this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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Low Cost Mini PCs (lowcostminipcs.com)
submitted 2 months ago by mahin@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
70 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Thought this might be helpful as a lot of these mini PCs are hitting the used market.

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[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 65 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Nice, but I wish there was a "Reputable Brand" or "Warranty" filter.

A lot of these boxes are made by the same OEM, and branded a thousand different ways under various names specifically for price fixing on large marketplace portals online - different colors, different cases, but same features without a warranty.

A lot of these fake brand names come out of companies who simply change names once they hit a certain number of bad reviews on marketplaces. Same shitty hardware, different brand name. Beelink and Minisforum are legit, but 'KingHive Pro' is probably made by 'MiniKing', and also sells things under "GamerKing", for example.

[–] fpslem@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Beelink and Minisforum are legit

I wish I knew a lot of this when I first started shopping for a mini PC. I ended up with a Beelink model that I'm quite happy with, but it seems almost luck that I didn't pick another one, and I would have liked a "reputable brand" search function.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Next time, check out Level1Techs on YouTube. Wendell reviews a lot of these devices, and he'll give pretty good feedback on what's legit and what's not. Ho has reviewed MinisForum for years and has consistently recommended them. Just be careful, because he also reviews the more sketchy devices and sometimes recommends them (but with caveats), so don't assume that because it is covered, that it's legit.

[–] fpslem@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the rec! I also love that you presume that there will be a next time, cuz, uh, that's accurate. These little boxes are powerhouses, I probably want one for a TV set-top box now that all the TV boxes (Roku, Amazon Fire, even Android TV and soon Apple TV) are riddled with ads.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

Yeah, I might end up getting one for that. My current TV doesn't have ads, but does have enough smart features to have a Jellyfin app, so I'm good for now. But my SO wants a bigger TV, so that may end up being sooner than later.

[–] Omgboom@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 months ago

Beelink are solid in my opinion, but I was in the same boat, I picked one at random that had the specs I wanted.

[–] mahin@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I was mainly looking for used ones like Optiplex, Thinkcenter etc when I made this. Hence those brand filters. Thought they were a much better deal than a beelink, so I guess the site is optimized for that. Oh also can you send the link for the KingHive Pro listing? Might be able to filter out brands like that.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Those were just made up brands, but you can see what I mean if you look through Amazon, eBay, Alibab...etc.

From your own tool you can see these brands stand out:

Some extra context: https://news.risky.biz/risky-biz-news-acemagic-mini-pcs-shipped-with-pre-installed-malware

'AceMagic' AKA 'AceMagician' AKA 'AcePuter' AKA 'AceMini' depending on your market.

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[–] starshipwinepineapple@programming.dev 22 points 2 months ago

I really like that it is a static website being updated and built on a schedule from github actions.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Number of Drive bays is also a neat filter.

[–] mahin@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately this info is rarely provided by sellers.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 points 2 months ago

I know, which is why it would be extra helpful.

[–] Statick@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I don't see a filter for drive bays. I'm on mobile so maybe that's why?

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[–] chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.net 7 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Looking great! I think it would be amazing if there are filters for processor generations as well as form factor. Thanks for sharing this tool!

[–] LengAwaits@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Not quite as simple as checkboxes, but the ability is there to some degree!

[–] mahin@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I'll add gen filters. Form factors are tougher because sellers are inconsistent with them.

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[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Does anyone happen to know if there is a N100 model that supports HDMI-CEC so I can make my old TV set smart with a recent Kodi and maybe some retro-games? But I'd rather not let it consume 9W or whatever such a machine needs all day long. So it'd need to start and shut down on its own. Preferably without manual additional steps involved, hence the CEC...

[–] AceBonobo@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I've heard but not confirmed that the various NUC models have CEC

[–] potentiallynotfelix@lemdro.id 5 points 2 months ago

This is a great site, thanks for sharing.

[–] corroded@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I have a few services running on Proxmox that I'd like to switch over to bare metal. Pfsense for one. No need for an entire 1U server, but running on a dedicated machine would be great.

Every mini PC I find is always lacking in some regard. ECC memory is non-negotiable, as is an SFP+ port or the ability to add a low-profile PCIe NIC, and I'm done buying off-brand Chinese crop on Amazon.

If someone with a good reputation makes a reasonably-priced mini PC with ECC memory and at least some way to accept a 10Gb DAC, I'll probably buy two.

[–] Concave1142@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've been running OPNsense as a VM in Proxmox for a year on an AliExpress box that doesn't have ECC. If I might ask, why do you have a requirement for ECC?

Before this box, I ran a Dell R230 with pfSense but got tired of the noise and 40 watt power draw.

I've had zero issues without ECC, so I'm just curious about your need for it.

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[–] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (8 children)

Doesn't work for me on Firefox mobile. Neither "mobile" site or Desktop versions. Hitting "Next/Enter" on my keyboard does nothing, there is no Submit button that I can see, and refreshing the page just resets all fields to defaults.

