This MINI PC Is The PERFECT Home Server
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- čas přidán 12. 12. 2023
- We're taking a look at this HP Prodesk 400 G3 Mini PC to see if it's a good power efficient home server for virtualisation. We're testing it with Proxmox and Debian to run a Minecraft server.
It has an Intel Core i3 7100T, 4GB of DDR4 SODIMM memory and a 256GB NVMe SSD in a 1 litre form factor. It's affordable and only draws 10 watts of power.
This video is fully captioned in English. - Věda a technologie
Another good reason to buy these second-hand instead of a new SBC or mini-PC: they end up being used instead of being landfill and pollution somewhere. From an e-waste perspective we could do so much more.
The way I see the problem is that minis or others, they get a small problem like a board mosfet that probably costs 10 cents but there is nobody around to trace it and replace it, certainly not the mfrs who would rather sell you a new pc than have real repair centers. Now what? Im facing this problem right now and so im looking for a new mini extremely reluctantly. Im hopping mad.
@@cvcoco I found a box of mini Dell optiplexes in a dumpster once the only thing wrong with them was a few of the usb ports would only work intermittently. Which was no big deal for me since I ran them all headless
@@esotericjahanism5251 Yes but if you needed and expected the ports to work? Nobody around to fix them so you throw the unit in the dumpster and its a shame.
Indeed.
The CO2 pollution of fabricating these is the equivalent of running such a system for decades.
A great machine I am looking into and start diving into the server world and running my own lab to learn new things, A side note if anyone buys these and have access to a 3d printer you might be able to 3d print the top cover to have ventilation like the updated versions it might help with cooling not having to work as hard to be efficient
These little machines are amazing, I used to have a T630 Dell Poweredge at my place. Dual Processor 256gb of ram, while it was good the electricity costs for a few VMs running low speced services I ended up decomissioning it and opted for an i7 little 16gb ram Prodesk like this and just presented the NAS with iSCSI storage is a plenty and win on the electricity costings.
256Gb of ram!?! :O
I like the 65w Prodesk SFF boxes with an i5-8500, then undervolt by 140mV, test for stability. Only draws 60w at the wall under full BOINC load with an SSD.
So much used hardware online for cheap a big surplus. companies keep on aging out perfectly good powerful computers so they are great deals
For £80 I have replaced my suitcase sized box with one of these puppies, 800/G3, Perfect for everyday use, photo editing etc. Upgraded with an NVME. Whooosh!
I bought one of these with the i5-8500T to use for day to day computing that doesn't require the discrete GPU of my main system and to save on running costs. I'm so impressed with it that I'm considering getting another.
I am planning to buy one and use it with ubuntu. just for normal day to day use at home. do you think its okay??
@@prabaharanaece Yes, definitely!
@@prabaharanaecemaybe you should see what version of ubuntu will work with your mini pc before you buy it, I bought a Prodesk 400 G4 mini (i7 8700T, 8 RAM) and I couldn’t install neither Ubuntu 24.04 (desktop and server version) nor Ubuntu 22.04 (desktop and server version)
Thank you. You are a pleasure to listen to, and very informative. Great Job!!
I want one of these for MQTT server running Mosquito and Node Red in my 2nd home. These thin clients are nice solution for many project. Thank you for your video. ❤
Good little machines. I have two of the EliteDesk versions with i7's. A lot of power in a tiny box.
my first home server was a HP EliteDesk 800 G6. i5-10500t 6c/12t at 9w system idle. amazing for Proxmox.
I have bought couple of these HP as well as similar Dell. I use one for OBS streaming and it runs 24/7 without an issue.
I grabbed 3 G4 8700T's for $230 AUD each from Facebook Marketplace. Then added 64GB RAM and a 2TB SSD for each of them bringing the total to around $1400 AUD. They're doing pretty well as a reasonably power efficient HA Proxmox cluster. Pretty happy with it, apart form the noise under load. Maybe the lower end 35w TDP models would have been better.
