What's the best affordable pre-built mini server?

HumanPerson , 26 days ago

I see people mentioning small office desktops, and they are good, but I will warn you that they use proprietary parts so upgrading and repairing them can be difficult. Also jellyfin.org has some good info under the hardware acceleration section for what to use.

Charadon , 27 days ago

A used mini computer, like a lenovo thinkcentre, hp prodesk mini, and dell optiplex micro.

sunbeam60 , 27 days ago

Dunno about affordable but you can usually find some decently priced 1L Dell Optiplex micro systems. I’ve got one running under my desk 24/7. Great Linux support.

forger125 , 27 days ago

You can try the Minisforum MS-01. Relatively compact, inexpensive, with a lot of options for expandability as well as relatively powerful Intel CPUs with QuickSync for LLM and transcode. Here is a nice overview of the device.

Aux , 27 days ago

If you want to run Ollama and other ML stuff, you're looking at buying an RTX4090, my friend. Affordable and ML are two things you can't put into one sentence.

486 , 27 days ago

While you certainly can run AI models that require such a beefy GPU, there are plenty of models that run fine even on a CPU-only system. So it really depends on what exactly Ollama is going to be used for.

diy OP , 26 days ago

I am satisfied if it can run a 7/8B relatively fast

Presi300 , 27 days ago

Go on ebay or your local 2nd hand market and search "mini PC" or "Office computer"...

Blue_Morpho , 28 days ago (edited 28 days ago)

How small? How many drives? I bought several used Lenovo P330 E2276G for my servers.

The Intel CPU has great low power GPU for video encoding/decoding for video streaming.

The Xeon ECC ram gives long term reliability. It's important if you leave your PC on 24/7 for years at a time.

diy OP , 27 days ago

I am not a big fan of buying used.

LunarLoony , 27 days ago

Why not? It would help massively with the 'affordable' criterion

diy OP , 26 days ago

I just need something that works. I've had a bad experience with a previous model that wouldn't boot on my Ubuntu server drive, no matter how much time I spent on it. But if you know of any models that are worth checking out, I'm all ears.

LunarLoony , 26 days ago

Might be worth trying to find a refurbished HP ProLiant MicroServer. There are a few on eBay UK within the £200-400 range. You can sometimes find professionally refurbished units as well.

Blue_Morpho , 27 days ago

Used servers/workstations are likely more reliable than new consumer.

They were very likely kept temperature controlled, have ECC, and are actually known working instead of something like Asus. If I remember correctly, PC mortality is very high the first 6 months, goes down to near zero for 5 years, then starts going back up.

Replace the SSD/hard drive and you are good. You might not even have to do that. I checked the stats on the SSD that came with my used Lenovo workstation and it had like 20 hours on it.

bitchkat , 28 days ago

I love my NUCs but haven't really paid attention to what has happened since Intel sold that line to ASUS.

diy OP , 27 days ago

Thanks i will take a look at the NUC.

Cupcake1972 , 28 days ago

what are you gonna use it for?

diy OP , 28 days ago

something that are not arm based
I’m looking to set up a system that can run Jellyfin, Ollama, and a few other small services. By ‘pre-built’, I mean I want to buy a device that already has the necessary hardware and installation, so all I need to do is install the operating system and I’m good to go

Decronym Bot , 28 days ago (edited 26 days ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
NUC	Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers
NVMe	Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
Plex	Brand of media server package
SSD	Solid State Drive mass storage

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Getting6409 , 28 days ago

I've had a good experience so far with two minipcs, mele quieter 4c for kodi, and a morefine m9 (I think this one is branded as mipowcat in the EU). They're both n100, the m9 can go up to 32gb of ram although it is picky about what modules it will accept. I use the m9 for jellyfin and about 10 other services. Quick sync works great as far as I've tested it. For jellyfin I'm relying mostly on direct streaming, but I tried a few episodes with forcing some transcoding by using Firefox for playback and it worked fine.

B0rax , 28 days ago

I like my HPE microserver gen10+

Although it does not come with a GPU by default, but you can install a low power one.

droidfone , 28 days ago

What are the reviews on hardware offered by umbrelos guys?

SpeakinTelnet , 28 days ago

Edit: something that are not arm based

You want pre-built to run ollama, that's at least gonna cost you an arm, maybe even a leg.

xcjs , 28 days ago

It depends on the model you run. Mistral, Gemma, or Phi are great for a majority of devices, even with CPU or integrated graphics inference.

slackj_87 , 28 days ago

Check out used tiny/mini/micro desktops on eBay. Loads of info here: https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimicro-home-lab-revolution/

Only downside is going to be no GPU for the AI workload. Maybe some of the later AMD APUs could cut it. If not, all three major manufacturers have SFF variants that are pretty much the same hardware in a little bigger case. Those will accept smaller off the shelf GPUs.