So it costs more up front, and it uses more electricity which costs more in the long term.
Comment on Banana Pi BPI-M7 - More Reasons to Avoid the Raspberry Pi
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months agoIf you’re looking for cheap… I** what would recommend is instead a Mini-PC like the HP EliteDesk 800 G2 DM or the Dell OptiPlex 3050 Micro.**
For a small NAS and self-host a few services even an old laptop will do it, however there are advantages to picking a mini PC. Those machines are quiet, don’t require much power and some can even fit a 2.5" hard drive so you won’t need external hard drive enclosures. More on that later.
For eg. for 100€ you can find an HP Mini with an i5 8th gen + 16GB of ram + 256GB NVME that obviously has a case, a LOT of I/O, PCIe (m2) comes with a power adapter and outperforms a RPi5 in all possible ways. Note that the RPi5 8GB of ram will cost you 80€ + case + power adapter + cable + bullshit adapter + SD card + whatever else money grab - the Pi isn’t just a good option.
Aside from the big brands like HP and Dell there are other alternatives such as the trendy MINISFORUM however their BIOS comes out of the factory with weird bugs and the hardware isn’t as reliable - missing ESD protection on USB in some models and whatnot.
PeachMan@lemmy.world 11 months ago
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
- HP Mini with an i5 8th gen + 16GB of ram + 256GB NVME = 35W
- RPi 5 = 27W
Do you really think that will make a difference. For what’s worth how much do you pay to have a 35W device running all year? In my case I’m paying a crazy 0,157€/kW… Amounts to 35/100024365*0.157 = 48.14€/year considering a full load that the machine never has.
PeachMan@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Lmao did you just compare the highest possible power consumption on a Pi with the lowest possible consumption on a desktop PC?
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Lmao, do your research before commenting stuff like that.
- support.hp.com/ee-en/document/c06045012 (variant Intel Core i5-8500T)
- ark.intel.com/…/intel-core-i5-8500t-processor-9m-…
TDP 35 W Thermal Design Power (TDP) represents the average power, in watts, the processor dissipates when operating at Base Frequency with all cores active under an Intel-defined, high-complexity workload. Refer to Datasheet for thermal solution requirements.
Here’s how things look on the HP model above:
Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8500T CPU @ 2.10GHz BIOS Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8500T CPU @ 2.10GHz To Be Filled By O.E.M. CPU @ 2.0GHz BIOS CPU family: 205 CPU family: 6 Model: 158 Thread(s) per core: 1 Core(s) per socket: 6 Socket(s): 1 Stepping: 10 CPU(s) scaling MHz: 23% CPU max MHz: 3500.0000 CPU min MHz: 800.0000
Obviously that thing wont be running at base frequency while idling. Here is one if units right now:
analyzing CPU 0: driver: intel_pstate CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0 CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0 maximum transition latency: 4294.55 ms. hardware limits: 800 MHz - 3.50 GHz available cpufreq governors: performance, powersave current policy: frequency should be within 800 MHz and 3.50 GHz. The governor "powersave" may decide which speed to use within this range. current CPU frequency is 800 MHz.
See, it scales down to 800Mhz with a watt meter I remember it translated to idling at around 10-11W.
I never said it was better than a Pi, I just said the difference is not worth it and you’re still ignoring the fact that i5-8500T will be able to do as much work as the Pi5 without even going over 2.1 GHz - not surpassing the 35 W TDP.
eclipse@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Where on earth are you buying HP Mini machines for so cheap? Even the older gen seem to be 5 times as expensive as your estimate.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
With patience and from eBay and local second hand websites. If you’re in Europe you’ll usually see sellers from Germany selling them for cheap, in the US there are a LOT more offers.