The "T" versions should be the 35W version. I'm thinking the the non "T" versions is a better fit for SFF versions of this model with better cooling.
@@Jonteponte71 Yeah, the "T" is the 35W version. The 35W version does not have ventilation holes on the top of the case, while the 65W version has ventilation holes on the top.
I bought the 65w version of the HP EliteDesk 800 G4 Mini and was able to fit 2x2TB m.2 and 1 500GB sata SSD. I'm very pleased.
Running 2 m.2 under sata ssd doesn't get hot? Do you use it as a nas?
Same but use one of the m.2 for external pcie RX 6600 video card. Decent mini form factor gaming rig…
Nice to see another Aussie Tech Channel 😊 Would be great to see a homelab run down/tour video.
Low Power is 100% more sustainable especially in Aus with power and cost of living.
I'm running an N100 as a router (1000/50) using PFsense as a VM within Proxmox. That was fun 😅
And then 3x WAX206 with OpenWRT as a mesh for WiFi 6 coverage.
2x Synology NAS for storage/redundancy with portainer for services on each.
2x low power mini pcs for Portainer docker instances (Automation & AI on one plus a testing unit segmented on the network).
And ive shifted from Ububtu server to Debian myself so no judgement here 😅
Great video and Ive subbed!
How have you found the move to Debian?
@@oscarcharliezulu From Ubuntu server, debian was pretty easy to get started. I had a few teething issues but nothing a little googlefu didn't solve
How's your experience with pfsense on VM? I am running it on a low powered machine with two NICs, it's used as fw + reverse proxy to a bunch of applications I am hosting on my homelab.
Oh my Poxmox cluster is all based on Dell and HP tiny PCs with maxed out memory. Right now I am running Kubernetes cluster on the VMs in Proxmox cluster hosting my applications. Thinking of setting up Ceph storage cluster to feed into Kubernetes pods to provide efficient shared storage, backup, recovery solution.
I also have a Synology box, but I am heavily under-utilizing it as NFS server, I suppose I could run Dockerized apps on here, but I am too focused on getting deep and dirty with Kubernetes instead.
Just a humble software developer, not a network engineer, all of this has been super over-engineered and super fun to learn.
I have this model, "HP EliteDesk 705 G4 Desktop Mini Computer - Ryzen5PRO 2400G/16GB/256GB - WIN 10" and really like it. I use it for a living room computer to stream video and play my MP3's. It came with a 256gb m.2 and also the tray/cable for a 2.5ssd
Back in my day... 2 McChickens were $2
Very interesting video. Very good tips for my future home network. On a different note I’d suggest looking into the camera lens rather than the monitor. Helps connect to the audience more. Subbed
Thanks, great video!
You made me buy it 😁
Got the i5-6500T version, significantly more powerful - should be perfect for some proxmoxing 😎
I went down a similar route recently but went with a dell system. It's really nice and has expansion for an M.2 ssd, 2.5" ssd, socketed CPU (limited upgrade paths however), up to 32GB of DDR4 and an i5-8500T. It also has an M.2 wifi upgrade slot but I'm going to use it to add another ethernet port for opnsense :)
Which Dell system did you use? I would like to shop them, thanks....
Great video, we are waiting for more on that topic
I use these and they are great. The only drawback is the fan noise. It's silent on idle, but as soon as I do any processing the noise becomes intrusive.
I had a similar issue on my Dell MFF box, updated the firmware and re-pasted the CPU and all is now nice and quiet
Greetings from South Africa. I never seen this channel before. Just stumbled on that video and immediately subscribed after I saw the deck on the back shelf. I had to look twice to make sure I'm not imagining, but no. it is there. I hope it works.
I use one of these for a Plex client on a CRT. Total overkill but it was handy and cheap. Nice little machines. They make a good OpenSense firewall if you stick an M.2 NIC into it.
Have similar. Added m2 2.5gbe nic and running proxmox with home assistant etc. Must try unvolting.
