What's the point of a NUC when I can build a SFF instead?

Great for a basic kids PC or browsing/home office system. But pointless imo as a streaming box as it can be done by much cheaper devices nowadays.
 
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A couple of comments that have been made more than once:

- A self-build has "better cooling" than a NUC. By definition, the cooling that the NUC has is PERFECT for the NUC. No additional cooling is required.

- A self-build is better because you need a stand-alone graphics card. The graphics that the NUC comes with is sufficient for full 1080p (and more), so unless you are going to play games on your HTPC, there is no need for discrete graphics.

The NUC is an amazing little device. So tiny (you don't appreciate how tiny until you open the box), and with all the right components. My Haswell i5 has been rock solid running OpenElec 4.2 (the 5 versions are very buggy with Haswell), and I have it in a TranquilPC silent enclosure (basically the enclosure is a massive heat sink), so it is totally silent. Best HTPC ever.
 
I would go for a self built itx server/nas.

I got a mini itx lian li case which can hold 8 hdds. Nice cooling and I installed xpenology. Which is synology os.

When I was deciding a year ago I stayed clear of the prebuilt Nas units as the processing power didn't seem adequate, especially for the money. I mean how much is an off the shelf synology 8bay nas? Probs a grand. Built my server for like 400. Yes it's bigger but it's still a small itx cube.

You can then easily throw your media round the house to low powered discrete devices like Roku's and chrome cast.
 
I just use a Microserver N40L with 6x 3TB drives running Xpenology as my NAS.

Then use a Fire TV on each TV in the house with Kodi installed, runs everything fine. You don't need anything more powerful than a Fire TV for media at 1080p, even the Fire Stick runs ok with Kodi after the first 10 seconds of the film.
 
I think the OP is forgetting that you might not want to transcode your media which is where the NUC would come into play with a low power NAS (along with a whole host of other HTPC devices depending on your requirements).

I've got half decent server that stores all my media and does all the work transcoding when required. I also have a NUC as a HTPC in my front room but this doesn't receive any transcoded content, I use Kodi to just playback my media directly in full uncompressed glory. The reason I opted for the NUC was because there aren't many other devices that can pass through HD audio to my AV Receiver. I previously had a Raspberry Pi which worked fairly well bar the HD audio side.
 
cokecan said:
I think the OP is forgetting that you might not want to transcode your media which is where the NUC would come into play with a low power NAS (along with a whole host of other HTPC devices depending on your requirements).

I've got half decent server that stores all my media and does all the work transcoding when required. I also have a NUC as a HTPC in my front room but this doesn't receive any transcoded content, I use Kodi to just playback my media directly in full uncompressed glory. The reason I opted for the NUC was because there aren't many other devices that can pass through HD audio to my AV Receiver. I previously had a Raspberry Pi which worked fairly well bar the HD audio side.
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Cokecan what Nuc do you have. I have an HTPC which i would be using as the server its an i5 4690. But after somethiung for the tv downstairs that will do 1080p mkv's over 20gig with HD audio and some 720's with DTS
 
I have tried several devices and storage options over the years to provide streaming and media throughout the home, from WDTV live to SFF PCs, the device you end up with will very much depend on ALL of your requirements.
At the moment i have an i5 4250U NUC and a QNAP NAS with 8TB of storage went with an NUC for the following reasons, handles HD audio pass-through, torrent client use, VERY quiet and VERY small, teamviewer access from off site.
I have tried other SFF devices but they did get into difficulty with some large media files with HD audio resulting in choppy audio, it was however fine with lesser files without HD audio so it really depends on what you want it to do.
So what's the point of an NUC? it fulfils all of MY needs and has the ability to handle any of my futures uses also so its perfect for me...and it was only £340
 
nicknack35 said:
Cokecan what Nuc do you have. I have an HTPC which i would be using as the server its an i5 4690. But after somethiung for the tv downstairs that will do 1080p mkv's over 20gig with HD audio and some 720's with DTS
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I've got the i3 version (D34010) and it's just absolutely flawless. To be honest it's overkill and basically the same spec as my server (!). I was originally looking at one of the Celeron versions as you can now passthrough HD audio with them, but I managed to bag the i3 off eBay for around the same price as the Celeron's.

