Host Hardware Options for a Mini PC-based file server?

[ozboomer]

The question has been dealt with in a few posts/threads, I guess ( for example, viewtopic.php?t=12847 )... but I'm mainly writing this to see about folks' thoughts in terms of the hardware to use for the Puppy-based file/backup server.

See, I'd like to try and set-up the server on a Mini PC, owing to the smaller physical size of the machines (I'm looking to keep the unit on a 'bookshelf' with the router, so I'm thinking about 15 cm / 6-inches), that I could leave it powered-on (a 'wall wart' would be convenient), maybe set it up with Wake-On-LAN... and I could set-up a mini 'data centre' off it - maybe with a couple of JBOD units... or individual, larger HDDs connected via USB on the Mini PC, so they can be swapped out for off-site storage, etc.

I'd mainly access the data via the LAN, so backups to/from the attached disks would be Ok... and I could still use the Mini PC's WiFi for smaller data backups, like for Smartphones and Chromebooks.. and using a file manager and media player is all I really need to browse photos, play videos and music... and use the server for file sharing.

I was also thinking I could grab a 'cheapy' used unit from eBay or similar to try out the idea anyway... but I was thinking about Beelink, GEKCOM, Asus.. but maybe there are other brands that are feasible...

Anyway, I'd just be keen to hear any thoughts about how to approach all of this.

Thanks a heap.

[wizard]

@ozboomer

A mini will make a good file server, after all they're mostly just short fat laptops with no keyboard or screen.

My media server runs off an old Compaq CQ61 laptop, single core Passmark v9=580, 2gb ram, 2tb USB external drive. The regular file server is currently a converted Chromebook, Thinkppad 11e, 4 core Passmark v9=1651, 4gb ram, 250gb USB external drive.

The regular file server didn't need near that much power, but it's what I had when it's predecessor developed a cpu fan noise. It's also setup to both boot and store files on the USB external drive. That way the laptop is just a host that can be easily swapped out if necessary.

Did add a TP-Link UE300 gigabyte USB to Ethernet adapter to the Thinkad to get faster transfer speeds. Note that the China USB to Ethernet adapters are a no go.

Here in the US, Ebay has a lot of HP mini's listed for cheap prices and those could be a good choice too.

wizard

[dancytron]

Do you think the TP-Link UE300 gigabyte USB to Ethernet adapter would work on a Chromebook on a USB 3.0 hub with a mouse, keyboard and big hard drive?

[CatMan]

Sounds like a pre used thin client will do what you want, cost about £25 here in the UK, (4GB ram / 16 GB eMMC disk), just add external USB SSD for file storage.....might also want a USB wifi too.

[wizard]

@dancytron

Do you think the TP-Link UE300 gigabyte USB to Ethernet adapter would work on a Chromebook on a USB 3.0 hub with a mouse, keyboard and big hard drive?

Shouldn't be an issue.

wizard

[ozboomer]

I've gone through the 'setup' process on a spare PC... and Puppy is certainly going to work well enough for what I want to do, I think.. and I can use a VNC something to get to the unit Ok, once it's running and is on the local network... and Windoze is being its normal silly self, in that I have to finagle a way to get the shares seen on Win 8/10/11... but it's doable.. and I can get to the files good-ho from the Chromebook, the smartphones and tablets and so on...

..but as this 'Mini PC' thing is a totally new realm for me, I'm not really sure about what I even need to look at...

As always with these sorts of things, I'm running an 'evaluation matrix ' on the hardware... but I don't really know about the options yet.. but I intend to have a look at the web sites for the 'main brands' (GMKtec, Beelink, Asus, Minisforum, Geekom - the DELLs, Lenovo, HP, etc are going to be too big or $$$ to consider, I think) to try and suss things out... Conceptually, though, this is what I've come up with so far:

MiniPC-draft-eval-table.jpg (79.59 KiB) Viewed 1324 times

Some notes:

• I have a particular location in mind for the unit, so the physical size is important.

• I'm not really sure about the CPU.. and the old Intel/AMD argument is as firey as ever... but it's all about being able to serve files out of the system (playing audio and a video, say) while a backup or two are trickling along in the background.. So, I'd expect the CPU, maybe the RAM and certainly the network and disk speeds are going to be important. I'm not running games, I'm not doing huge amounts of data in/out of the internet.. but I might do some web browsing.. but that's about all I intend to do with this unit, other than the file serving.