Cool channel! I'm looking for a reliable alternative for my rPI3, which is getting old now. I keep looking for old systems and thin clients, but the truth is I've set my eyes on N100 Cpu, which has plenty of power and its so much more power efficient than anything I could find and it comes with the motherboard as well. Now the price is kind of high, but given that its new its not all that bad. Is this a good alternative for starting a home server?
I'm liking the mini pc content!
when i moved into my appartment i went from having a full atx tower running truenas scale running a nas, survaliance, minecraft and CSsource servers. i learned that truenas SCALE has USB support. for shits and giggles i plugged in a HDD toaster and sure enough they showed up. so when i went from this big 5 bedroom house to a studio i didnt need the same thing (mostly cause it wasnt mine i just ran it) and i improvised with a mini dell like yours and plugged in another toaster and thats what i use as my nas now. (minecraft and CS are still hosted on the old server)
Hey bro i just bought one of those pcs for my Minecraft server and everything seems fine but i worried about the temperature i was thinking is it possible to add a normal desktop pc cooler on those?
Yeah, I got one of those recently but the slightly bigger version with a pci and pci-e port. It's great.
Which one is the bigger version?
Works wonders!
Seems you beat me to it, I bought a couple of these, same config too. I was also planning on making a video mainly just about what can really be done with these machines. Honestly in my situation, might be better off using one of these as my main system, it'll consume way less power and I can always use another system for more demanding tasks. My laptop is using 35W just watching this video and can use upwards of 200W under full load, which is just too much in the current economy.
If you're curious, I paid £74.99 for the two machines, and another £17.98 for the two power adapters, they came with 4GB RAM and i3 7100T. I'd say I did pretty well on the pricing there, and if I ever don't need the one I'm keeping, I can always resell it for way more than I paid. One of them is going to a friend.
Also, absolutely no judgement when it comes to the linux distro, Debian, even as a desktop OS works great and is super stable, and I'm sure it is even better as a server OS without the desktop environment.
I like your videos, encouraging people to use some used stuff with good performance and save money while benefitting, win win situation 👍
Bought an HP EliteDesk G3 Mini with an i5-7500T, 16GB RAM and a 2TB SSD some time ago. I'm running Proxmox and several different virtual machines(TS3 Server, Pihole, OpenVPN and a Valheim server) in parallel without any problems. I also set up some vitual Windows machines but only boot them if I need them. Proxmox can also use Linux containers to save resources.
I definitely need to take a look at Linux containers. I had heard of them, but haven't used them before. Should be a good way to save on system resources.
These things are absolute sleepers. I "downgraded" about 3 months ago from a full-blown HP Z440 with 145W Xeon and 196GB Ram to an 800 G4 with 7th gen i5 and 32GB and that machine is performing. Runs all my media applications (iGPU passed through to Jellyfin for hardware decoding), some productivity applications, Home Assistant and Frigate (I use a Coral TPU in the Wifi slot) with relative ease. CPU is around 40% and it shredded about 100W of my energy usage, which is significant considering it is 100W 24/7.
How do you deal with storage?
Same would love to know as most say I shouldn't use USB hhd CADDY
Love the use of the coral gpu in the wifi slot. Makes for an excellent all in one server (with storage in a nas). Which model did you get?
@@NFTwizardz I used a DAS with USB-C connected to the mini PC and 4 x 16TB WD drives. Drives passed through from Proxmox to TrueNAS for RAID and sharing. Bit annying having to passthrough every drive separately but there is no space for an LSI SAS card, unfortunately.
@martinzipfel7843 nice thanks for replying. I built a PC with HBA and run true nas scale as VM on proxmox passing through the HBA.
I love those HPs, 2x M2 + 2.5 drive, very low power consumption - even perfect as small fileserver :)
Imho, the best affordable home system could be a mini pc with 2 RJ-45 ports for a vm router WAN and LAN, with LAN to a switch, then switch to as many Cat6-HDMI extensions as rooms in a house. Cat6-HDMI connec to 3 monitors, mouse and keyboard. Mini-pc runs vms for whatever the room's user uses. Maybe a USB for Zigbee coordinators for Home Automation.
