"This Is The ONLY Home Server You Should Buy"
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Timestamps:
0:00 The ONLY Home Server… according to YouTube comments
0:50 Squarespace (Sponsor)
1:37: Why Don’t I Use N100s?
2:02 Kamrui AK2 Plus Mini
5:49 Performance & Benchmarks
7:00 Efficiency & Power Draw
7:27 Home Server with Debian/CasaOS
7:47 HW Transcoding
8:19 Minecraft Server and Potential CPU Limitations
8:45 Power Draw as Home Server
9:42 Is This ACTUALLY More Affordable?
12:27 Is The N100 Better For The Environment?
17:58 Are N100 Mini PCs a Good Purchase?
by Hardware Haven
linux web server
I like those "mini" alder lake CPUs. Intel got it right this time with this hybrid microarchitecture. Out of all models I could test, the N100 is in my opinion the most well balanced one in terms of cost, availability, performance and efficiency. Specially for these tasks scenarios. The N95/100/N200 get shadowed by the 8-cores-intel i3 N305 due to the increase in core count. I found a laptop with a quite decent price featuring this cpu. Nice video
Aren't sata m.2 compatible with nvme slots? I think compatibility is only one way but if it's an nvme slot you should be able to run either.
As long as the cooling solution works, then plastic just isn't a downside at all, especially when I consider that I will not be stroking it like a pet for hours of each day.
The problem with these older HP, Lenovo, etc., mini-PCs is that they are noisy and don't turn off the fan/fans even during idle/low temperatures/light tasks, whereas there are completely passively cooled N100 units.
Nah too slow CPU. need like razor 5 5500x fanless
Environment doesn't care about your PC 😉
It's rational well thought out takes like this that made me a new subscriber. Thank you
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Other ideafor increasing power efficiency: power it through homemade PV installation made from used panels (cause there are cheap) and old truck batteries.
It is a very specific type of need that leads to buying very new, top of the line hardware. While the rest still have it good to great with hardware up to 5-6 years old. It is something that I found to be valid for a lot of products, be it laptops, servers, home appliances, cars and so on. There is a big deal of FOMO pumped through every channel, and the points you made here makes me look forward with hope that other influencers will start being just as mindful. Thanks for sharing this review with us!
You mentioned a soldered wifi card and couldnt upgrade it.
What upgrade cards can be used and what advantages do they offer?
Kali advantages?
I so much want to buy one of the current mini PCs – one with better connectivity than this, but in this category. But my 5 year old NUC and my 12 year old laptop are still doing fine for all my computing needs, since I'm not a gamer and I don't do much video processing. I'm having to grit my teeth and wait until the laptop finally gives up the ghost – but it was a good one when I bought it, so it's holding up really well with just minor upgrades along the way. They might both outlive me. I had the same problem with my giant Trinitron CRT years ago – I wanted a flat screen modern monitor, but couldn't justify it until the Trinitron screen stopped working. It weighed a ton, worked really well for many years, and cost $1000 new.
Very useful, keep up the good work.
I'm actually impressed by that i5. Didn't expect it to draw very little power.
I just got a used Gigabyte Brix with a Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU N2807 @ 1.58GHz – 4.3w TDP – it cost only £35 delivered and runs OMV absolutely fine – and could probably run a bunch of other stuff too if I wanted.
As someone with a solar-battery system, the difference between a system drawing 5W, 10W, or even 50W is really just splitting hairs. Leaving a lightbulb on all day costs more power.
The message of reusing old PCs to "save the planet", especially with how efficient they've become in the last 10 years, is definitely one I can get behind. We need to think of ways to reuse all the cheap phones, netbooks, and other low power PCs that have flooded the market, too.
basically we have 3 use cases, (1) router / AP , (2) internal web server , (3) NAS . You get nerfed on the first as you can't slot in another AP card and no dual nics, and you also get nerfed on the last part, as no way to add a plethora of SATA connection. So all it's really good for is an internal web server, and your better off just using old business equipment that gets dumped on the resale market, just my opinion, at least until they fix 1 and 3.
If you want cheap efficient performance, just buy a used laptop. You'll get a battery backup and included display and input. Plus you'll probably get better driver support buying from a known manufacturer, than some chinesium company that won't be around next year.
These mini pcs are a niche that people are treating like the future of computers. They're just laptops without a battery or screen for more money.
Thanks for posting the spreadsheet
Don't spin a fan by hitting it with your finger, you unbalance it.
Spin a fan by blowing on it, if that's what you want to do.
In fact, you can clean out fans and computers by hitting them with a leaf blower.
That part with the spreadsheet at the end was great, it might not be exact science but very few other YouTube channels talk about that subject
CO2 is NOT relevant for the climate !
Water vapor is… and fine dust !
Damn !!!
I have an old ThinkPad T430s and a GTX 1050 lying around from when my desktop broke down back in 2018. Friends gave me them for free. The former to use in the meantime, and the latter a bit later to get it up and running. The motherboard broke the year after, but it was a Phenom X4 9750+, so I was happy getting 10 years out of it, so I did a full upgrade.
But earlier this year, I remembered I had the laptop and GPU gathering dust, so I figure I might look into making a file server and media center out of them. The file server is easy enough. There's plenty of USB enclosures out there to have all the HDDs I want.
The media center part is trickier, though, and it's why I mentioned the GTX 1050. The T430s has an i5-3320M in it, which is too old to have hardware transcoding. But its ExpressCard is a direct PCIe connection. It only has 1 PCIe 2.0 lane, but that's more than enough for video transcoding. And lucky for me, EXP GDC adapters exist. So I spend maybe $90 or so for the adapter, ExpressCard cable, and a barrel jack power cord. Plug 'em all in, put my GTX 1050 in the slot, and there's my video transcoding.
Since both the 1050 and my HDD can fully power down until they're needed, the only power used during idle is whatever's needed for the laptop itself. And that's negligible. My UPS doesn't even show 1W.
$90 to breathe new life into old hardware is 100% worth it.
Really good points on the environmental impacts. Just one thing worth noting, fossil gas is not actually better than coal, that industry myth has been busted. Particularly when accounting for fugitive emissions, it could be even worse. Hopefully where you are (and elsewhere) the wind power really replaces coal and gas
Nice, Love the calc😁!!!
skylake is actually great architecture for power efficiency at idle. Build a i5-6400 server for 100 bucks
The best thing you can do is spend MORE on a better spec thst aayit is future proofed AND funds development and manufacturing.
There is no ethical consumption in capitalism BUT it is important to fund PROGRESS and industry.
Also buy a solar system and run your pc from DC solar on site!
What if you bought an i5-6500T system from eBay for $170 and didn't realize until it arrived that it was a "Lot of 5"… 🙃
Too bad only 1 RJ45, otherwise seems like a great PFSENSE box
theres a way to buy ethernet adaptor on linux os
"This is the ONLY Home Server You should buy" – If you don't need any i/o.
Hello hardware haven! This is a long shot but is there any way you could help or make a video about how to put a custom world on the papermc server you previously made?
TIA!