Hello there,
I’ve been running a little army of raspberry pi and libre computer lepotato for many years now.
Sometime died of overheating, one died because the microsd card failed so hard that some kind of electrical shock took off the whole pi.
I’m looking at this trend: replace that with a single or a 2 node cluster of mini pc.
The point is I still want to consume as less electricity as possible. So low TDP CPUs <10 to 15W is my most important criteria, then 2 disk bays (don’t care about the form factor or connector).
Reading buyers comments on Amazon indicates that cheap Chinese mini pc have their ssd dying quickly, or their motherboard, or their power supply, sometimes in months, not even a year.
Would you please recommend a low power mini pc please ? It may be Chinese but from a reputable brand (which I fail to determine).
Update: I have borrowed a Nuc N150 from a colleague, he swapped it for a tower desktop (not powerful enough for gaming, I don’t care about gaming). I may very well end up buying it from him for cheap.
Else I have a few used Lenovo M910q with i7 in the 230€ range on eBay, that will do
I’ve got three different sff desktop units running various apps on them. If you look around you can usually find the tiny form factor business desktops from Dell, HP, and Lenovo used and a few years old for under 100 bucks a piece. The most expensive of the three I bought was a Dell with a 9600t for 90 bucks about a year and a half ago.
I looked into that, enterprise grade used mini pc would be good fit, but everything I’ve found has a TDP >15W, that is above my idea of a low power mini PC (as in consumming few electricity, keep the bill low…). For instance, Intel 9600T would draw at the minimum 25W and is rated for 35W.
Nah mine draw less than 10 watts at idle, unless you’re constantly loading the cpu you’re not going to see even 25 watts.
@M33 @evidences Ok, so it is a very good option because it is really cheap compared to new devices. Thanks :)
Yeah it definitely a good option depending on your local used market and or what you can find on eBay.
Is a secondhand “official” nuc not an option?
I can’t speak to any of the Chinese brands, but minisforum seems well liked.
For what’s worth, your making the right call. I did this a few years back with some second hand nucs, and everything has just been way smoother to deal with on x86
@CameronDev Yes, that’s a good idea, second hands will be fine 🤔
I know someone that has a Beelink mini PC and is happy with it, and I’ve heard some good things elsewhere too. I’m probably going to get one once my current Lenovo mini goes bad on me. They have some sub-$200 USD options that I think can fit two m.2 SSDs in them.
Im running Aoostar R1 Intel n100 for 3 months now. I bought it barebone. I bought the ram, ssd and hdd seperately. It has 1x m.2 nvme slot and x2 3.5/2.5" disk bay. But i swap the wifi card to another nvme because im not using it.
Intel spec is 6w for n100 but my r1 total wattage is 32w idle including extra usb fan at the top. A bit at the high side after researching around but i dont really mind.
@3aqn5k6ryk Intressting, with nice Mac Pro trashcan vibes 🤭 it is close to what I have in mind, thanks !
Yeah. They released a new black color. It used to be white, it look like a small air purifier.
For clusters you generally want an odd count (3 instead of 2).
Intel NUCs are awesome and have 3 year warranties. Unfortunately Asus has NUC brand now and handles even the Intel branded ones warranties. That said, I did do an RMA on one of my units and it wasn’t great but not the worst experience.