Imho, VMM > Proxmox, as you can run the mini pc on and OS, then run VMM to run whatever KVM you want like a router or OS per room.
Great video!
For a home server, i saw these and saw something like Beelink Ser Pro 5 that has much better specs and are still pretty competitively priced and couldn't justify getting this for something like that Beelink for more cores and more threads and much better overall performance.
Great video and impressive use of flat head driver 😅
Is it better to buy a 2nd hand notebook or this home server and a UPS ? I live in the Philippines where blackouts are daily happening.
This + cheap UPS with exchangable battery. Be aware that UPS also consumes energy.
do you have any recommendations for Small Formfactor PCs that would be good for a NAS and JellyFin server?
The HP Elitedesk 800 SFFs are decent, because they’re cheap and have space for two 3.5” drives. I’ve taken a look at one in another video.
I love those small PCs. I have them 2 pieces with 6500T but planning more 😄😄😄
you can buy an N95 powered 8gb ddr4 mini system for around 140$ brand new, which is a ~1.5 times faster cpu than the i3-7100T while consuming only around 6-10W, and the form factor is even smaller than the g3 mini. Definitely worth to check out!
I need 10G networking for Ceph under Proxmox, otherwise something like that would be very tempting.
@@0xKruzr take a look at the CWWK CW-MBX-AS12N-35. It has 2x 2.5G LAN from the go and does support 2 Intel 82599ES dual 10G optical port expansion cards.
Hello! Thank you for your review, I am avoiding purchasing HP-brand products at the moment as part of seeking to adhere to the noble eight-fold path, might you be able to suggest other another alternative?
There's the Dell and Lenovo options too, but if they're not what you're looking for, there's also some from companies like Beelink and Minisforum that are very good too. You could also get an Intel NUC, although they can be quite expensive.
Using a dell wyze thin client 3040 2g ram 8gb emc get for free at work and 250 usb 3 ssd for home assistant docker compose stack. It run fine but I'm storage limited on the wyse for os / package update. I think I going to move to a used Intel processor n or j based pc to get a perf improvement and because it's running h24 don't want higher tdp cpu. Currently the atom x5 is 5w looking for something similar, cheap and reliable for now I can get a MSI n3150i with celeron n3150 for 60 also a Chinese mini pc aero 2 pro with n5105 for 80€ temptation is high for the last one but not sure it will be reliable do you have any other idea?
is HP bios updates not only tru windows now and you can't see what it really is??
For me is the clear winner for a home and simple nas server using no solid state discs
thanks for this. I always look for energy efficient pc for my everyday use. had a detailed video. its around $90ish in USA with power supply and HD.
i have a couple Dell OptiPlex 3050's to replace my old dell PowerEdge server and reduced my power bills almost in half
Some models allow you to add two NVMe SSDs but then the Data SSD will not fit. Watch out for the 65 watt TDP models. The Sata SSD cradle comes with an extra fan onder the cradle. removing the cradle for an extra NVMe will result in making the main fan become noisy. The 32 Watt TDP models are more useful here. I own a Prodesk 400 and 600 mini. I also own the 65 Watt TDP 800 mini elitedesks model. The sweet spot in pricing is the 4th gen and 5th gen model. You might want to repaste them. I will combine mine in a desk shelve with 3 official under desk sleeves. Getting a replacement PSU was harder last year.
Remote management is not present in some models.
Be aware of cheaper Pentium offers.
I would replace the option serial or vga port with an USB-C port.
They officially support 32 Gb memory but 64Gb memory does work.