Regardless, like used cars, sometimes a specific generation that is cheap today can be more expensive tomorrow , it all depends on the amount of machines someone or some big company is dumping at the time you’re searching for. In my case I can usually get things locally cheaper than eBay, for eg. recently I saw a very good deal on a HP Elite Mini 600 G9 i3-12100T 16GB of RAM, NMVe 256GB for 300€.
eclipse@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
I appreciate the info, but I am not a patient man. :)
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Fair enough 😂
deleted@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Thank you for your detailed suggestion.
I’ve got HP ProDesk 600 G5 Mini i5-9500T off ebay for $190. Best damn purchase ever. Running 21 docker containers and transcode 4k with ease while consuming only 35w.
However, sometimes you need GPIOs especially for school projects.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
However, sometimes you need GPIOs especially for school projects.
Yes but think about this, for a simple school/electronics project you can get even an old RPi 2B+ for around 10$ nowadays that will get the job done. For a NAS / media center / selfhosting any second hand machine will be a better choice. I wouln’t even mix the two into a single board.
There are also other brand new cheap SBCs that might work for your electronics such as the Radxa Zero 3W or the Zero 3E or even the Raspberry Pi Zero W. The point is that it doesn’t make sense to buy a standard and expensive RPi for things that don’t require much CPU. If you don’t really need an OS and you code C or MicroPython a 3.5$ ESP32 board as well.
DaGeek247@kbin.social 11 months ago
100$ isn't cheaper than 55$. That's 200% more than the pi. If someone is looking for a pi because of the price, a 100$ computer isn't an option.
Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show 11 months ago
The Pi is $55 without any accessories… With accessories it’s way over $100.
DaGeek247@kbin.social 11 months ago
Not really. It's made to run headless, and isn't always used for compute tasks. I use mine for running servos. But accessories for the desktop are also not included, so your point doesnt stand regardless.
Bondrewd@lemmy.world 11 months ago
My brother in christ. A used PC has powersupply, case, storage and cooling. This is about the basic kit you need for a proper pi5 experience. You can very easily hit the 100 dollar mark.
Also, most of the used business PC will have 8G RAM, which would put your little ARM funsies up to the $130 budget range.
And you would still only have 4 shitty cores.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Oh his point stands, as soon as you add a case and a power adapter/cable you’re near 100$.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 11 months ago
What accessories? You’re assuming everyone needs all the accessories.
Which accessories?
I’ve got a million keyboards, mice, monitors, cables, chargers, adapters, etc. And I run RPi headless for most use-cases. One is currently using a ten-year old phone charger, it’s on wifi, so what accessories again?
I don’t need that mini computer which is 10 times the size of an RPi for my use cases.
Is it attractive for certain use-cases? Certainly (and I have those on my shopping list), but you keep going on like it’s just the better device.
Hell, I bought a few Pis on sale for $5 each years ago. How is that PC going to beat five bucks, 2 watts max, for my given use-cases (things like Pi-Hole, Vaultwarden, Joplin, etc)?
Yea, to replace my Pis would be about $30 each, but they’d fit in the same place, and migration is a snap.
Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show 11 months ago
Sure, you do. But people just starting likely do not. I’m thinking of the new user, not just myself.
For that you don’t even need a Pi 5. You can get a cheap SBC at around $10-20 to do that work.
And you are assuming people are only buying new boards to replace old boards.
“Keep going on”? I’ve mentioned it maybe 2 times, that’s hardly enough to classify it as “keep going on”.
I just don’t believe that Raspberry Pi or SBCs are the king(s) of home servers anymore. There are a lot of cheap x86_64 based options out there. But yes, if you just upgrade from a previous generation the Pi 5 is perfect for you, even though it’s likely overkill for your use-case.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You’re ignoring the fact that you need accessories that will up your cost to the 100$ range. Either way, fine, there are now 4 and 5th gen HP Mini PCs selling for 50-70$. Want even cheaper then look for i3 CPU + 4 GB of RAM, you’ll find 40$ complete machines that run faster and are way better than a Pi. All of those options come with power adapters and all the things required to get it going.