MiniPCs - are the cheap AliExpress ones any good?
Discussion
I'm thinking of getting an n100 mini PC to run Home Assistant and a few other utilities, probably in Proxmox. Low power consumption, relatively low noise, and reliability/longevity are the key requirements.
The likes of AliExpress seems to have hundreds of them, some brands also also show up on Amazon so I'm guessing are a bit better known. Well known brand names like ASUS or MSI also make them but are noticeably more expensive.
Are the slightly more common name ones (eg Beelink and GMKtec) any more reliable than the unknown brands, or is it worth sticking with the big names, given that an MSI Cubi is about double the price of an AliExpress nobrand?
The likes of AliExpress seems to have hundreds of them, some brands also also show up on Amazon so I'm guessing are a bit better known. Well known brand names like ASUS or MSI also make them but are noticeably more expensive.
Are the slightly more common name ones (eg Beelink and GMKtec) any more reliable than the unknown brands, or is it worth sticking with the big names, given that an MSI Cubi is about double the price of an AliExpress nobrand?
I am no expert but you get what you pay for is the hard lesson I learnt.
I bought an external SSD 4TB off AliE at half the price I'd get one for from a reputable UK store.... It showed as 4TB when plugged in but actual capacity was 48GB! A well known con that I fell for.
Fundamentally anything from China that looks too good to be true IS.
I bought an external SSD 4TB off AliE at half the price I'd get one for from a reputable UK store.... It showed as 4TB when plugged in but actual capacity was 48GB! A well known con that I fell for.
Fundamentally anything from China that looks too good to be true IS.
I bought a couple of cheap Chinese mini PCs (NiPoGi), albeit from Amazon, for around £130 each, over a year agp and ithey've been great. A lot depends on what you want if for but, if it's just web browsing, email and office stuff, then it's more than adequate. Also very capable as a media PC.
If the price difference isn't much, then I'd buy from Amazon, but if there's a decent saving I wouldn't hesitate buying from AliExpress. I buy quite a lot of stuff from them and, on the one or two ocassions I've had a problem, their returns have been fairly quick and easy. Just make sure that whatever you choose has a free returns option.
If the price difference isn't much, then I'd buy from Amazon, but if there's a decent saving I wouldn't hesitate buying from AliExpress. I buy quite a lot of stuff from them and, on the one or two ocassions I've had a problem, their returns have been fairly quick and easy. Just make sure that whatever you choose has a free returns option.
The Beelink S12 Pro is about €40 cheaper on AliExpress than Amazon, which is a fairly significant difference. there's also several cheaper no name ones on AliExpress though which I accept could turn out to be crap. I'd not heard of Beelink until I started looking at miniPC, but they do seem to get good reviews.
ETA:
Interestingly the S12 Pro seems to be slightly cheaper direct from Beelink than it is on AliExpress!
Captain_Morgan said:
Understand the spec you want and it should be fine.
Not much required to be honest. 16GB RAM probably makes sense if I want to run VM's, but reliability is the main thing rather than wanting performance.ETA:
Interestingly the S12 Pro seems to be slightly cheaper direct from Beelink than it is on AliExpress!
Edited by RizzoTheRat on Tuesday 13th May 11:56
I'm looking at one myself to replace my tower, but so many choices and specs out there, along with mixed reviews where I suspect a lot of the good ones are from people who have been sent one for free... It's hard to sort the wheat from the chaff !
ETA Prime on youtube does fairly in-depth reviews for minis and SFFs, with real-time performance rankings, power draw, temps etc, but you need to do your own research on the forums and reddits too as he never comes back to do a long-term reliability review. One brand in particular has a bad reputation for the fan packing up in short order, and it's a special custom fan size that you can't get anywhere except from the manufacturer in Shenzhen! And they don't answer emails.. The 'fix' is basically limited to getting a standard size PC fan then sitting the mini PC on top of it to keep it cool, as the fan won't physically fit inside the case
.
Another recurring theme I've seen are complaints about the lack of firmware updates, and/or removing the firmware files from their site to be replaced with versions which are not compatible with your device, so if you need to do a reinstall or something then you could be looking at an expensive paperweight.
I'd like a fanless one myself but MeLE Quieter reportedly runs very hot if you give it anything more taxing to do than play a 1080p youtube video and have a couple of others tabs open. The Quieter 4C would work for me, but the heat sink needs be at least twice or 3x the size imo to prevent thermal throttling.