Whilst you have it open it would be wise to change the backup battery, that one shown is starting to swell which means it is on it's way out, and don't just buy a cheap one get a higher quality brand name one as they do last longer
It can be a Docker server, then you can add an external USB Hard Drive and run a UrBackup container to turn it into a Backup server as well. You can also use a UPS monitor on it.
no redundancy...adding disk pool to these machines is more expensive than just buy cheap home server...
also 2 cores in this HP is just not enough for decent file system like ZFS
@jkarra2334 Two cores is completely adequate for ZFS. I used to run it on an AMD A4 3400 and got excellent performance.
@@serverscience yes, ZFS itself uses very little CPU. It should remain I/O bound most of the time, even with compression and/or encryption, though compression is POISON for low cpu count cpu's. Yet again, Samba burns CPU, but I think it's pretty much constrained to only using 1 core per file transfer.
More than few cores is only going to have effect if you regularly have on big or multiple hig throughput I/O to multiple disk array(s) but still, lower clocked 2-core cpu's are just painfully slow .
yes, you can play with them as hobby but for actual use like own redundant file server with decent transfer speeds i rather invest for more cores and plenty of RAM instead only few cores (even if higher clocks) and plenty of RAM, speed is king, even at home workflows and loads.
So I could turn this into a home nas?
What about N100 based system? It coud be more power efficient and even fanless and noiseless.
The ones with 6th gen i3 is sold for around 150$ here in the Philippines, it's fairly expensive
I got 400 G3 with 6600T for $130 last year in Thailand, there is a lot of em around here.
Got Optiplex 7070 i5-9500T for 6500 pesos
Good video!
I was just looking at one of those builds with a AMD 3400g and 16gb for $155 USD but it said it would not ship for a month or two. I may just order one or two and see what happens. Reviews go from "perfect" to "this thing wasn't even looked at let alone refurbished". I'm sure theynwere just bought used in bulk and they are just crossing their fingers they will work
I agree the Pi is way too much now for what they do and not being x86. At times that's ideal, but always. If I needed to only use as much power as absolutely nessasary, I may go with one, but for home servers/labs/"IoT"/Media I think something is like this is prob ideal. You can always run in a efficiency mode and undervolt the CPU a bit depending on the bios.
GOOD STUFF
I would like to get into building my own media server for my old dvds. Would something like this be enough to handle transcoding for like 3 devices? Im mostly doing 1080p.
I haven't tried it myself, but the i3 7100t should be good enough for 1080p.
@@serverscience thank you for the info.
Hi! Can this be paired with a low profile GPU?
The HP 1L systems don’t have PCIe slots, but systems like the Lenovo M720Q do (they fit a low profile single slot gpu, but require a proprietary PCIe riser)
How do we use this pc as a router, firewall etc. It is have only one rj45 port. Any tutorial?
You can get an ethernet NIC for the M.2 Wifi slot (A+E key). I've ordered one but haven't been able to test it yet.
@@serverscience Thank you im so happy right now because i have lenovo mini pc included wifi. Now it is time to replace with the ethernet NIC
This price comparison to McChickens made me laugh
where the fudge do you take out those prices? In my country that PC is 250EUR minimum.
The purchase price was a conversion from AUD to USD. These systems are cheap here in Australia as they are very popular with large businesses and the government.
@@serverscience you're not the only one who claims unrealistic prices, STH claimed 100$ or less for these, at that time they were 500€ in my country
Yeah they're OK but lack the space for large drives (not solid state)
I just picked up a SFF version of this for under £30, bare bones. I hope that version also has a low idle wattage.
They have been in the 20w range in idle since the 2nd i generation at least. My 2nd gen sff HP has 4 2.5 hard drives and a larger 3.5. I should be able to add another 4 ssds. Lovely little proxmox hosts :)
@@valkaielod 6th gen is supposed to have an even lower idle wattage. I'm going to try an i3-6100t, no HDDs, just one SSD and see how low it goes ...
