Small energy efficient mini PC advice

Whiffle

Whiffle

Whiffle

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Joined
27 Jul 2009
Posts
386
Hi there.

I currently have a number of individual servers that I would like to combine into one machine:

* Raspberry Pi3B+ - running Homeassistant

* Odroid HC2 - running Openmediavault (with TVHeadend)

* Rasberry Pi1 - running PiHole

I have been patiently waiting for a Raspberry Pi4B (8GB) to become available but I have started to wonder whether ARM devices are necessarily the way to go.

With energy prices the way they are, I want to keep energy usage to a minimum wherever possible but am open to the possibility of an x86 device as well.

Any advice on what to look to do/consider would be much appreciated.

I was looking at building something from scratch, which would help have the advantage of being able to put my 3.5" drive in a case, rather than having it attached via usb3. However, parts seem so expensive at the moment.

Another options seem to be a mini PC, based off something like Tremont, which are available on Amazon for not too much and seem to be very frugal on energy use.

A third option seems to be a used thin client from the famous auction site - something like a Dell Wyze 5050 J5005. From what I have read, these seem to have very low energy levels as well, though I have just noticed that they use M.2 Sata and not NVME - not sure if that is going to give me issues, further down the line.
 
I have used Beelink Atom-based type devices in the past and while I was impressed at first, the 2GB fixed RAM was a death sentence for it once Windows 10 did a major release/update.

Currently I use about 3x USFF PCs, 2 for work and one for home automation. It idles at 18 watts and never really leaves idle, running a virtual machine for Home Assistant. I wouldn't expect power to go up much adding a few extra VMs, so it can probably end up very efficient for multiple purpose use.

IMO hard drives spinning on idle is the worst power draw to try and avoid if you have a NAS etc.

FWIW my USFF is using a Ryzen 4600G with no power modifications so if you get a low power CPU I believe you can get below 10W
 
Thanks guys - that BeeLink looks really appealing, actually. Do you happen to know, roughly, how much energy it uses?

Is it an issue that it does not support NVME? I still use old fashioned 2.5" sata drives but I have noticed that the vast majority of M.2 sticks seem to be for NVME only.

I have been checking current prices of energy (about 0.50p per kWH) and this equates to about £45.00 a year at 10w 24/7, so anything below 10w would be great.

Completely agree about the HDD - I have it turn off after 20mins and it only really gets used for recording TV. I might consider recording directly to SDD and having the HDD for archived recordings only.
 
Whiffle said:
Thanks guys - that BeeLink looks really appealing, actually. Do you happen to know, roughly, how much energy it uses?
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The Celeron N5105 has a TDP of 10W so I'd expect the entire box to be around that. You may find it's less at idle but, for example, the Raspberry Pi has less peripheral components. This box will have to power more RAM, storage, etc etc.

I wouldn't worry about not supporting NVMe - you likely don't need to worry much about the improved speeds beyond a good SATA SSD.
 
one of the reasons I went for that one was because it has an internal m.2 ssd and you can fit your own 2.5" SSD later.

Mines running ubuntu server, hosting pi-hole, plex and openvpn. It's on 24/7, makes no noise, uses sod all power.......I bloody love it :-)

We've all streamed 4k movies from it as some point, although I have dotted chromecasts around the home and set it to directplay. I've heard it can encode, and it does a good job too, but not something I personally need.
 
Thanks so much for this.

Having watched a few videos, that Beelink looks so good that I am going to go for it - one video suggested that, run headless and without Windows, idle can actually drop to 5 watts, which is crazy.

I was a slightly concerned by the fact that m.2 SSD sticks seem to be losing a lot of ground in comparison to NVMEs but I am sure that there will always be a market for them in the future.

Going to order one now - thanks again. Much appreciated.
 
Just to throw this out there; take a look at devices like the HP ProDesk/EliteDesk mini PC's. They are often very cheap on eBay, come bundled with a Windows license and are super low power: https://www.servethehome.com/hp-elitedesk-800-g4-mini-tinyminimicro-guide-review/

I'm running a HP EliteDEsk 800 G4 Mini as my "server" and it's great. These come with 2x full size NVME slots and a Sata slot for a 2.5" disk, have a ultra low TDP (mine's running the i5-8500T), decent Intel NIC and have very low power usage. I've padded mine out with 3x 4TB SSD's (2x NVME's and 1x USB-c to Sata adapter) and as we speak is idling at 13W running Windows and VMware Workstation with AdGuard and HomeAssistant VM's. I have seen mine running at low as 5W idle before I added the USB SSD and VMware Workstation which just boggles the mind.
 
TheOracle said:
one of the reasons I went for that one was because it has an internal m.2 ssd and you can fit your own 2.5" SSD later.

Mines running ubuntu server, hosting pi-hole, plex and openvpn. It's on 24/7, makes no noise, uses sod all power.......I bloody love it :)

We've all streamed 4k movies from it as some point, although I have dotted chromecasts around the home and set it to directplay. I've heard it can encode, and it does a good job too, but not something I personally need.
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Typical.

