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Mini PCs Database

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Re: Mini PCs Database

#41

Post by ww520 »

winrid wrote: post #28
ww520 wrote: post #24

These cheap mini PC look nice on paper, but I have bad experience with them. They tend to break after a while. They got shut down due to overheat; their small form factor make ventilation difficult. BIOS was set to overclocking by default. BIOS settings got magically reverted back to default. Everything makes it look good on paper on benchmarks but bad for consumers. OTOH, I got good experience with the Intel NUC box…

Yeah you can get a refurbished Dell Optiplex for about $100 w/ keyboard, mouse, and wifi adapter, and should have a passmark score of around 6k (for reference the i7 in thinkpad x1 carbons from 2018 has a passmark score of 8k). I got one of these setup for an event organizer that wanted to drive three displays w/ timing software on a budget.

Yes. I have got a "used" HP 800 G4 DM on the cheap, which looks brand new still wrapped with plastic skin, as my camera NVR machine. It barely uses 2%~3% CPU processing 8 camera feeds and pumping out videos to 3 monitors. The mini PC did the same thing with 80%~100% CPU and got overheat easily. The HP is slightly bigger but flatter than the current mini PC form factor. I believe the design is great for heat dissipation.

Re: Mini PCs Database

#42

Post by jsheard »

haunter wrote: post #40
jsheard wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parky Towers has a decent index of those thin clients, with information about how they can be upgraded https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hware/hardware.shtml

That's not the same. Thin clients are a different category than small form factor micro PCs.

It's a fuzzy line, systems like the Wyse 5070 were originally marketed as thin clients but they are more than powerful enough to be repurposed as an SFF PC or home server. That one can be upgraded all the way to 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD if you want, and the fat version has a standard PCI-Express slot which can accomodate a 10GbE NIC.

Re: Mini PCs Database

#43

Post by fuzzfactor »

The Minix name has also been appropriated years ago by a line of miniPCs which apparently have no relationship with the legendary Minix operating system.

Actually the early ones were not very good with the Windows 10 they had, and a fresh reinstall left you needing drivers that only came from their provided restoration images.

After about a year they were not useful for that any more with only 16GB of drive space and 4GB of memory soldered in.

After our IT guys replaced them with Dells, I repurposed by installing Windows 11 in Compact Mode from the command line and dedicating for spectrometer use which is not going on the internet.

Minix is still there with more powerful units which are quite a bit more expensive.

I would look closely at support downloads for little things like this, I still had to get some of the drivers for W11 from the (now externally saved) original W10 images from 2016.

Re: Mini PCs Database

#45

Post by Fnoord »

mbesto wrote: post #37
Fnoord wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minisforum MS-01 is way better since it can function as a router and NAS / server with high uplink. It sports 2x 2.5 gbit, 2x SFP+, and all of these are decent Intel NICs (i226-LM, i226-V, X710). The X710 supports SR-IOV. It also has a PCIe slot you can use, for example to add another 10 gbit NIC or two 2.5 gbit. And it has an on-board WLAN (which you can remove). Actively cooled, which is IMO what you want. It has 3…

For $600 sure, but its review isn't exactly glowing: https://www.servethehome.com/minisforum-ms-01-review-the-10g...

Isn't exactly glowing?

End conclusion is this:

"At the end of the day, if you are looking for a P-core enabled high-performance mini server or workstation, the Minisforum MS-01 is probably the best out there right now."

The review is why I bought the damn thing. But I didn't go for the most expensive option and bought my own RAM and NVMe for it. NVMe I went with a Samsung PM9A3 for filesystem consistency and heavy writes with Proxmox. For RAM I just went with w/e. It isn't ECC, but also not as bad as non-ECC.

Is the machine perfect, no it isn't. For example all the power saving stuff does not work if you want to use the I226-LM NIC 24/7 and that is a bummer. Also, it took 3 months to arrive (approx 1 month longer than advertised). But other than that? Great machine.