• Low power and low noise are certainly up there, as I'm leaving things turned on most of the time... and I admit I am a little paranoid about fire, so the cooling method is going to be important.

• A critical factor is the disk connectivity.. and I have USB3/Type A connector disks that I want to keep using... but I guess I'd be looking at USB3/Type C connector disks for any additions... so I really need to have a number of USB ports.. so, another critical factor.

• Being in Oz, the $$$ amounts are going to be 'off' for non-Oz folks.. and the availability of various models will be different... but this is why I was considering looking at used units, at least for an initial attempt in developing this file server.

Again, I'd appreciate any pointers...

"It's all rather confusing, really"
--Spike Milligan, 'The Goon Show'

[ozboomer]

An interesting bit of exploration today... and the pricing is pretty rank, really... given what I was expecting compared to, say, a refurbished laptop.. or even a (refurbished) 'standard profile' desktop/tower.

The used items are not much different to new prices; many brands are simply too expensive, even with 'discounts' - Geekom (~A$600+), Asus (~A$400+) and GMKtec (~A$400+ but not enough 'spec')... so the 'possible' options are probably narrowing in to a few Beelink models and a couple of Minisforum models.

In any case, I'm probably needing to downgrade the internal disk size, which is no big deal, given I'm looking at a frugal installation of a Puppy variant... provided there's no driver issues, which is a complete unknown... Erk..

Depending how the exploration continues, it might be less of a risk to go with a refurbished/used Dell/HP micro -type machine... Hmm...

The study continues...

[Clarity]

Depends on how much you value a Manufacturer's warranty.

And, for today's and past Linux you are fine, but 2025 will usher in AI in LInux to take advantage of the feature in recent CPUs sold by manufacturers. Linux will continue to keep up with the manufacturers as it takes advantage of the performance benefits moving forward over the years.

This would be especially important if you are reasonably young and will live for at least the coming decade. Old farts like me may not.

Hope this info helps you zero in.

[ozboomer]

Brother.. This has been a mess to deal with... and manufacturers and sellers are hopeless with specifications. You'd think the manufacturers would include everything in their spec docs.. but noooo... and they're never consistent so you can A-B them... but I guess it's been that way since the year dot for PCs, huh? So it seems that no matter what, you're still somewhat buying 'a pig in a poke'... grrr...

So, to some thoughts...

• Some brands are just out of scope, being too much $$$ or there are just not a wide enough range of options - GMKtec, ASUS, Geekom.

• The used items often don't match my specs well enough, like not enough USB 3.x, CPUs that are more than I want/need, the $$$ to get the equivalent of the Mini PCs in a used unit are often such that I may as well get a new Mini PC, amongst other things (...and I checked maybe 6-8 on-line sellers across eastern Oz that I've used for many years). For the items I looked at, the Lenovo models were the closest/better featured units, while DELL and HP mostly didn't have enough USBs of the 'better' types, etc. BTW, I didn't want to deal with USB hubs and such, as there are too many cables in the proposed location as it is...

• Certain models are out of stock/not available in Oz.

• Some have old/suspect/unknown CPUs... or various reviews (that's a real can of worms) badmouth many items consistently (echo chamber reviews?)

...amongst other issues.

The 'final' evaluation matrix was pretty hopeless, as a lot of option combinations forced their exclusion... but here we go:

MiniPC-Final-Evaluation.png (69.01 KiB) Viewed 1200 times

Also:

• My router only has 1G LAN ports so having 2.5G LAN ports on the Mini PC are a waste (for now)... but we'll see how the prices pan out at purchase time; I'm already finding some 'higher spec' units are selling cheaper than the 'lower spec' units, at different sellers and even within the same seller.

• Some units with smaller RAM or SSD units are not very much cheaper, so may as well go for the slightly better spec anyway.

• This exercise is still basically an 'experiment' and maybe I can afford to 'burn' A$200-A$300... but that's an upper limit for now. Units other than the Beelink models are a good 30%+ more expensive... or don't rank well in the 'matrix'...

So, I'll see about the 'Black Friday' prices and sellers.. and see how it all goes for some variant of the Beelink S12 (Pro), I think...

[ozboomer]

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley."
--Robert Burns, To a Mouse, 1785.

The Beelink unit(s) ended-up being unavailable (in Oz), certainly at a good price point... and not with the configuration I wanted... so I ended-up going with a GMKtec G3 Uncbox for something over AUD200. N100 CPU @ 3.4GHz, 16G RAM, 1T SSD, 2.5G ethernet, Wifi6, Windoze 11 Pro, blah blah blah...

