Hello selfhosters.
I’m considering to buy a SFF PC to act as a docker host. The main services / applications I’m going to run is going to be Immich. Filebrowser, Samba-share and eventually Paperless-ngx. I’ve been eyeing PCs with a N100 / N200 specifically to run quiet, and to conserve on energy consumption. I am most likely going for an Asus PN42 and will have an SSD in it to keep the moving parts to a minimum.
To those who are running machines with this CPU and similiar workloads, how has your experience been?
i bought a beelink n100 and love it. samba/paperless-ngx work fine. Immich is a heavy load doing all the ml stuff so if you have a large photo library itll take a while
I can tell you that my Celeron J4105 (the N100’s predecessor) can run paperless and most other NAS/home server tasks just fine. I haven’t dabbled with Immich and its ML though. The 10W are pretty accurate. With hard drives, HBAs and PSU inefficiency, my home server comes out to about 20W from the wall under full load IIRC.
Also look out for RAM extensibility; you probably want 32GB in the not too distant future.
According to ark.intel.com, the N100 only supports 16GB. It probably still works with 32GB, but if it doesn’t you’re on your own.
Well, according to ark the J4105 also only supports 8G and mine’s been running 16G ever since I got it.
Thank you for catching that for me!
I’ve got a morefine m9 with an n100 in it, it handles nextcloud, immich, paperless, and much more without breaking a sweat. I also chanced throwing 32gb in it and it runs fine.
I’ve got a beelink eq12 pro too with an n305 in it, and it handles all my plex transcoding etc. Doesn’t handle 32gb ram though unfortunately!
Both are very power friendly and work great with HDDs connected through external yottmaster enclosures through USB.
I would highly suggest a slight upgrade to the n305 which is an actual i series chip with double the cores of the n100 but still less than 10w power usage.
One of my mini PC’s is an N95, which is similar to the n100 but with a higher peak power. It’s faster than the old legend 2600k and has a decent little igpu for video processing or general desktop use.
I run a jellyfin test server from it, transcodes high bitrate 4k HDR H265 to 1080p SDR tonemapped H264 at over 200fps, while running my security camera Dashboard with multiple video feeds.
Their only limitation is they usually only have a single memory slot so keep that in mind.
300 bucks oO
Better get something used with an 8500t for much less. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=8500t&_sacat=0
Or an Odroid M1 with 8GB Ram for about 100-150 bucks. https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-m1-with-8gbyte-ram/
Thanks for the suggestions :-)
I decided against arm-arch partially because RPI5 is out of stock (and I want to go with a brand name), and to avoid the extra hassle of having a HAT for a SATA driver.
As for the 8500t, I already have a SFF PC with a older CPU - but lower TPD than 8500 (but propably more noise). And I want to go lower. Also, the price difference in SEK between PN42 and those computers in your ebay link isn’t that big.
You’re welcome!
Imo Hardkernel is much better than any RPI (you mostly pay for the hype…). I’m running a HC2, N2+ and M1. Everything works. Armbian doing great work here. M1 runs native arm debian with a nice Petiteboot net installer. Give it a try if you wanted to take the RPI 5. And the M1 has an nvme and Sata port too (just need the bracket for a 2,5" drive).
Okay, yeah price difference in Euros in DE isn’t as big either. But you pay more for a worse CPU. Underclock and volt the CPU and you’re still having a faster CPU with more cores. My HTPC (HP 400 G4 with 8500T) draws about 20-25w while streaming.