ETA Prime on youtube does fairly in-depth reviews for minis and SFFs, with real-time performance rankings, power draw, temps etc, but you need to do your own research on the forums and reddits too as he never comes back to do a long-term reliability review. One brand in particular has a bad reputation for the fan packing up in short order, and it's a special custom fan size that you can't get anywhere except from the manufacturer in Shenzhen! And they don't answer emails.. The 'fix' is basically limited to getting a standard size PC fan then sitting the mini PC on top of it to keep it cool, as the fan won't physically fit inside the case
.Another recurring theme I've seen are complaints about the lack of firmware updates, and/or removing the firmware files from their site to be replaced with versions which are not compatible with your device, so if you need to do a reinstall or something then you could be looking at an expensive paperweight.
I'd like a fanless one myself but MeLE Quieter reportedly runs very hot if you give it anything more taxing to do than play a 1080p youtube video and have a couple of others tabs open. The Quieter 4C would work for me, but the heat sink needs be at least twice or 3x the size imo to prevent thermal throttling.
I have had a beelink mini s (I think) for a couple of years. Just used to run windows when I need to, not a lot of use but it seems to just work.
For home assistant they will cope fine. If working to a budget consider second hand. Hp t630 or one of the g series mini pcs. Or a dell equivilant.
For home assistant they will cope fine. If working to a budget consider second hand. Hp t630 or one of the g series mini pcs. Or a dell equivilant.
Had several from amazon, but one would always try to set itself up as if it was preregistered to a large american plant company as soon as it connected to the internet. I think the hardware id was reused and win 11 pro was picking it up as a machine belonging to their organisation. Tried reinstalling from usb and it did the same so I returned it.
I am sure I could have gotten to the bottom of it eventually but i wasnt wasting any more time on it.
Probably something shady going on with hardware IDs and windows activation.
I am sure I could have gotten to the bottom of it eventually but i wasnt wasting any more time on it.
Probably something shady going on with hardware IDs and windows activation.
Biggest shortcuts I've seen on these were usually firmware/bios related where there had been minimal adaptation done + little ongoing support. Usually shown by the number of weird options left in.
Hardware generally OK. I preferred passive cooled units as no little laptop fans to pack up.
Mostly they're cheap things so expectations based around that. The expensive/high performance stuff is asking a lot of the form factor whatever brand/price you go for.
Hardware generally OK. I preferred passive cooled units as no little laptop fans to pack up.
Mostly they're cheap things so expectations based around that. The expensive/high performance stuff is asking a lot of the form factor whatever brand/price you go for.
Bought this one a few months ago, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F47WHH8R
12th gen celeron with ddr5 ram, nvme and sata ports, 4x 2.5g nics.
Running proxmox with openwrt and a few Ubuntu vms.
Replaced a bunch of raspberry pis and other arm sbcs , much faster than all of them put together
12th gen celeron with ddr5 ram, nvme and sata ports, 4x 2.5g nics.
Running proxmox with openwrt and a few Ubuntu vms.
Replaced a bunch of raspberry pis and other arm sbcs , much faster than all of them put together
Tisy said:
Another thing is many of the Chinese branded ones come with their own spyware if it has an OS already installed. There are videos on youtube showing this so be aware.
If it's android maybe but mine came with windows 11 pro so I'm sure defender and malwarebytes would have found it by now,no ?Bluevanman said:
Tisy said:
Another thing is many of the Chinese branded ones come with their own spyware if it has an OS already installed. There are videos on youtube showing this so be aware.
If it's android maybe but mine came with windows 11 pro so I'm sure defender and malwarebytes would have found it by now,no ?Tisy said:
Another recurring theme I've seen are complaints about the lack of firmware updates, and/or removing the firmware files from their site to be replaced with versions which are not compatible with your device, so if you need to do a reinstall or something then you could be looking at an expensive paperweight.
Quoting myself here, but as it just came back to my memory, it is the Nimix branded minis which get tons of complaints. There always seem to be software issues with them, you report them on the official Nimix forum, Nimix completely ignore you and then drop support for it and tell you to buy their newly released one instead ! For Home Labs, ones which also seem to get highly rated by the reviewers on YT and worth looking at are the Minisforum MS-01 and Beelink EQ14.
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