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After walking through CEX on the weekend I don't know if you will beat second hand laptop pricing. The significantly higher availability of laptops seems to make them prices that just can't be beaten.
Unless you can get away running a pi zero of course. Sorta tempted to get one but not sure how much I could get it to do. Would do data storage just fine, depending on how much space you need.
I'm a home-lab newbie but I built a NAS & Jellyfin server with a Raspberry Pi 5 and it works great. I got a SATA hat for it and it has 5x 8TB HDDs installed with ZFS RAIDZ1 in a custom 3D printed case. It can stream 4K on my network just fine. If there are other tasks you want your server to do or if you want to stream to multiple devices simultaneously I'm sure other people would recommend something more powerful but I just wanted to add my 2 cents. I picked up another Pi to set up tail scale (work in progress) and yet another Pi (open-box discount) to set up Immich (near-future project). I wouldn't expect one Pi to handle all of those things simultaneously but I haven't tried it.
If you want something that fits the SFF cube shape so you can throw it next to a TV or desk for video output, you can probably go for the SYS-A22GA-NBRT.
Easy to upgrade CPU & RAM later down the line if you start doing more stuff with it, plus space for dedicated GPU if you ever want to do heavy media server stuff.
Would avoid pi due to the underperformance for the price. Plus best bang for buck usable storage will always be HDDs. SD cards are nice but you have to disable journaling to keep the writes low as to not wear down usable blocks.
Optiplex etc. with an Intel 8th gen "T" chips seem to offer the best bang for the buck + energy efficiency on the second hand market right now.
The main issue with these thin clients is the lack of SATA ports and power connections for them if you want to add some larger 2.5” SSD/HDD storage. Usually it is only one, but you can also use the DVD drive slot with an adapter in the mid sized versions.
I have an Optiplex that at one point I had 4 2.5" drives in, had to use some duct tape and glue, but it worked fine.
The mid size versions have 3 drive bays (2x 3.5", one 2.5") plus an optical bay, but only 3 SATA connectors (which was really odd to me). You can find dual SATA adaptors for the "WiFi" M.2 slot if you want to use an adaptor for a 2.5" drive on the optical bay. But if you want more than 4 drives, you'll need to get creative mounting them.
You mean "mid" as in midi-tower? Because that sounds like the large version. Well maybe there is an even larger workstation version or so, but the normal medium sized Optiplex comes with one 3.5" SATA bay and one DVD drive.
Still didn't test mine, but I'm planning on using this for two extra (dying) disks for my Jellyfin files in my server: https://aliexpress.com/item/1005009770143040.html
How will you power the drives?
And from what I have heard, these m2 to SATA adapters have over-heating issues.
Like I said, still didn't test mine, so can't even confirm if it works at all, much less if it overheats :/
You can power the drives using a standard PC power supply. You can also use a switch like this one to power them: https://ebay.io/m/jRSozI
Sure, but the point of getting a mini-pc is usually not that you have an open case with a second ATX PSU sitting on top to power some extra hardrives.
Because you can buy something like this Sata drive enclosure: https://a.co/d/004sj6TS, and power it with a small ATX power supply.
look at used XPS line laptops. they have USBC TB3 that can have a ceiling of 40gbps throughput.
this means you can have a newish gen i7 with 32-64gb of ram with a hub for your networking and storage with a 40gbps bandwidth for it to pipe through. most of that will be available to you since you're not using it for video out.
keep in mind, Thunderbolt cables/hubs are graded and length of the cable will wreck your bandwidth ceiling. shorter is better. shielded is better.
I once had two XPS laptops networked over TB3 and was getting 10gbe on a 6ft cable. shorten it to a 10inch cable and it would have been likely 40gbe.
they do get warm, make sure you have good airflow and a decent pre-filter and you shouldn't have any problems.
the standalone laptops will usually run on 100-115w but using a TB15 dock you're looking at 125-270w. the TB15s are finicky on Linux so you might be better off using a TB3 rated pocket hub with power passthru.
good luck.
Recently I decommissioned a Dell T320 and replaced it with a Dell Optiplex 7020 SFF with the i7-4790 and 32 GB RAM all for right at the $200 mark. I'm running a total of 52 containers on it right now with load averages looking like 0.31, 0.51, 0.72. The Dell T320 running the same 52 containers cost me $40 USD per month to run. The Dell 7020 costs me $5-8 USD per month to run 24/7. If you wanted a wider tower, I set up a Dell 9020 for a friend of mine's son who wanted to get into selfhosting at the age of 10. Similar running costs. I've got an Optiplex 3020 mini with 16 GB RAM and a 4 TB external drive running Proxmox quite well and costs probably $3 USD per month. I'm pretty well chuffed with the performance so far of the 7020, and in fact am eyeballing another one to replace a second Dell T320.
Have you considered a new gen? an 8th gen would offer better efficiency and performance and more feature like quick sync hardware decoding for most encoders out there. Srill, i'm impressed by the consumption difference.
I generally try to ride the DDR3 cap as far as equipment. IIRC Intel 8th gen Coffee Lake require DDR4. DDR3 is cheap. So there is a trade off yes, but you're right, it would be more efficient. When I finally build me a new computer, I will go all the way to DDR5, or whatever is the latest and greatest at that time. The T320 is a great server, it just drinks some electricity. The money I save on electricity, I could pay for another 7020. LOL Thought about selling the T320 on ebay, but I doubt someone would want to pay what it would cost to ship a boat anchor. Maybe CraigsList, local pickup.
