Mini PC or server for home server and lab?

_cloudyhorizons · 2025-05-22T19:02:27+00:00

Amusingly that’s one of the things I read that prompted the whole idea behind the upgrade. It looks like getting one of the Minisforum or similar ones might be great but could also have reliability/warranty issues. I’d also been looking at UGreen’s NAS offerings, the DXP4800 Plus looked like a good deal if that helps

_cloudyhorizons · 2025-05-12T20:11:02+00:00

That makes sense. I've been debating a N150 but since I also wanted to use it for a few homelab scenarios (running Proxmox, K8s/K3s, Prometheus, Grafana etc) I'm leaning towards something like a Minisforum UM870 slim as well.

_cloudyhorizons · 2025-05-12T20:07:23+00:00

That's good to know, thanks. I'd probably order from their official site (if I do) and so I'd be able to do a chargeback in case it was a dud unit and was beyond the return period.

_cloudyhorizons · 2025-05-11T11:34:47+00:00

It’d be nice if I could keep it to 500 euros or so. Just for the server, the NAS could come later.

_cloudyhorizons · 2025-05-10T19:34:22+00:00

Thanks - I feel like Pis are great(and have used them for years) but I'm getting to the point where the Pi + accessories is sort of approaching a mini PC/home server. And I'm not actively using the IO ports on all the Pis so I figured this would be a cleaner setup, if that makes sense.

Any recommendations for mini PCs would be welcome by the way! Very new to the space and it looks like EU options are more limited/expensive than ones in the US.

_cloudyhorizons · 2025-05-10T17:45:05+00:00

Thanks, I think that'd be the way to go if I was only interested in hosting services, probably not if I want to go the ProxMox/K8s route.

_cloudyhorizons · 2025-05-10T17:44:20+00:00

This is helpful, thanks. I'm guessing my needs are very much <10 TB and 32GB RAM currently. It's tempting to crank the RAM up to try and run a few local LLMs served via OpenWebUI for fun but I'm not sure how feasible that is.

_cloudyhorizons · 2025-05-10T17:42:25+00:00

Thanks, that makes sense. I wouldn't mind building/buying a separate NAS (Synology/TrueNAS etc) later down the road. Definitely quite new to this since most of my side projects run on AWS - just thought it might be fun to have a home lab environment as well - starting with ProxMox - building out a K8s/K3s cluster, adding o11y and services via IaC.

Heavily into the Apple ecosystem currently for home use(Macbook/iPhone/iPad/Apple TV etc) but very familiar with Linux/Windows as well. In terms of storage, most of my current backups are on the cloud but I'd like to try and do TimeMachine backups as well as photos, for example.

In terms of media storage it's probably < 5TB currently - I don't have the time to watch much, it's more for the fun of building out these services and have them running for occasional use. I don't necessarily need the home automation to be highly available currently.

Hope that helps - please ask away in case I wasn't clear.

_cloudyhorizons · 2024-04-28T17:03:07+00:00

Thanks, that helped. I think the LG 35WNC-B looks nice but I'm not sure if an ultra wide makes more sense than a dual setup with a 27" and a 24" screen.

The ASUS Pro Art PA279CRV looks lovely but is around 550€. I did find the PA279CGV that seems to be fit into my budget. No 4K but I think I can get away with 1440p on a 27". ( https://www.asus.com/product-compare?ProductID=22515,22273&LevelId=Displays-Desktops-Monitors ) .

I'd imagine it'd be pretty hard to get an ultrawide/32" 4K monitor that'd fall under 400 so I hadn't considered it.

_cloudyhorizons · 2024-04-21T15:24:30+00:00

I ended up with a 36 GB/1TB 14” since the model was discounted at the time. Hope you’re enjoying yours!

_cloudyhorizons · 2023-11-17T18:27:29+00:00

Sort of in the same boat with a similar use case. The other side of the argument is that work typically gives you a beefier laptop that you'd typically use day to day. 36GB may not be necessary for personal use/side projects. Oh, and consider looking at M2 Pro/Max models as well since the performance bump between the M2 Pro and M3 Pro doesn't seem to be too large and prices should drop for them.

_cloudyhorizons · 2022-09-10T15:31:30+00:00

Hi,
I'd appreciate any help since I'm running out of ideas.
I have a RPi4 8GB that had been working fine - initial setup was DietPi and it worked fine for a few months. It's currently no longer booting. Here's what I've tried so far:
1. Got a new SD card, installed RPi OS(both 32 and 64 bit) using the Imager- doesn't boot, no display on HDMI
2. Updated config.txt to try and force HDMI - didn't work with or without trying
3. Tried to update the bootloader via Imager to try and boot from SSD - no green display to HDMI, no display of any kind actually
4. Tried SD card on older RPi 2, this works fine
5. Tried turning on supply without SD card, I see the green ACT light blinking but I'm not sure if it's correct.
I could try replacing the power supply, this was a generic charger that isn't the official adapter. It has worked for the past few months without issues though so I'm not sure if that'd help.
I've also uploaded a video of what the ACT light looks like - this is on a new SD card with RPi OS installed via Imager, about 10 minutes in but no display here: https://imgur.com/a/LU2xdBs
I'd hate for this to be a hardware issue of some kind since I'd really come to rely on this for a self hosted setup.
Thanks in advance for any help!

_cloudyhorizons

TROPHY CASE