[conspire] Home Servers

[Dana Goyette]

On Mon, Mar 25, 2024 at 1:27 AM Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:
>
> Tony Godshall said on Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:43:45 -0700
>
> >I bought a few of these fanless in this past year.  They are running
> >great so far for the people who must have x86
> >
> >https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09TGPWNB5/
>
> Cheaper price at Walmart:
>
> https://www.walmart.com/ip/MeLE-Quieter3Q-Fanless-Mini-PC-N5105-Windows-11-8GB-256GB-4K-UHD-Wifi-6-Mini-Desktop-Computer-New/2177929669
>
> I know Walmart treats their employees miserably and puts small
> businesses out of business, but they treat their employees better than
> Amazon and do less damage to local businesses than Amazon.

(Just realized I accidentally sent directly instead of to the list, so
resending)

Some random mini-PCs use what's effectively a USB-C-shaped barrel jack
for power, with the power brick dumping out 12 volts all the time
instead of negotiating with the device for power.
I don't know if this is one of them, but if it is, you'd want to make
*darn sure* to label that power brick on both the brick and the plug,
so you never connect it to something else and fry some expensive
device.

One device I bought a while ago, but I'm not sure how best to
benchmark: the HP T640 thin client.  It's a passively-cooled 4-core
Ryzen R1505G (Zen 1), and prices for them on eBay can vary.  It seems
to idle around 6-8 watts, and it hits around 24 watts under load.  It
should even work for casual desktop use, but I haven't tested that use
case extensively because I'm a stickler for running my desktop at 4k
120Hz, and the T640 seems to refuse to do 4k above 60Hz even though
the specs say it should work.  But if you need media transcoding for
Jellyfin or the like, Intel's iGPUs are better than AMD's.

I also have an ODroid H2+, fanless, with a pair of SATA ports with
weird power connections so you have to use their power cables.
Nowadays that company has a successor product, the ODroid H4+, with a
newer Intel chip.