My current setup consists of a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4gb RAM and a 1tb external SSD. I’m thinking of getting a used mini PC for around 100€ to replace that tho because it would give me a lot more power and especially RAM (I currently need to use an 8gb swap file). My plan so far is to get a used mini PC that’s quiet, has a built-in SSD and at least 8gb of RAM (16 would be better). Because of the built-in SSD, I could also sell the external SSD and buy an 8-12tb HDD instead.
Does anyone have recommendations for what mini PC to get or things that I should look out for?
Edit: Thanks for all the help! I decided on the Firebat T8 Pro Plus with 16gb RAM and 512gb internal storage because that really seems to be perfect for my use case.
If I were you, I would look at the chinese offerings on aliexpress. If you carefully read the spec sheets, you can find excellent price/performance
When looking at these it seems I can only find models with “EU plugs” even though I am shipping to a US address, all the items with “US plugs” are greyed out. I assume the only difference is the wall socket, right? Are the sockets on the power supplies universal?
Generally… Power supplies these days are auto-switching capable (so they can use 120v or 220v).
BUT…I don’t know specifically if these units do so (so it’s a very good question).
I would guess that since they’re capable of 220v (which is EU), they’re more likely to be auto switching than something specifically marketed for 110v (US).
I haven’t seen a manually switched 110v/220v power supply in years - they’ve all been auto switching.
But I wouldn’t assume either - I could totally see manufacturers in China making 220v-only units without auto-switching, to save a few pennies.
Just looked around and there are mini PCs for around 130€ with Intel N100 CPUs, which have a 6W TDP, AV1 decoding and they beat an i5 6500T (that one’s in a 130€ Dell Optiplex I found on ebay) in single core and gets close enough in multicore. Is there some kind of catch I’m not seeing with that CPU? Because it looks perfect for my use case.
One catch is that you have to assume it’s gonna be sending data to China or at least have a hidden backdoor, possibly both. That may not matter depending on what they are doing.
Another catch is that the hardware design is bad. They usually cheap out and those machines have close to no ESD protection on all I/O ports. A simple short in a USB device will most likely kill the motherboard and/or CPU.
Can’t quite speak for the n100 but I got a n305 one of these “China PCs” it’s passively cooled (which was important since it’s running in my bedroom) and seems to have amazing performance for what I need (I put jellyfin on there). I’m quite happy after futzing around with ARM SBCs and external drives this just works so well.
The N100 has a reputation for decent performance and good power efficiency at a cheap price. It’s a basic quad core CPU with only efficiency cores (no performance cores) and no hyperthreading, but it comes with modern codec capabilities. It will certainly give you more power than a Raspberry Pi for everyday tasks, but don’t expect to do anything too demanding with it. If your needs are basic an N100 mini PC seems like a good option.