@@blakecasimir From what I have seen, the sixth-generation Intel chips did get a nice improvement to idle power draw over fourth-gen as you alluded to. I saw a comparison where it was about half the draw at idle, so they're a good generation to target. I saw someone had a video showing a system with the regular 6100 to be at 17w idle total. That might be on the better end of things, but that seems to be roughly where the idle would be. The T version should be similar at idle, and lower overall. I have a regular 6100, but keep procrastinating on getting a watt meter. I'm rather curious how much it's drawing, though I'm not worried about it, which is probably why I never get around to buying the meter.
How much are the later generations that have 8 cores and 16 threads?
I believe the cheapest to get 8 cores (but only 8 threads) would be a system with the i7 9700t, at roughly $300 USD. To get 8 cores 16 threads, you would want a system with either an i9 9900t (I didn't find any for sale), or an i7 10700t, which would cost roughly $350 USD. It's a lot more than I paid, but probably a better price for the performance.
@@serverscienceWhat about those little mini PCs with Ryzen 7 CPUs (like the 5700u etc...)?
The beelink ser5 with the 5700u is also $350 USD
Can this mini pc be turned on automatically after a power outage ? For a home server, this feature is very important
Yes, most modern HP computers have that option in their bios.
They make the best hackintosh systems
Speaking from experience, these little guys are wayyy better than Raspberry Pi's.
Yes! I just set up a bitcoin and lightning node!
This is just what I need. All I need it to do is run the OS, NordVpn, and Qbittorent 24/7 to download "linux ISO's" .
After I seed the file for 24 hours, it gets transferred to my media server.
You are not kidding. These computers are EVERYWHERE at work places. Even mine.😂
Nice
i think all i3 are not vpro compatible nor does it support overclock unlike i5 and i7
Is that really 1litre? Thats pretty insane
You can find similar machines in this 1litre form factor from Lenovo (called Tiny), HP (called Mini), and Dell (called Micro). The CZcams channel ServeTheHome (STH) has an entire 50 video playlist covering these types of machines over the last 3.5 years, called the STH Project TinyMiniMicro, where you can learn more about the different variations available and how you can use them.
Can i use this as a web host?
Yeah, you definitely could!
@@serverscienceBut i see the price 400 euro is the cheapest version?
This is why the Raspberry Pi 5 at its ridiculously inflated price is absolutely no match for a second hand SFF system for the average Joe..... I have three Pi 4B 8GB I bought back in the day when they were reasonably priced. but ever since Corona, I have bought second hand SFF Dells and Lenovos because they are so much higher cost performace contenders.
When the Pi goes back to beining $35 to 50 then I'll start to consider them viable 24/7 units for my network.
bang of thermal paste lolololol
i hear kiwiii
264 euro in Germany, amazing! :))
I came for the Minecraft. I stayed looking for the Minecraft. Jk
I bought one. Its brilliant. The vendor, less so. The damn BIOS is locked, cant access it. Cant add more memory, cand change the hdd. Vendor wont answer emails. So... I cant set the thing to reboot after power loss. Que sera sera. I am running Valheim with lots of mods and Satisfactory. It has had linux installled. Grrrrr
There should be a jumper somewhere on the board to reset the password, but not all models have it. Depending on the model, it might be under the fan, or somewhere near the back of the board. I hope that helps.
My remote job gave me this mini pc for work, it seems to do ok for the most part. Ilike the seide jab about the US defense budget
Just get a n100 mini. Much newer and more efficient.
Amd much more expensive
here, same pc is 300$ not cheap...
Can this mini PC be used for bitcoin mining?
Bitcoin mining on consumer hardware hasn't been profitable for years now.
These little PC's are dope I have a bunch of the Lenovo Thinkstation P320, p330 tiny, Thinkcentre M910X tiny, and the Thinkcentre M720q, m920q Tiny as well they are basically the same as the Elite/Prodesk Minis but they have an X16 pcie slot in them that is electrically x8 usable via a riser card. The Thinkstation Tinies can even come with a single slot GPU, but all have the PCIe slot. They're great for slapping in a Network Card. Also the Power Adapter is the same as their laptops so they're easy to get and if you need more power than the standard 65w provides they're obtainable.