Used skinny shopper PCs are an unsexy, available Raspberry Pi different

“Raspberry Pi boards are arduous to get, most likely additionally subsequent 12 months,” says Andreas Spiess, single-board fanatic and YouTuber, in his distinctive Swiss accent. He is not unsuitable. Spiess says he and his fellow Pi devotees want “a method to outlive” with out new boards, so he suggests wanting in one of many least charming, most ignored areas of computing: used, corporate-minded skinny shopper PCs.

Spiess’ Pi replacements, steered and refined by lots of his YouTube commenters and Patreon subscribers, are Fujitsu Futros, Lenovo ThinkCentres, and different small techniques (some or all of which might be semantically thought of “thick purchasers” or just “mini PCs,” relying in your tastes and retro-grouch sensibilities). They’re the type of techniques you may simply discover used on eBay, refurbished on Amazon Renewed, or by different enterprise and IT asset disposition sources. They’re usually in good condition, given their use and atmosphere. And in comparison with single-board fanatic techniques, many extra are being made and changed every year.

They’ve all the time been there, in fact, but it surely makes extra sense to take one other take a look at them now. “Again to the long run,” as Spiess places it (in an analogy we’re not completely positive works).

Spiess’ journey for make-do Pi servers strikes him previous trendy NUCs rapidly, as they’re too costly and overpowered for House Assistant, PiHole, or perhaps a multi-container system. He seems to be at two sorts of skinny purchasers that work. For a single-purpose Pi substitute, nearly any Intel or AMD processor works, and you may want 4GB of reminiscence and 8GB of solid-state storage. To run a number of Pi-scale tasks off one field, Spiess suggests attempting to find a more moderen processor, 8GB of reminiscence, and a 64GB or 128GB SSD (or individually upgrading both of these if potential). For his single-purpose tasks, he discovered a 34-euro Futro ($35 USD) with an AMD GX-222GC SoC; for a number of containers, he bought fourth-generation i5 and i7 ThinkCentres for 79 and 105 euros ($82 and $109 in the intervening time).

Then there’s the software program. Putting in House Assistant or related Pi-focused pictures on the lower-powered shopper requires a USB-to-mSATA adapter or booting a Debian system off a reside USB after which flashing the inner SSD with the picture. For a multi-VM or multi-container machine, Spiess makes use of Proxmox. He installs House Assistant in a single digital machine, then IoT Stack on an AMD-64 model of Debian in one other.

It is not a revelation {that a} extra {powerful} pc can replicate the job of a less-powerful pc, however the delta in energy consumption and processing would possibly shock some. In comparison with a Raspberry Pi, Spiess’ cheaper Fujitsu is definitely a bit slower at ESPhome compiling than a Raspberry Pi 4, however the i5 and i7 have been greater than 3 times quicker.

Utilizing a meter, Spiess measured their energy consumption. Two Raspberry Pi items consumed 12 Watts at a principally idle state, the Fujitsu at 14 W and the i5 and i7 at 16–18 W (with spikes as much as 25 W throughout excessive exercise). Shopping for skinny purchasers with newer processors and higher energy effectivity would decrease these numbers extra, however Spiess’ scratch math suggests a financial savings of solely about 24 euros ($25 USD) per 12 months, in comparison with the a whole bunch of {dollars} extra they price to purchase.

It is clearly extra work to seek out the fitting stability of price and dimension within the used skinny shopper (or generally “mini PC”) market and extra work to get one operating tasks usually supposed for the distinctive Pi platform. However bolstering the marketplace for second-hand computer systems is a internet good, particularly if a machine good for tinkering or house automation leads to your community closet as an alternative of the shredder. (A tip of the hat to Hackaday for the video hyperlink).