Selfhosted
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Any specific reason why you'd want to go with NVMEs for your storage, and not just 2.5 SSDs?
If it's performance you're concerned about. I have 3 SSDs in RAID (external USB 3.2 JBOD enclosure), and they perform way better than a single NVME.
For minipcs, have a look at aliexpress. They tend to have the branded options much cheaper than amazon. Trigkey, minisforum, Beelink, etc.
Mostly size. SATA SSD would be acceptable also but I don't see many N100 PCs with SATA.
External DAS seems to cause a lot of problems from my research.
I'm running mine successfully for the past few months and never had an issue. The only thing to make sure, is, that it passes the serial number through. In case it goes bonkers, you can just swap it.
The OP would be better serve with a second hand mini computer from HP or Dell than that crap. AliExpress brands (including Minisforum) are all fun an games until you run into some UEFI bug that will never get a fix and won't you boot some system or have some feature, or your board doesn't have proper ESD protection and randomly fries when a USB device is inserted.
I run a trigkey (AMD 5700u) as my NAS (unraid) and homelab, and a CW p-5 (N305) as my router (opnsense), and have no problems at all. So they for sure boot Linux and FreeBSD, which is 90% the case.
Unlike some old second hand, new hardware is more powerful and energy efficient.
So... if I compare an N305 with an 8th gen i3 CPU it is about 2$/year in savings when it comes to power. Since a brand new N305-based machine will sell for at least 150$ more than a second hand HP Mini i3-8300T that means you've to run your N305 for 75 years to actually reach break even.
Look, I like the N305 but I would never get a cheap ass board when I can get a reliable machine with an older CPU like that i3 for a lot less money, it just doesn't make sense. Power consumption is a nice metric to throw around, but once you run the math...
Besides, just google "minis forums uefi bug" and you'll see. Those machines are about luck, you may have good results a few times but you'll eventually get burned by some board with software or design issues.
Frankly, do you really need opnsense? If you were to remove that and just grab any decent router, even old hardware, like the R7800, and load it with OpenWrt you would be spending a lot less on power. Go ahead, name a opnsense feature that OpenWrt doesn't have. :)
Please include the actual calculations for energy-prices as many, you may not know, live in different locations and pay different prices compared to you.
No need to, they both have their place for sure... I don't know their features, and I probably don't even use most of them. but openwrt is solid enough for potato hardware, whereas opnsense is not. Also, my point was to show that both operating systems run on the aliexpress hardware, counteracting your claim that some systems don't boot.
OpenWrt is rock solid for every hardware out there, it has a x86 version as well and there are people running that for more serious stuff.
Yes, they may run right now in your specific boards but it is a hit or miss. You've zero guarantee a future update update to your OS or UEFI won't break things and that there will be fixes. There are plenty of online reports of people unable to boot on those cheap boards due to due to UEFI shenanigans, even on minisforum machines.
I haven't updated bios on my main pc ever since I built it... so I think the concerns you're talking about are more hit than miss.
That's because you had the luck of not hitting a BIOS with some bug or limitation. For instance on AMD it is common to see things like:
Because while electrically / socket compatible, when the board was originally released the CPU didn't exist.
You're comparing apples to oranges here and this has literally nothing to do with the hardware that was mentioned in this thread. They all have soldered mobile CPUs. The N100, N305, 4700u, etc.
Okay. https://www.reddit.com/r/MiniPCs/comments/129x0mm/minisforum_um_series_fixes_megathread/ / https://archive.is/vwXsX
And so many others...
I'm sure if I dig deep enough, I might find threads like these for any hardware.
Just look at Apple. Their MacBook lineup has been a mess since 2016, and they are a "reputable" and overpriced non-aliexpress company.
And yes, you're fucked if you buy something from Ali and it turns out faulty. But you're also fucked if you buy second-hand. The risk of loss is equal.
There’s a big difference thought: consistency.
When a MacBook fails it fails for everyone in the same way and if it’s software fixable then it’s a simple fix. With AliExpress boards you get boards that are perfect, others fail after a while, others never work unless they do updates.
yes, and that consistency is not guaranteed on the second-gand market either.
A mini pc from a reputable brand second hand is certainty more constant than aliexpress.
I'd argue that it certainly isn't. Possibly the previous owner ran it under heavy loads, constantly, resulting in a degrading of the components.
Or they themselves were unfortunate to receive a faulty unit that started to misbehave randomly, and are now selling it after the warranty period.
Fair enough.