Someone linked a list of Mini-PCs here: https://lemmy.world/post/19837516
I think the N100 sounds good. But I can't comment on buying a cheap chinesium one versus a refurbished Fujitsu/Lenovo or an Intel NUC.
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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I bought a "cheap chinesium" one a couple of months back and have not regretted it (yet). It does what it claimed it would.
The one I bought: Aoostar R1
How much did you end up paying? Did you have to pay tax, customs fees etc? $200 sounds almost too good to be true. Do you run Linux on it? Any driver issues? I'm looking for a replacement for my NAS right now. On paper this one looks pretty good.
I opted for the version with RAM and nvme for $270. had to pay shipping, but no import tax (lucky me). So all in all it was about $300 for me.
And yes I run Linux on it. Arch Linux to be precise. Have not encountered any driver issues.
Cool. Thanks for the info.
Uuhh, that's a cute little trash can. Now fit that with the maximum of RAM it supports and two 12TB harddrives... And it'll do more media center and NAS than the average person needs.
Exactly. It handles Jellyfin + other services very well.
Add some googly eyes if it "lives" in the living room. They fit right above the switch which would then become the nose.
Yeah back when I needed storage (quite some years ago) the mini pcs were less capable and more pricey, so I ended up building a NAS myself. It's a regular, yet very power efficient PC. But due to size, it doesn't fit next to the TV. If I'd do the same thing today, I'd certainly consider a machine like this. And $200 doesn't sound much for a 2-bay NAS.
Holy shit! This is the first one of these things I've seen with SATA slots
NUCs are where to go. Intel chips good for transcoding and 3 year warranty. Had 1 die out of 3 die in 4 months and got a full replacement. Got another so I'm running 4 now and been about a year. Running tons of stuff and measured power to about $2.5/mo/pc.
I'd go with a corporate hand me down just for sustainability. Those tend to be in decent shape and can be had for reasonable prices. Buying second hand is always a bit of a lottery but so is buying chinesium.
Sure. I usually do the same thing. The laptop on which I'm typing right now is a refurbished Dell one and I really prefer a bit older enterprise hardware to new consumer hardware. Nice build quality, no nonsense and Linux runs great on that device. And it cost me a fraction of a new machine. However... with the intended use-case of a media center I'm not sure. Intel always adds hardware acceleration in their iGPUs and the modern codecs are quite demanding. I wouldn't buy an older generation that doesn't really support AV1. I'm not sure if hardware from 2 years ago can do that. And if someone buys a new TV set which supports HDR or something and then the recently bought, refurbished media center is out of date again... that also doesn't help. Maybe I'd buy a new one in this case and just use it for the next 10 years. That's also sustainable. But yeah, you have to pay attention to the details if you're buying off-brand. But that also applies to most computer hardware, regardless. It's a bit more of a lottery with cheap and off-brand devices.
So back to beelink on amazon?
FWIW: I'm running jellyfin and a whole host of other services on a Beelink with an Intel n95 and 8gb of ram. Runs like a champ.
The thing that matters more than the TDP is how much power they draw at idle. It’ll likely be idling or turned off more than it will be on. And even when on, it probably wont be hitting its max TDP just playing some media unless you’re transcoding to 4k or something.
Is there a percentage of the TDP which is usually the idle power draw?
No, they're almost entirely unrelated. Almost all CPUs will idle close to 0 W (with correctly working drivers). The main idle power contribution comes from the mainboard and other devices (e.g. disks). The Mini PCs you mentioned should have a very low total idle power, probably below 10W.
Check out Wolfgang on YouTube, he has some great videos on the topic: https://youtu.be/Ppo6C_JhDHM
Unfortunately no, which can make it a pain to figure out. You’d have to research the CPU itself.
Gamers Nexus reports 44W at idle with the G4560 which is already more than the G5400T’s MAX TDP of 35W, so it’s a pretty significant difference.
Assuming the RAM and other components are similar, I’d go with the G5400T system.
It really depends on if you need transcoding or not. If no, it doesn't matter. If yes, check for integrated GPUs on both models and check that it will work as a transcoder for jellyfin.
What do you think about a i5-7200U? It has a Intel 620 iGPU.
People generally recommend 8th gen or higher Intel chips for transcoding so I'd look at alternatives. I have a Dell with an 8th gen i5 and that works very well.
How much was it?
i5-7200U
That is Kaby Lake and seems to support up to HEVC for decoding which might be enough for you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video#Hardware_decoding_and_encoding
For a bit of future proof you might want to check out something Tiger Lake or newer since it seems like they support AV1 decoding in hardware.
Unfortunately tere doesn't seem to be a market for used Tiger Lakes yet.
What is your budget?
Best would be below 100€. 200€ would be possible but I'd have to save a bit.
the question is: why do you want to move on from the Rpi4? Also, how do you plan to handle video decoding 0f x265/av1 streams? Do those miniPCs have a video card with hardware transcoding capabilities? If you plan to do it on software (i.e. CPU transcoding) the CPUs will run hot most of the time.
Alright so I checked the docs but I'm not fluent with video codecs. For av1 you need basically a new integrated gpu, right? But for x265 (is that the same as H.265 in the docs?) a kaby lake should be fine if I read that correctly.
So maybe a i5-7200U should be capable enough?
Edit: And to answer your question about the RPi: it seemed to me that I had to reduce the quality to watch a film without stuttering and in the future I might want to stream on a projector so I want the highest possible resolution.
I run Emby and MythTV on a Beelink Mini PC. It is a little pricey compared to some of the options you mentioned but not by too much. It works really well and is very quiet:
https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-SER5-5560U-500GB-Computer/dp/B0B3WYVB2D
Can't answer your question but I got a refurb corporate m715 for 60 bucks, I haven't bothered upgrading the 8Gb ram^* and it runs a full dockerized arr stack, vpn and jellyfin without any issue. I don't reencode and I don't use 4k media, so I can't talk about that either.
But if you're looking for cheap that works, it's not a bad little machine.
^* The system actually run on 6Gb since 2 are reserved for video and by the time I realized that everything has been up and running fine for a while, so I didn't even bother rebooting in the bios to change it, I just added a bigger swap 🙄
For Jellyfin, dont get any lower than 8th gen if you want to transcod using quick sync. And if i correctly remember, you will nee 10th gen or higher for 10bit transcoding.
Most folks ignore laptops, but if you're OK with USB storage or getting the special caddy to install the internal 2.5" drive you can get great deals on laptops. This one idles around 4W with the screen off.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| NAS | Network-Attached Storage |
| NUC | Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers |
| RPi | Raspberry Pi brand of SBC |
| SATA | Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage |
| SBC | Single-Board Computer |
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.
[Thread #979 for this sub, first seen 18th Sep 2024, 08:45] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
NUC is good for transcoding if you really need it. NUC11 i3 i think has 30w tdp and draws sub 10w at idle and does transcoding fine. Check specific HW codec support for your needs but stick to Intel because they will generally be the best in this space.
Also can confirm Jellyfin doesnt run well on a rpi4. No problem on a NUC.
Is a NUC better or similar to a N100?
Check the CPU, every NUC has a different one. An 11th gen i3 (i3-1115G4) will generally offer better performance than a N100 but a N100 may offer slightly better power efficiency since it was designed for it and is newer. Also when keeping in mind power draw and thermal efficiency, newer CPUs will usually do better. I personally would stear clear of older machines for that reason.