36 Comments

1. 

   @bitpickersplace494

   October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

   I moved from a Dell R730 server to the MiniForums MS-01 last week. While I love my Dell, power usage was just too much. I watch both videos on the MS-01 and the Trigkey S7 mini PC's . I went with the MS-01 because of the networking capabilities. I got the I-9 processor and 32GB of memory. In my testing, I ran Windows 11 and a Debian machine with a desktop along with about five other linux server vm's. Remote Desktop accessed both the Windows vm and Debian Desktop nlike a dream. Much better than the Dell server did.

   Now, it MiniForums would produce an AMD version of MS-01 mini with a high end Ryzen processor, they would have a perfect machine. As it is, I've very happy with the change.

   All I have to do is to find a buyer for my Dell.

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2. 

   @ryanmalone2681

   October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

   Mini PC's are great unless you're really running services and then RAM is the biggest issue. I got a Linux Mint VM, Win11 VM, and +10 containers and ran out of memory but had plenty of CPU left. I need to be able to run 50 containers and about 20 VMs, so it's not practical. I wanted to run a Proxmox cluster which mean it would need to handle a failover so I'd need a ton of them. I also really like having redundant everything in servers too. Tried it and it was a big mistake. Mini Pc won't go to waste though because it sucks as a server platform but it's great otherwise.

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3. 

   @KeilorT

   October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

   Great video.
   Another common limitation is the lack of RAID. That’s a must!

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4. 

   @demorez5

   October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

   for me the real issue with mini pcs is that there is no way to cramp in 40+ TB of storage. yeah, i could get a separate Synology NAS, but then costs are up incredibly

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5. 

   @GustavoMsTrashCan

   October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

   Orange pi zero 3:
   *laughs in 1W

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6. 

   @tendosingh5682

   October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

   Just run ryzen to avoid efficiency cores issues.

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7. 

   @kristopherleslie8343

   October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

   If I recall correctly I think a Chinese shop got past that limitation on memory. I think they hacked 128 Gb

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8. 

   @jonathan.sullivan

   October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

   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.

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9. 

   @howardleen4182

   October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

   Solid video idea – I'll be watching this later.

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10. 

    @JasonsLabVideos

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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 ..

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11. 

    @SB-qm5wg

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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.

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12. 

    @gregorydelapierre582

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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.

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13. 

    @alecwoon6325

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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.

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14. 

    @hubstrangers3450

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    Thank you….

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15. 

    @tommybronze3451

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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 !

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16. 

    @scotttrongkaew

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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.

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17. 

    @praetorxyn

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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.

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18. 

    @Trains-With-Shane

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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.

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19. 

    @robotredkitten817

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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?

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20. 

    @EbrahimHasan

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    SFF (not USFF) workstations fill a sweet spot for me.

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21. 

    @annebokma4637

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    Wish mini PC's came with 2x 10g rj45

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22. 

    @vikasv9687

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    I don't understand where is this video coming from but there's no comparison. Both are for different purpose and environment.

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23. 

    @vikasv9687

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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.

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24. 

    @cedwardsmedia

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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.

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25. 

    @powertoker5000

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    The electricity I use for my server directly goes to keeping my basement dry in addition to the computational capacity

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26. 

    @scsirob

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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.

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27. 

    @moonlightsoldier8443

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    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

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28. 

    @Spractral

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    No fluff. I appreciate these sort of videos; this is what the internet used to be. Thank you!

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29. 

    @AleksejsKovalovs

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    Why do someone need more than 64GB RAM in homelab??

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30. 

    @mkhanapathan

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    I have gone the other way from having a semi-mini server to a Dell R730 that I have worked to power optimise. With 1 x Xeon E5-2697 v4 cpu and 128gb ram with 8xDC800 ssd's and a Quadro P2000 card, everything runs at 112W with proxmox, pfsense, unifi controller, truenas,plex and with Windows 11 it humms along at 124W. With 2 x Xeon E5-2660 v4 installed the same setup runs at 140W. The stock fans are quiet using a ipmi control script from truenas forum and the network switch fans are what is the loudest in the room and even they are barely a humm.