I have finally gotten around to ordering the U59-Pro and noted that Beelink have another model - the S12 Pro for almost exactly the same price.

Should I go for that instead? As far as I can tell, the S12 seems to be the superior machine.
 
Whiffle said:
I have been patiently waiting for a Raspberry Pi4B (8GB) to become available but I have started to wonder whether ARM devices are necessarily the way to go.

With energy prices the way they are, I want to keep energy usage to a minimum wherever possible but am open to the possibility of an x86 device as well.
Click to expand...
I have been saying this for a while - unless you actually need the GPIO pins of a raspberry pi, then there are certainly quicker, and cheaper options available (such as thin clients and enterprise mini/micro/tiny PCs)

Whiffle said:
A third option seems to be a used thin client from the famous auction site - something like a Dell Wyze 5050 J5005. From what I have read, these seem to have very low energy levels as well, though I have just noticed that they use M.2 Sata and not NVME - not sure if that is going to give me issues, further down the line.
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I assume you mean Wyse 5070: https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/5070/ in which case yes only M2.Sata drives are supported

In terms of performance, the J5005 is a beast compared to any of the Pi processors

 
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Thanks very much.

Am so glad I considered x86 devices.

I shall order the S12 Pro this evening. It is crazy that this machine is available than its predecessor, from the same site, for £1.00 less.

Makes no sense, to me, but nothing in the world seems to at the moment!
 
Whiffle said:
Typical.

I have finally gotten around to ordering the U59-Pro and noted that Beelink have another model - the S12 Pro for almost exactly the same price.

Should I go for that instead? As far as I can tell, the S12 seems to be the superior machine.
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N95 looks like an interesting CPU that might be a second choice bit of silicon - have a look at this article and specifically the comments.

www.tomshardware.com

Mini PC With Off-Roadmap Intel Processor N95 Chip Appears at Retail

Alder Lake architecture N95 chip is found in a sub-$200 mini PC.
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com

It may be that the machine using the N95 is just poorly put together but I'd definitely not assume it's a better CPU. The Amazon listing also isn't clear whether it's 8 or 16GB of memory and that kind of puts me off :)
 
LuckyBenski said:
N95 looks like an interesting CPU that might be a second choice bit of silicon - have a look at this article and specifically the comments.

www.tomshardware.com

Mini PC With Off-Roadmap Intel Processor N95 Chip Appears at Retail

Alder Lake architecture N95 chip is found in a sub-$200 mini PC.
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com

It may be that the machine using the N95 is just poorly put together but I'd definitely not assume it's a better CPU. The Amazon listing also isn't clear whether it's 8 or 16GB of memory and that kind of puts me off :)
Click to expand...


The N95 chip definitely seems to be an actual thing (rather than just a misnaming of an N5095 etc)

Intel® Processor N95 (6M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Processor N95 (6M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.
www.intel.co.uk www.intel.co.uk


It may be "2nd grade silicon", but still offers some promising performance (roughly equivalent to a Haswell i5 4670K), whilst using a fraction of the power
 
Armageus said:
The N95 chip definitely seems to be an actual thing (rather than just a misnaming of an N5095 etc)

Intel® Processor N95 (6M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Processor N95 (6M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.
www.intel.co.uk www.intel.co.uk


It may be "2nd grade silicon", but still offers some promising performance (roughly equivalent to a Haswell i5 4670K), whilst using a fraction of the power
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Absolutely, but when comparing it to a very close chip, and giving it a couple of tens of percent performance improvement but utilising a 25W TDP-up mode, I'd suggest it's not going to be that much better a performer. Hence I'd look at the quality factors like RAM, SSD, brand/trustworthiness of builder, etc.

Especially as there's a focus on power efficiency here not just overal CPU performance for a mini.
 
That is crazy - N95 having similar benchmark to 4th gen. i5!

The actual version I was looking at (the S12 Pro, as opposed to the S12) uses the N100 as opposed to the N95. Also comes with twice the storage and twice the RAM. https://www.bee-link.com/computer-73493777

Looks like a step up in energy use but has similar top-end specs.

en.wikipedia.org

Gracemont (microarchitecture) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

To be honest, I have never been an adopter of new technology but for around £200.00 I am tempted to take the plunge.
 
I was amazed how well windows 11 ran on it. Not that I kept it on, but I did use it for a while just to see. If you just want internet and office type apps, it's a stonking little machine. The memory and ssd obviously helped, but that cpu is no joke.
 
Whiffle said:
That is crazy - N95 having similar benchmark to 4th gen. i5!
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whats real interesting is that single core speed in that bench is close to the 4670k which is running boost up to 400mhz higher than the N95 so id say ipc should be equal to haswell which is no real slouch for getting basics done considering power consumption is at atom levels.
 
Cyber-Mav said:
that N95 chip has been kept quiet, its using gracemont cores. this is gonna be ideal for low power scenarios. looks like its gpu can go av1 decode too so its win win in all areas.
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Assuming it performs ok, the article I linked says it struggled to decode 4k and the GPU was under provisioned. Might be more efficient with AV1, not sure.
 
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