<story><title>Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup</title><url>https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2023/10/09/zimaboard/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dominick-cc</author><text>If you want low power, check out the N100 systems that are out now. They use like 3W. I bought the N200 from this deal recently and it&amp;#x27;s a great little machine that can handle a lot of Plex transcodes &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;slickdeals.net&amp;#x2F;f&amp;#x2F;16934029-msi-cubi-n-adl-dual-nic-intel-n100-or-n200-mini-pc-nuc-newegg-119-99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;slickdeals.net&amp;#x2F;f&amp;#x2F;16934029-msi-cubi-n-adl-dual-nic-in...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting that these N100 systems can cost less than some of the Zima products. So for me, I don&amp;#x27;t see much of an upside of going with them.</text></item><item><author>alias_neo</author><text>We don&amp;#x27;t all live in countries where electricity is near-free.&lt;p&gt;In the UK, it would cost more in electricity than the $200 Zimaboard to run one of those eBay machines for a single year.&lt;p&gt;e.g. 90W 24&amp;#x2F;7 for a year is ~£212 (~$258 US), 60W 24&amp;#x2F;7: ~£142 ($173 US)&lt;p&gt;In this price range, power-consumption is a _major_ decision factor.</text></item><item><author>justinclift</author><text>&amp;gt; This variant of the board costs 200 USD ...&lt;p&gt;Doesn&amp;#x27;t sound like a good deal when compared with 2nd hand microservers and small form factor PCs from Ebay.&lt;p&gt;Things like these:&lt;p&gt;∙ &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ebay.com&amp;#x2F;itm&amp;#x2F;175917817224&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ebay.com&amp;#x2F;itm&amp;#x2F;175917817224&lt;/a&gt; ⇦ 2x NVMe slots&lt;p&gt;∙ &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ebay.com&amp;#x2F;itm&amp;#x2F;204477355543&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ebay.com&amp;#x2F;itm&amp;#x2F;204477355543&lt;/a&gt; ⇦ 4x 3.5&amp;quot; drives, ECC memory capable&lt;p&gt;Note - I don&amp;#x27;t know those sellers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mmcgaha</author><text>N100 and N200 systems are perfect price&amp;#x2F;performance for small servers. I am running a 7-year-old N3710 fanless laptop right now and it performs well enough for a few tiny sites and a postgresql database. I am pretty sure we reached this point ten years ago but I was too numb to notice it but low power devices have become powerful enough to replace the dedicated servers that we were spending tons of money on twenty years ago.</text></comment>
<story><title>Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup</title><url>https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2023/10/09/zimaboard/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dominick-cc</author><text>If you want low power, check out the N100 systems that are out now. They use like 3W. I bought the N200 from this deal recently and it&amp;#x27;s a great little machine that can handle a lot of Plex transcodes &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;slickdeals.net&amp;#x2F;f&amp;#x2F;16934029-msi-cubi-n-adl-dual-nic-intel-n100-or-n200-mini-pc-nuc-newegg-119-99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;slickdeals.net&amp;#x2F;f&amp;#x2F;16934029-msi-cubi-n-adl-dual-nic-in...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting that these N100 systems can cost less than some of the Zima products. So for me, I don&amp;#x27;t see much of an upside of going with them.</text></item><item><author>alias_neo</author><text>We don&amp;#x27;t all live in countries where electricity is near-free.&lt;p&gt;In the UK, it would cost more in electricity than the $200 Zimaboard to run one of those eBay machines for a single year.&lt;p&gt;e.g. 90W 24&amp;#x2F;7 for a year is ~£212 (~$258 US), 60W 24&amp;#x2F;7: ~£142 ($173 US)&lt;p&gt;In this price range, power-consumption is a _major_ decision factor.</text></item><item><author>justinclift</author><text>&amp;gt; This variant of the board costs 200 USD ...&lt;p&gt;Doesn&amp;#x27;t sound like a good deal when compared with 2nd hand microservers and small form factor PCs from Ebay.&lt;p&gt;Things like these:&lt;p&gt;∙ &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ebay.com&amp;#x2F;itm&amp;#x2F;175917817224&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ebay.com&amp;#x2F;itm&amp;#x2F;175917817224&lt;/a&gt; ⇦ 2x NVMe slots&lt;p&gt;∙ &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ebay.com&amp;#x2F;itm&amp;#x2F;204477355543&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ebay.com&amp;#x2F;itm&amp;#x2F;204477355543&lt;/a&gt; ⇦ 4x 3.5&amp;quot; drives, ECC memory capable&lt;p&gt;Note - I don&amp;#x27;t know those sellers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>doubled112</author><text>As I read through the article I came to exactly the same conclusion.&lt;p&gt;I have an N95 mini PC that was $195 CAD, which came with 16GB RAM and a 500GB NVMe.  It will also hold one SATA drive.  All in a single box, although it is slightly larger and has a fan.&lt;p&gt;The NVMe slot on the Orange Pi 5 I use also keeps that mess down to a minimum.  Power + network and that&amp;#x27;s a finished setup.&lt;p&gt;Edit:  There are a TON of options in this space now.  The value of 10 year old eBay gear is questionable at best.</text></comment>