My old laptop for self hosting just croaked, and I’m thinking of buying a 2nd hand mini pc, but this time I want to do it proper. I want to optimize the electricity consumption and specs needed/ future upgreadability, considering how expensive everything is now.
My use case is just for self hosting files (infrequent access and reducing reliance to google drive), and occasional dev workload via ssh. I’m thinking of buying a used optiplex with at least i6 gen cpu (SFF or micro form factor), but I want to see if there are better options.
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.
If anyone could suggest me better options it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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.
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.
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.
Most n100 new mobos need ddr5, a few older ones only need ddr4 though. Either is unaffordable right now. Better off going for something second hand which uses ddr3. Will use a bit more power but the break even point vs an n100 + ram will probably be a decade at least.
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.
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.
Woah cool. This looks neater and more organized than hostname based routing on my reverse proxy.
What dashboard software are you using?
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.
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.
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.
Can you link your guide for the PI NAS and Jellyfin server? It might be my only option given prices.
A pi 5 will cost way more than a second hand mini pc.
Sure, I’ll check my notes when I get home
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.
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 Plex Brand of media server package 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]
I have a FriendlyELEC NanoPi R4S with metal case, running Armbian with a couple of USB SSD drives, for file and website hosting mostly. Just my personal use: no heavy loads. It’s air cooled (no fan). It typically reports a temperature of about 35 centigrade. Up into the 40s if I increase the load (development, upgrades, indexing, etc.) I don’t know the actual power consumption, but the power adapter is only 15w. My original NanoPi R1 works fine for the same purpose and uses even less power - runs cooler. I got the R4S and an R2S Plus, so as to have spares and development/tinkering systems and to have a 64bit CPU, in case I wanted to run anything that requires it.
It’s not upgradeable but it’s fairly cheap and has worked well enough that I haven’t wanted to upgrade it for years, other than migrating from the R1 to the R4S, as mentioned. If by dev workload you mean running local LLMs or heavily loaded CI build system it probably wouldn’t be a good fit, but fine for compiling a package occasionally, local git and npm servers and similar. I don’t recall when I got the R1: some time before Covid. The R4S and R2S Plus have been running for about 5 years now.
There are many other SBCs supported by Armbian. You might find something better matched to your requirements.
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.
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.
Most small form factor machines will idle in less than 10 watts
These universal statements are almost never true. What means “most”? All 3 that I have are more, some up to 25W. If they are “new”, maybe. Not many that you can get on eBay are old enough that they will draw a noticeable amount. Add always, “it depends”.
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).
Compare the processors at Versus.com for a rough overview.
A lot of the SBCs or n150 pcs have limited RAM upgradeability.
You might look at the old HPE Proliant Microservers, like gen8 - gen 10. You can get them with 16GB ram included for $300. They’re low power and they use the cheaper ddr4 ram.
M1 Mac Mini is quiet, fast, low power consumption and reasonably-priced used.
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.
Oh dang. That’s pretty cool!
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. 🙄
