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!
If you want something that fits the SFF cube shape so you can throw it next to a TV or desk for video output, you can probably go for the SYS-A22GA-NBRT.
Easy to upgrade CPU & RAM later down the line if you start doing more stuff with it, plus space for dedicated GPU if you ever want to do heavy media server stuff.
Would avoid pi due to the underperformance for the price. Plus best bang for buck usable storage will always be HDDs. SD cards are nice but you have to disable journaling to keep the writes low as to not wear down usable blocks.