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31. 

    @html1143

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    It honestly depends on your use case. If you plan on running extremely intensive services in your network/homelab than getting a traditional server may suit your needs. However if you are just starting out a raspberry pi or dell optiplex is great way to start running some services. I currently have a raspberry pi that I run a couple of docker containers for a homepage dashboard, pihole, minecraft bedrock server, and a couple of local apache servers and it is very low power running 24/7. You don't need an enterprise server for running just a couple of services. I do however want to get a dell poweredge r620 in the future to run esxi on.

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32. 

    @geekinasuit8333

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    I bought a Mini PC with an AMD Ryzen 8c/16t CPU. It has 64Gb RAM, 2Tb NVMe storage (I can add a second NVMe card), and 4 Ethernet ports. I've connected 2 Eth ports for external access, and 2 for my internal LAN. It's running 2 dozen or so LXC containers, and can easily run 2 dozen more. It's quiet and takes up a lot less space than my AsrockRack server, but the Asrock server has 16c/32t CPU, 40Tb storage (32Tb RAID 5), and 128Gb RAM, so not quite the same thing. I use the miniPC as an Internet gateway server. The Asrock is for my home lab and storage system. The miniPC keeps Internet access working when doing experiments and maintenance on the Asrock server, and it can take over the role of the miniPC gateway server when I'm doing maintenance and experiments on the minPC, it’s really nice to have the easily swappable redundancy.

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33. 

    @TrTai

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    I ended up just picking up an MS-01 with some intent to probably downsize my whole rack. I have a full enterprise grade setup of Cisco Servers that I managed to get fairly cheaply (not counting my time hunting down some additional parts to get exactly what I wanted) and that's awesome for when I'm working with things work related. But with the recent heat wave, I had to turn them all off except my even older Dell managing my storage, makes the mini-pcs more attractive. I really hope now that I've picked up this one, we get more MS-01 like devices, because even outside of the homelab, they're super versatile for their footprint and power, one more x8 slot and some more memory and it would be essentially perfect for me.

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34. 

    @ZenRebel33

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    The one question I have is storage. What are you doing storage? External?

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35. 

    @foundinjapan

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    Thank you for the video. Hello. I run a YouTube channel and want to get a server set up that can use OBS as an SRT ingest and then put out as RTmP to the YouTube server. I do IRL streaming and disconnects is a min issue so need to set something up. I also want something to put a Minecraft server on. I was looking at maybe a Zimaboard and then saw this video. I don’t have space for a big server but was wondering for a mini pc like that what do the ambient temps need to look like. The summer is Japan can be very hot and the utility room it would be in is 28-30C or more without cooling in the summer. Would a mini pc be able to function in those temps? I have all my networking stuff mounted in a closet under my stairs and would like to put the deceive in there if possible.

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36. 

    @ChrisCebelenski

    October 6, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    Late to the party here, but I do have some guidance – Background: I run both "big" servers and mini-PC's in a proxmox cluster with ceph storage and a few NAS machines. If you're thinking Mini-PC as an alternative, make sure it can do what you need it to do – often there are some limitations, like IOMMU for device pass-through or limited expansion options – if you're running 10GbE like I do, then a lot of the mini's only have 2.5GbE and you'll probably not be happy. And since the storage on these boxes is limited, you're going to want to use external storage, so a fast network is even more important. For most AI/ML workloads the mini's are a poor choice too – lack of PCIe expansion means you can't add GPU's. The mini's tend to work well for Plex since they have a on-board option for hardware transcoding. Memory will be another limitation as noted – 32 or 64Gbe will get you in the game, but you'll soon need more. I consider an entry level server 128GB memory for my needs – less for a storage-only node. And don't forget backups! For proxmox you really need to be running a proxmox backup server. I run mine in a VM, which can work just fine.

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