for electrical circuitry in rooms with baths and showers, which require work in that sort of area (problems with the pull switch, a joint box, or the ceiling rose, for example) to be done or at least overseen by a qualified electrician. They're known as "Part P" in the United Kingdom. * https://gov.uk/government/publications/electrical…

> in the United Kingdom Don't forget to earth all your water pipes to ground, and only use sockets that are water-rated to resist biblical floods. I remember being intrigued by a big 40 x 40 cm plastic box on the outside wall of the cabin we were staying at in the UK. Opening the movable front-flap revealed 1 (one) 220V power socket, protected on all sides with enough rubber and plastic to seal a submarine hatch. I h…

You are thinking of section 250.104 of NFPA 70, the National Electrical Code published by the U.S.A. National Fire Protection Association. (-:

BS 7671 (IEE Wiring Regs) does not require bonding of the pipework if the mains (service) pipes and the internal (installation) piping are both plastic.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#109

Post by j45 »

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…

Self-hosting has become orders of magnitude easier and simpler over the past 5-10 years.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#110

Post by j45 »

cdkmoose wrote: post #11

I have repurposed retired laptops for my tech lab at home. They no longer keep up with the current software bloat for wife and kids usage, but make reasonable linux servers. Currently serving up 3 databases on one, kafka and networking on another and services/applications on a third. They take up very little space under my desk.

A good way to keep the laptops operating as well. It reminds me I have a few old macbooks with decent specs that should be at least running.
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