The evaluation thus becomes (with the $$$ and ethernet speed being the 'advantages'):

MiniPC-Final-Result.jpg (127.93 KiB) Viewed 897 times

In short, it's been working pretty well... and F96-CE has been working Ok with it, although there is something off with the (linux) video drivers (mpv crashes)... but 'celluloid' lets me watch videos... which is strange, as I think it uses mpv anyway?

WiFi under Puppy is a no-go; the interface is described as "Realtek 8852BE Wireless LAN WiFi 6 PCI-E NIC"... and there are apparently some known issues with the "8852BE" linux drivers ( see viewtopic.php?t=9077 )... but I have been able to get LinuxMint LiveUSB working with it... sort of. There are a couple of forks of the driver code, viz:

• https://github.com/HRex39/rtl8852be

• https://github.com/lwfinger/rtw8852be

I don't have the smarts nor the environment for doing builds of these drivers... but I don't majorly need the wireless at present, so it's not a big deal...

Bluetooth is working the best for sound... although, I still need to research how to make the loading of Blueooth persistent across boots.

One totally minor thing that bugs me, though, is that the USB ports are mounted upside-down, so all the labels on my USB flash drives are not readable(!) ...and that most all of these MiniPCs don't have very many USB ports... but this unit does have 4x Type-A USB 3.2 ports (Gen 1, 5Gbps) , which suits me Ok.

I just wanted to post an update...

[Jasper]

@ozboomer

Very informative and well written

Have you considered using a different OS and kernel?

Another member here is discussing a similar device in the VoidPup64 section:

viewtopic.php?t=5270&start=60

It does have an updated build of Mesa available ...... I did share some screenshots.

Also download (forgotten the correct name!) Mesa-VAAPI

@ozsouth recommends this a good resource for firmware:

https://github.com/endlessm/linux-firmware

.......... upside down? No problem

[Clarity]

Hello @ozboomer

Your evaluation features for your mini seems great. As a mini, your selection is rather robust; as even as a mini, it probably exceeds many/most of what members come into the forum with, today. Should provide you years of happy use.

Question

• What are you using for a monitor (VGA/HDMI/DP/USB3)?

[ozboomer]

Question

• What are you using for a monitor (VGA/HDMI/DP/USB3)?

I have a weirdo arrangement... but it all works well.

I'm using an old Samsung Syncmaster 2443BW (24-inch) @ 1920x1080 via a HDMI->VGA adapter that's connected into an HDMI KVM unit. The video into the HDMI KVM unit is coming from the new G3 (Win 11 Pro and currently F96-CE)... and a year-old PC (Win 11 Home and F96-CE)... and I'm slowly getting the VNC server/clients working between all of these and a Win 8.1 PC.

How I worked-out the connections (the names have been changed to protect the (engineer-not-an-artist) author ):-

20241206_214025a.jpg (81.18 KiB) Viewed 848 times

[Jasper]

Love it

In your personal opinion, would you say it is 'value for money' ?

Personally would have gone down the NFS route for file server.

Please, share your experiences about how it works out.

[Clarity]

I have been a KVM user for decades. BUT, I have never considered using my HDMI KVM (HDMI bandwidth) to drive a VGA bandwidth monitor.

I do have old VGA KVMs in my trash pile looking for recipients as I no longer use VGA monitors at all. AS such, I also do not have a need for speakers, ATM, because the HDMI TVs serve my purpose better than the old standalone speakers. Thus no more VGA at all in PC uses.

Thus my HDMI carries all of the multimedia signaling I need ... excepting a webcam that I connect to my KVM's USB used to bring microphone into the system's use.

Thus, going forward, I dont feel I would be helpful to you as my arrangement is pure HDMI+USB to my KVM's 4 PCs used to test distros from time to time.

My arrangement: 1 TV, 1 wireless keyboard-mouse, 1 KVM, 4 PCs. (no speakers, no extra wires). Each PC has an HDMI combo cable, a power cable and a LAN cable. Simple identical arrangement for everything with excellent quality signalings.

I use PC's OS/browsers for casting from time-to-time to various home units while working on any given PC.

[ozboomer]

Please, share your experiences about how it works out.

Just a quick note..

