Uncertain were to put this really. It’s not high-performance, but it can be used as a pretty decent server, cluster, or home lab. Anyway. I might’ve posted this before but I couldn’t find it so here’s again my list of thin clients and tiny computers. To be on this list it should be able to run a modern Linux headless, cpu with multiple threads, expandable memory and flash drive, and be less than $200. About a Nuc or a Minisforum UM790, but for those of us who are too cheap or poor. As always there are exceptions. In some cases were a model comes with different cpus I’ve added multiple lines for them.
Can’t talk about thin clients without mentioning Repurposing Thin Clients. A lot of the information are from there, I just present it as lists, because I like lists.
fawk, i love it
of note:
those power draws are idle
I know for a fact OptiPlex 3050’s, 3060’s, and 3070’s pull 50 watts under heavy load and 70 watts when used with 90 watt power adapters and 65 watt CPU’s.
Still amazing bang for the buck, I regularly build clusters of them for simulating AD environments
Yeah, by some reason I only wrote down idle and turned off power draw. My HP T730 draws up to another 35W if the graphic card is running. Ii could add TDP as a “semi power under heavy load, but not really, just semi, so you know in what range it will be working in”.
It’s Friday evening so I’ve added Cpu marks, socket, memory type, “typical TDP”, idle, off power draw, and slowly adding usb ports. CBA to add HDMI/display ports/VGA.
that’s the real qualifier
the micro pc’s are interesting as you can switcheroo
we regularly receive 8th gen as scrap so being able to swap from i5-8500t to an i5-9500 is hilarious when all it takes is a 90 watt power adapter which is $18 delivered on eBay.
You suddenly have a half ass capable machine for sub $100 total
The RAM type is important as we have successfully deprecated DDR3 at all current clients… wait…
Looking at the list you’ll see some clients that are objectively better than the others, like the Dell Wyze 5070, HP T640, HP T740, Dell Optiplex, and the tiny computers like Lenovo Thinkcentre and HP EliteDesk. They have better cpus and can often take more memoy. And some are less good. Like the Dell Wyse 3040 that has a poor cpu and can’t expand neither ram nor disk. But I’m a firm believer of using the right tool for the right work. The HP T740 can do 64GB of ram, but if you just need a machine to run Klipper to control your 3D printer you don’t need 64GB och ram, in that case the 3040 is a great choice, especially if you find it cheaper than a Raspberry.
If you were my students I’d end this with “You don’t need a 30 foot ladder to reach a 10 foot height.” But that’s kind of annoying so I won’t do that here.
Hey sorry to necro this but I came across your list while looking around for low power satellite machines for my homelab. Are you taking any crowd contributions? I’d be happy to contribute some numbers for the (admittedly very few) machines I have to keep a useful, time saving resource going
