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MiniPC vs Servers in the Home Lab in 2024
MiniPC vs Servers in the Home Lab in 2024
#MiniPC #Servers #Home #Lab
“VirtualizationHowto”
Mini PCs have exploded in popularity over the past few years used as home lab servers. Explore the differences between mini PCs and enterprise servers. We look at processing power, hybrid CPUs, power consumption, server racks, noise, and generally what to expect with both.
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Yeah depends on use case to me personally my homelap when complete will be a gaming pc a server I'm going to deckout for ai crypto and rendering then a Nas for software development and my laptop
When I set out to reduce the power consumption of my home lab two years ago, I came across AliExpress mini-servers that are built around AMD laptop CPUs.
I selected the Topton mini-PC with AMD Ryzen 7 5825U and 4x 2.5Gb Intel I226V network adapter. They support 64GB DDR4 memory and sip ~30 Watts of power. I got three of them.
This now runs a very nice vSphere 7 cluster with plenty of VMs. Stable as can be. The only drawbacks thusfar:
– They came with bad quality power bricks which gave me a few initial stability headaches. I replaced them with Dell USB-3 laptop chargers.
– These CPUs work well, but have limited PCIe lanes. This means that the internal M.2 slots only have x1 or x2 connectivity. Not very good for vSAN
While at it, take a good look at your network switches. You'd be surprised how much power an older switch uses.
The electricity I use for my server directly goes to keeping my basement dry in addition to the computational capacity
I currently have three Poweredge servers in a rack in my lab. I'm actually considering changing their roles around. Planning to add a few mini-pcs to the lab to handle most containers and VM tasks and leave the servers to true "server" tasks. My TrueNAS machine will be getting a huge storage and RAM upgrade soon so it'll stay on true server hardware. Another server is handling VMware while another handles containers. These tasks will likely be moved to mini machines.
I think a hybrid setup is best for almost anyone. That way you can have a true server while not breaking the bank.
Informative but i don't see a need of comparison here. Maybe threadripper and dual Xeon could be compaired. Mini pc are for fun nothing serious.
I don't understand where is this video coming from but there's no comparison. Both are for different purpose and environment.
Wish mini PC's came with 2x 10g rj45
SFF (not USFF) workstations fill a sweet spot for me.
Thanks for that video. I am looking for a mini PC I think. I'm a bit a nerd for arm and risk-V cpu. What do you think would be the best home server with a risk-V or maybe a arm possessor?
It is worth mentioning that Proxmox is working diligently on support for intel's "Big Little" architecture. It already mostly works from what I understand so this makes them an even more compelling argument as opposed to used enterprise gear. The power savings of a mini PC is excellent as you really don't lost much versatility if you don't need banks of 3.5" hard drives for massive storage. Now that being said another plus to enterprise gear is that the initial buy in is inexpensive but replacement and upgrade parts are as well. If something stops working on any of these mini PC's it's likely going to necessitate replacement of the entire unit.
My long term plan is to get a MS-01 to use as a Proxmox host, and eventually to put in a rack and build a rack server, or maybe just get a 45Drives HL15, to use as a storage server with TrueNAS Scale, with proper 10G switches and such to make the most of both. Hopefully I can limp along with my Synology NAS until then.
For Out-Of-Band Management, Mini PC like Dell and HP Lenovo are built in with vPro Technology (with i5 or higher) which allow IT admin to manage and control machine under the bios such as a power on system and I guess Mini Forums do so, It could be replace the choice for choose mini pc instead of server.
a quick note on ms-01 a great machine! I’ve downsized my cluster a lot with just a 3 of those and power went waaay down while performance increased a lot.
Now, to save on power I would advise replacing vm’s with containers – proxmox CT’s are a breeze and do work ok with HA storage types. Only reason to run a VM in my mind is a non linux os that ee try to run / extra secure containment – which most ordinary people don’t really need (exception being running a hass, pfsense/opensense and maybe public web server).
And yes an ms01 style mini pc with amd ryzen would be a killer choice !
Thank you….
Horizontal scaling (i.e. clustering) in most cases, would overcome MiniPC’s memory limitation. Since HA is preferable for server environment anyway, MiniPCs makes sense to save power. Best part is that you can scale gradually as your capacity requirement grows, rather than investing all infrastructure and paying for power upfront.
It really boils down to the technology you want to learn and where you host your lab, and of course the budget you want to allocate.
One problem I've seen with consumer PC parts, even if ECC is supported, it doesn't actually use the parity function. Just means it's works. And no IPMI.
I still love my Lenovo St550 with dual scalale xeon cpu's. Can't get 256gigs ram and tons of storage in a small box. Good video Brandon ..
Solid video idea – I'll be watching this later.
VPro is a thing and PiKVM as well. I've run 128 Core Monster servers in my homelab and now I'm downsizing to more power efficient alternatives where possible. Whether it's a NUC cluster or MS-01 that's all the rage these days.
If I recall correctly I think a Chinese shop got past that limitation on memory. I think they hacked 128 Gb
Just run ryzen to avoid efficiency cores issues.
Orange pi zero 3:
*laughs in 1W