Wow I do need an upgrade from the pi4 🤯
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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I'm not here to recommend a NUC (because I don't know), but a thing about the Pis: I have several, some have been constantly running in some form ore another for 10 years, and I have had 0 issues with overheating or SD-cards. Also I only use the official power supplies.
The Pi 4 and 5 have heating issues, so I added passive cooling to them (if I would do heavy tasks like transcoding I would add active cooling, but that is not my scenario).
They are reliable little machines :-)
(Also they are limited in CPU and memory, so I also have a NUC. It's an official Intel so not the kind you want ;-) )
@RagingToad The microsd that killed one of my Pi (a Pi3) didn't overheat, it just literally exploded, one face of the plastic case was split in two. My conclusion is that i was creating a short circuit, and damaged the Pi board.
Before I got cooling right, two Pi were really overheating, one died (actually it boots, but freeze). Then I started using radiators or metal cases using the whole case as a dissipator. And a slow fan on top of that for Pi4 and Pi5.
I would totally look at a NUC by Intel, I'm not restricted to Chinese mini pc at all. Actually I'm looking at Intel NUC but they are like twice the price of other mini pc... so I'm still investigating.
I know someone that has a Beelink mini PC and is happy with it, and I've heard some good things elsewhere too. I'm probably going to get one once my current Lenovo mini goes bad on me. They have some sub-$200 USD options that I think can fit two m.2 SSDs in them.
I've got three different sff desktop units running various apps on them. If you look around you can usually find the tiny form factor business desktops from Dell, HP, and Lenovo used and a few years old for under 100 bucks a piece. The most expensive of the three I bought was a Dell with a 9600t for 90 bucks about a year and a half ago.
I looked into that, enterprise grade used mini pc would be good fit, but everything I've found has a TDP >15W, that is above my idea of a low power mini PC (as in consumming few electricity, keep the bill low...). For instance, Intel 9600T would draw at the minimum 25W and is rated for 35W.
Nah mine draw less than 10 watts at idle, unless you're constantly loading the cpu you're not going to see even 25 watts.
@M33 @evidences Ok, so it is a very good option because it is really cheap compared to new devices. Thanks :)
Yeah it definitely a good option depending on your local used market and or what you can find on eBay.
Is a secondhand "official" nuc not an option?
I can't speak to any of the Chinese brands, but minisforum seems well liked.
For what's worth, your making the right call. I did this a few years back with some second hand nucs, and everything has just been way smoother to deal with on x86
For clusters you generally want an odd count (3 instead of 2).
Intel NUCs are awesome and have 3 year warranties. Unfortunately Asus has NUC brand now and handles even the Intel branded ones warranties. That said, I did do an RMA on one of my units and it wasn't great but not the worst experience.
Im running Aoostar R1 Intel n100 for 3 months now. I bought it barebone. I bought the ram, ssd and hdd seperately. It has 1x m.2 nvme slot and x2 3.5/2.5" disk bay. But i swap the wifi card to another nvme because im not using it.
Intel spec is 6w for n100 but my r1 total wattage is 32w idle including extra usb fan at the top. A bit at the high side after researching around but i dont really mind.
@3aqn5k6ryk Intressting, with nice Mac Pro trashcan vibes 🤭 it is close to what I have in mind, thanks !
Yeah. They released a new black color. It used to be white, it look like a small air purifier.