I rip all my Blurays using MakeMKV so most are 20GB + in size and they all play fine. To be honest they all played fine on my Raspberry Pi albeit with standard 5.1 passthrough instead :)
 
cokecan said:
I've got the i3 version (D34010) and it's just absolutely flawless. To be honest it's overkill and basically the same spec as my server (!). I was originally looking at one of the Celeron versions as you can now passthrough HD audio with them, but I managed to bag the i3 off eBay for around the same price as the Celeron's.

I rip all my Blurays using MakeMKV so most are 20GB + in size and they all play fine. To be honest they all played fine on my Raspberry Pi albeit with standard 5.1 passthrough instead :)
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a lot of my collection are 20gb plus. What Celeron would be ok for these sized files? Ive been quoted £360 and thats for everything. I dont mind paying that but if i can get something cheaper that would do the job that be great
 
nicknack35 said:
a lot of my collection are 20gb plus. What Celeron would be ok for these sized files? Ive been quoted £360 and thats for everything. I dont mind paying that but if i can get something cheaper that would do the job that be great
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I'm shopping around for a NUC myself at the moment and have similar requirements to yourself.

After a disastrous test with my E2180 CPU running Linux Mint last night, I'm more convinced than ever that a Celeron won't cut the mustard (Anything reliant on silverlight was a trying experience - Netflix would completely lock up the machine, Sky Go looked like garbage - both tasks it was fine with in Windows 8.1).

I'm really tempted by the 'HP Pavilion Mini 300-030na': i3-4025U, 4GB memory, 1TB HDD and Windows 8.1 for £350.
Could do with some more memory, but it has way more storage than I need and a Windows 8.1 license included - I'm pretty much sold. If it works out well as a media centre in the living room, I may very well get one to replace my E2180 secondary machine too.

It's bang on your budget, so it could very well be the box for you too.
 
Little_Crow said:
I'm shopping around for a NUC myself at the moment and have similar requirements to yourself.

After a disastrous test with my E2180 CPU running Linux Mint last night, I'm more convinced than ever that a Celeron won't cut the mustard (Anything reliant on silverlight was a trying experience - Netflix would completely lock up the machine, Sky Go looked like garbage - both tasks it was fine with in Windows 8.1).

I'm really tempted by the 'HP Pavilion Mini 300-030na': i3-4025U, 4GB memory, 1TB HDD and Windows 8.1 for £350.
Could do with some more memory, but it has way more storage than I need and a Windows 8.1 license included - I'm pretty much sold. If it works out well as a media centre in the living room, I may very well get one to replace my E2180 secondary machine too.

It's bang on your budget, so it could very well be the box for you too.
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That sounds Great Little Crow thank you very much for your reply. Sounds very intresting. Storage wont be much of an issue im looking for a Nas for the storage side of things as my i5 HTPC storage is nearly full and the NUC won't need storage only SSD. My MKV collection is quite big with a lot of them over 20gig and some 720's.Could the HP have windows 7 on?
 
My research after posting that also came up with the 'Acer Revo One', similarly specced and priced - but it has room for 2 HDD's.
It's a weird looking thing, much bigger, and though it's much easier to upgrade it's got a slightly slower processor. The 2nd HDD slot is of no real use to me, just thought I'd post it here in case it's of interest to anyone, but it's not for me (or you, by the sound of things).

The Pavilion mini comes with Windows 8.1 - for all the difference it makes, I suspect it's Bing edition but haven't seen that confirmed anywhere. There's no reason that you couldn't put Windows 7 on it, if there's a problem it'll be down to driver availability.

Didn't John Lennon sing 'Give Windows 8.1 a chance'?
I have it on both my existing machines, and it's really not all that bad. I Windows+D straight to desktop and stay there, it just took some getting used to right clicking the start button to shutdown.
 
I was looking at the DN2820FYKH to use with Windows running Kodi. From what I've read/seen it should be more than capable of playing back a full uncompressed bluray rip and can now passthrough HD Audio. The limit here would be that it can't do 3D blurays which is hwere the i3 would come into play. If you went for Linux as the OS then you'll get a bit more grunt out of it.

It comes down to how you want to playback your media. If you're purely using Kodi like me and not using 3D blurays then the Celeron will be more than fine.
 
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