Re: Mini PCs Database

#46

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

jsheard wrote: post #35
metadat wrote: post #18

It's missing all of the HP mini's which have been extremely popular for more than a decade. Examples: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c07588846 — HP EliteDesk 800 G8 (Intel 13th gen) https://support.hp.com/ee-en/document/c06045012 — HP EliteDesk 800 G4 Desktop Mini (Intel 8th gen) Also discussed recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40867709 — The Cheapest NAS (sigwait.org) — 2 weeks ago, 298 comments

Parky Towers has a decent index of those thin clients, with information about how they can be upgraded https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hware/hardware.shtml

Err. Via Eden&Nano? SiS? NS/AMD Geode? Transmeta Crusoe? Jurassic Atoms & Celerons?

That seems interesting for retro-computing, but not really for anything current running on them. Be it for lacking instruction-sets, or peripheral ports.

Re: Mini PCs Database

#47

Post by Fnoord »

drewg123 wrote: post #21
c2h5oh wrote: post #13

CPU/memory/performance are nice, but not the only things I'd care about, e.g. - number and speed of ethernet ports - if you want to build a opnsense router for example - number and kind of video outputs - if you want to build a media pc - MSRP - passive vs active cooling - power draw - USB ports and USB version - m2 nvme and sata connectors - m2 lte (key b) connectors all of those could be filters - see pcpartpicker…

I came here to say a lot of this. One thing you didn't mention that I'd like to see is what, if any, PCIe slots there are. This is pretty rare in mini PCs, and I've only seen it on the Minisforum ms-01 ( https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ms-01 )

HP MicroServer Gen 10 isn't a mini PC, but it it is quite small form factor and comes with 4x 1 gbit NIC (I350, supporting SR-IOV). 4 SATA 3.5" slots, allows for iLO and PCIe (I use a PCIe to NVMe there). It draws a lot of power though, as it is a Xeon processor. Sadly PiKVM wouldn't fit in the iLO spot.

A Minisforum uses far less power and can be decked with some (3) NVMe. It also has TB4, and a PCIe slot, which can also be used for NVMe/SSD, as well as the one where the WLAN is in (miniPCIe?). Thinking of putting my Coral accelerator in there, though it probably gets quite hot. I suppose the TB4 you could use to attach a bay of SATA drives to the machine, or to use a TB4 case for a NVMe.

Re: Mini PCs Database

#48

Post by drewg123 »

Fnoord wrote: post #47
drewg123 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say a lot of this. One thing you didn't mention that I'd like to see is what, if any, PCIe slots there are. This is pretty rare in mini PCs, and I've only seen it on the Minisforum ms-01 ( https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ms-01 )

HP MicroServer Gen 10 isn't a mini PC, but it it is quite small form factor and comes with 4x 1 gbit NIC (I350, supporting SR-IOV). 4 SATA 3.5" slots, allows for iLO and PCIe (I use a PCIe to NVMe there). It draws a lot of power though, as it is a Xeon processor. Sadly PiKVM wouldn't fit in the iLO spot. A Minisforum uses far less power and can be decked with some (3) NVMe. It also has TB4, and a PCIe slot, which can…

Low power is my main interest in these mini-pcs. Eg, the ability to use "laptop" level CPUs in servers that do a lot of IO, but have smart NICs that can offload TLS.

Re: Mini PCs Database

#49

Post by the_snooze »

ww520 wrote: post #24

These cheap mini PC look nice on paper, but I have bad experience with them. They tend to break after a while. They got shut down due to overheat; their small form factor make ventilation difficult. BIOS was set to overclocking by default. BIOS settings got magically reverted back to default. Everything makes it look good on paper on benchmarks but bad for consumers. OTOH, I got good experience with the Intel NUC box…

Old Intel NUCs make for nice home servers. Small footprint, low power, but has room to grow for standard storage and USB peripherals. You can pick one up on eBay for under $75, and it generally comes with everything you need (otherwise sold separately for Raspberry Pis): case, disk storage, power supply. Mine has a 5th generation Core i3 processor from 2015, but it more than handles everything I need: Ubuntu Server 22.04 and Docker containers for my self-hosted web services (e.g., Jellyfin, OwnCloud, Home Assistant).

Re: Mini PCs Database

#50

Post by metadat »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #14

If you're looking to tinker the Amazon Prime sale has some reasonable deals on N100 mini-PCs right now, at least in the US. Popular models like BeeLink and Minisforum are down from $200 to $160.

How is this better than an i7-8k series from Ebay with 16GB ram and a 256GB SSD for $150 USD or less?
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