I don't want an Intel with 4gb RAM and a 256GB spinning drive, and OS included? No dice, that's what I'm offered. Without being able to filter results, its just another craigslist/amazon/newegg front-end ... a less useful one.

EDIT: Turns out there are zero fanless non-Intel, 16+GB RAM, 1024+GB SSD/eMMC offerings with USB-C to list. Strange no-one is packaging an OrangePi 5 Plus like so, but I haven't seen a fanless heat-sink sufficient to make that a good idea anyways.

I had tweaked some of the options, but without clearing either-or-both of those last two, especially "fan-less", all I was getting was the five sponsored "results" the top, which changed just enough to make it seem like that's all the results I could get.

[–] mahin@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

I'll try to optimize it, thank you.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Works for me, but damn it's dog snot slow. Like typing takes 1-2 seconds for each character to show up

[–] f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 months ago

This; works on Mull; there is no submit button, it just constantly refreshes the results and thus is slow AF from continuously juggling the data.

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[–] TseseJuer@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

works fine for me

[–] myersguy@lemmy.simpl.website 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Using Firefox mobile, everything works and is mostly performance 🤷‍♂️

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I didn't have an issue.

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[–] mahin@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Update: added germany https://lowcostminipcs.com/de/

[–] Binette@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 months ago

Awesome! I was looking for one to gift to my cousins

[–] RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sadly only for US and UK, or am I missing something?

[–] mahin@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I plan to add Canada and Australia next.

[–] funkajunk@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

FOR THE COMMONWEALTH

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago (15 children)

Anyone have experience with external HDD enclosures? I currently have two 3.5" HDDs, and I'd like room for two or three more. Reliability is pretty important to me, so something that'll cut out periodically isn't going to work.

[–] pirat@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I'm in the same situation as you, more or less... I have three new 22TB drives that need an enclosure, preferably for JBOD (no hardware RAID needed) but I can't figure out which ones are actually good products... I don't mind using a random-brand product if it's actually solid.

I find it very difficult to figure out which ones will support my 22TB drives. And for some of them, it seems, it's impossible to add new drives to empty slots later (because of hardware RAID, I guess?), which has made me hesitant in buying one with more slots than I have drives, in case they can't be utilized later on anyway...

I was looking at the QNAP TR-004 which was mentioned by someone else somewhere on Lemmy some months ago, but IIRC it would be impossible to use the fourth slot later if the drive isn't included in the hardware RAID configuration...

EDIT: I have also been looking into so-called "backplanes" as an alternative, since they seem to do the job and are cheaper, but I'm unsure if I'll need a PC chassis/case/tower for that to actually work?

If you find something good (products or relevant info), feel free to share it with me.

[–] SanguineBrah@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've run a TR-004 for the last 5 years haven't had any reliability issues so far. In hardware raid modes, drives are hot swappable but you can't grow the array without wiping it. I'm JBOD mode you need to power off before swapping drives. The main problem I've had is their chipset is only partially supported by smartmontools due to proprietary crap so there is some strange behaviour there.

[–] pirat@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for your response. Much appreciated. Do I understand it correctly that I'll be able to add more drives later in JBOD mode, but I'll simply have to power it off before adding or swapping drives?

[–] SanguineBrah@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 months ago

That's right.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago

Yeah, I don't understand why JBOD with a decent chipset is so hard to find. I really don't expect much from it, I just want to slide some drives in and have everything run consistently for a few months at a time. I'll power cycle periodically to apply updates, so I'm not looking for 24/7/365 operation or anything.

FWIW, Level1Techs seems to recommend MediaSonic (timestamp is where he talks about reliability), but doesn't give it a ringing endorsement. And that was one of the better ones he's seen...

After a bunch of research, what I've found is:

  • okay chipset, but garbage build quality (no dampening for drives, no hot-swap, etc)
  • fancy controller that doesn't support JBOD - non-starter for me, I don't want anything to do with hw controllers
  • expensive - at a certain point, I'll just keep my oversized ATX case that does the job

Now I'm looking for compact cases that support 5 drives, like this one (a little too cheap perhaps?) or this one. It just seems reliable 4-5 bay USB-C enclosures just aren't that popular.

[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

Makes sense for single drives, but if I go with USB, it'll be something like this with multiple bays, which will almost certainly support UASP. I also don't want a hardware RAID controller because I'd much rather my BTRFS filesystem handle the individual drives than rely on some controller to not corrupt my data.

The problem, however, is that a lot of these enclosures use really crappy components. Sometimes drives will drop off for no reason and the entire unit will need to be power cycled. They also tend to require a separate power supply, which is also annoying. But if there's a super high quality one for pretty cheap, the entire package (mini PC + enclosure) is probably smaller than pretty much any equivalent case. So I'm interested, I just haven't found a good fit.

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[–] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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
PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express
RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage
ZFS Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity

5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 3 acronyms.

[Thread #974 for this sub, first seen 17th Sep 2024, 00:25] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

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