I'm now curious what's services are you hosting. It's hard for me to imagine self hosting more than 10 containers/ services lol
The easiest way for me to show you is just a screen shot of my dashboard:
spoiler
I've added a couple since that screen grab.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| Git | Popular version control system, primarily for code |
| NAS | Network-Attached Storage |
| PCIe | Peripheral Component Interconnect Express |
| PSU | Power Supply Unit |
| SATA | Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage |
| SBC | Single-Board Computer |
| SSD | Solid State Drive mass storage |
| ZFS | Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity |
[Thread #31 for this comm, first seen 28th Jun 2026, 16:20] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Good bot.
M1 Mac Mini is quiet, fast, low power consumption and reasonably-priced used.
I'm hesitant with running Mac due to unclear Linux support. Also I'm broke
Asahi Linux completely supports all the M1 Mini hardware.
But it does look the prices on these went back up because people use them for OpenClaw. 🙄
While these points are valid, I feel for a homelab, one would want a headless system running *nix vs OS X.
Also, it doesn't help that there is no bootcamp for ARM, least not that I'm aware. Because if that was the case, then yes running ARM64-based distros/software would be great. I'd actually love to see how the M1 runs ARM server software :)
I run Asahi Fedora Linux on this hardware. It was a straightforward install and has been problem-free since.
You can't really optimize for both power efficiency AND upgradability while choosing second hand USFF computers. Sort of have to pick a priority. I realized that electricity is relatively cheap where I am, and so older thinkstations with i5 or i7s are a great frugal option. Not so in, say, Europe.
Whatever you end up buying, and I speak from bitter experience here, swap the SSD that it comes with it. Consumer SSDs in micro systems do NOT have the write cycles required for 24/7 docker activity.
Now I run a couple of Micron 7450 Max server SSDs. Live and learn.
The log volume is dependent on which services are running and how they are tuned.
Go for a n100 or even one with an Atom CPU. Get as much ram as you can afford...
Depending on what you are doing that may not be a good idea. The N100 is way overpriced and the Atom is very old and thus has limited I/O speeds and awful performance.
I looked at all the old thin clients and didn't like their power consumption to performance ratio. Ended up buying a cheap mini pc with an n100 and it's been amazing. CPU is max 15w, but mostly only 1 or 2w. Whole mini pc with an nvme draws only a few w most of the time. I bought it before all the craziness for £80, had it maybe 18 months now and no complaints. It's been rock solid.
I would get a Intel 6-8 gen i5 and then if you can afford it I would get some SSDs for data storage.
Keep in mind hardware prices are astronomic right now so you are unlikely to get a good deal
An i7 doesn't really use much more power for bursty usage, as it gets back to sleep states faster. Same issue with ssds vs HDDs, per GB, there's not much difference in power consumption, only when you look at per drive does it matter.
That hasn't been my experience especially with SSDs vs HDDS
SSDs have no moving parts so they will always use less power since there is no motor
Of course. But when you have a storage requirement and it can be met with fewer HDDs than SSDs, the difference becomes less and less.
I've been running an HP ProDesk 600 G4 mini (i5-8500T, 32 GB RAM) for a few years now and am very happy. I bought it with 8 or 16 GB RAM and a 256 GB M.2 for 140 €. It can fit one 2.5" SATA drive and two M.2 2280 drives. I have it running 24/7/365 with 2x2 TB M.2 SSDs and a 256 GB boot SSD and it usually uses around 7 Watts.
If you want to go the HP route, ProDesk 600 and EliteDesk 800 have two M.2 slots, while the ProDesk 400 only has one.
Alternatively, Lenovo and Dell also have similar formfactor PCs, but I don't remember their names.
Performance wise, the 8th gen i5 is more than fine for TrueNAS and 10-15 docker containers.
CWWK "Pocket NAS"
There was a link posted in this subreddit about power consumption comparison of different mini pcs (raspberry pi, n100, etc), and I regret not saving it.
I don't think so. The Vercel link just redirects me to vendor HIPAA comparison stuff
I don’t think so. The Vercel link just redirects me to vendor HIPAA comparison stuff
That happened right after the OP posted that link. Worked for maybe a couple hours and then...poof
Huh, you’re right. That sucks.
The GitHub with the data is linked in that post if you want to look through the csv file.
Regarding strictly cpu/power consumption ratio I guess the mac mini is pretty good.
I have a Beelink Mini S that I got 4 or 5 years ago (N5095, 8GB RAM, 256GB SDD). It was $200 new at the time. It's easily handling the hosting of 20-25 services.
For the little that you plan on doing with it, I think you could grab just about anything.
The SFF or MT form factors are a lot better, I'd say MT is the best as it has full height PCIe slots. Keep in mind the dell/hp/lenovo models all use proprietary motherboard form factors and power supplies, but not that big of a deal I think since there are so many parts available if something does break.
I highly recommend 7th gen intel or newer, as you get the much better quicksync support and quality.
If you get a desktop class CPU (i5-7500 for example), the whole computer will typically draw around 15W at idle with an SSD, which is pretty decent.
If you need less idle power draw then you'll want a mobile/notebook class CPU (like an i3-7100u) as the idle usage should be less than 5W. But those typically only come in the micro/mini form factors.
Also good to remember that every 3.5" HDD draws around 7W when idle and spun-up (typically difficult to spin down on servers since there's always some process accessing files).
Lemmy has relatively good search, usually if you remember bits of the title that works?
In any case: Both n100/n150 and raspi are in the <10W range. Obviously raspi is lower, but also A LOT slower and much worse connectivity. As the price is roughly comparable, I'd go for the much more capable N100/N150. Only go the full 'minipc' route if you don't mind the (probably) higher power usage, which can depend highly on model. Older (but cheap on eBay) models can be 25W on idle.
Depending on what you actually need, I'd setup a Sync thing or NextCloud or something and go from there.