I've spent a good bit of time getting Windoze to a 'backup-able' state.. so I have a couple of full/image backups of the internal SSD disk Ok... but I use a lot of stuff'n'nonsense on my Win PCs... and I just can't be bothered getting the Win installation 'up to (my) speed' on the G3; the 'one year old PC' is what I've been trying to transition to for over a year... but it's still nowhere near right... I have probably 200+ applications that I use fairly regularly and they all have to be individually installed, configured, license-checked, blah blah blah... but most of us will be familiar with this sort of guff... It's actually more work to set-up one Windoze PC these days than it was to manage 30-something VAXes in a wide-area VAXcluster back in the '90s (all running VAX-VMS) in a lot of ways(!) ...

..but Puppy works pretty well within a day.. and I've been trying to learn to NOT customize it so hard and so much as I usually do... but at least I have a couple of (TiddlyWiki) documents that I just 'tick the boxes' on when installing a new frugal installation... but it still takes a good few hours to get the booting right... to get all the Perl modules I use installed ( and why I wanted to see if there was some way to make that a .sfs file - viewtopic.php?t=6565 )... a lot of configuring and setting-up backups.. on multi-spindles.. and my /root/my-applications/bin directory (as well as some development directories under there) total to maybe 1500+ tools... but I have been using Puppy for 20+ years

Anyway, I've had the G3 running all day... and I've had to find out more again, on Puppy and sensors (each core is normally ~50C, although the flash USB I use to boot the unit is running at ~35C-40C)... but I'll see about doing something with setting-up grub 'around' the crazy Windoze partitioning... e-ven-tu-al-ly.

[wizard]

@ozboomer

Anyway, I've had the G3 running all day... and I've had to find out more again, on Puppy and sensors (each core is normally ~50C

Try using the CPU frequency scaling tool to reduce that.

I've spent a good bit of time getting Windoze to a 'backup-able' state

You're correct, it takes far longer to install and configure applications than it does to install an OS, especially if using MS Windows.

Don't knows what you use for backup/imaging, but years ago started building "master" installs and then using AOMEI Backup to make an image of them. AOMEI can then restore to bare metal, even if the hardware is totalally different. You may have to re-enter licensing or other codes, but the tedious install/configuration work is done.

The same can be done on Linux using Rescuezilla. As you know Puppy is probably the easiest distro to clone since you only have to copy the save file/folder to the new install.

Switching to "portable" versions of applications, whenever possible, in either MS Windows or Linux is also a huge time saver since they only require copying directories/folders into a new install.

Hiren BootCD (W10 version with Aomei Backup) or Rescuezilla booted from USB or from a Ventoy USB can create a backup image of a partition if you want to test these methods.

For MS Windows, you might also consider using ERUNT to backup just the Windows registry. It can save you from a bad app install or other registry corruption. Find it on bleepingcomputer.com.

wizard

[ozboomer]

@wizard,

Most PCs are mult-boot (multi-Windoze and multi-Puppy variants) and I don't use all PCs every day, so I am re-working my Windoze-side backups to deal with that usage a bit better... but for the everyday PC, I am using a commercial Windoze application which has been working well for me for 10-15 years or more... and that takes care of full/image and incremental/differential backups. As Puppy savefiles are 'inside' that strategy, they're Ok... but I'm currently re-working something more 'granular' for 'within day' - backups when I'm using Puppy.

As previously mentioned, once I get the 'base' savefile for a Puppy variant sorted, I can mostly pop a copy of it around each of the PCs and only need to do minimal customizing (host name, backup paths, rox pinboards, etc).

I've been fiddling a bit with 'portable' apps in Puppy... but there's another post around that coming soon, as I don't know how to move /opt off to another partition or otherwise deal with it, so those applications aren't kept in the savefile, which contributes to making the savefile a silly size (often 2G-4G at present.. but most of that is still /usr).

The more I use Puppy, the more questions I have... and the more I learn about how to set-up these hybrid environments' 'better'...

[libertas]

Please, share your experiences about how it works out.

I've spent a good bit of time getting Windoze to a 'backup-able' state.. so I have a couple of full/image backups of the internal SSD disk Ok... but I use a lot of stuff'n'nonsense on my Win PCs... and I just can't be bothered getting the Win installation 'up to (my) speed' on the G3; the 'one year old PC' is what I've been trying to transition to for over a year... but it's still nowhere near right... I have probably 200+ applications that I use fairly regularly and they all have to be individually installed, configured, license-checked, blah blah blah... but most of us will be familiar with this sort of guff... It's actually more work to set-up one Windoze PC these days than it was to manage 30-something VAXes in a wide-area VAXcluster back in the '90s (all running VAX-VMS) in a lot of ways(!) ...

For Windows, you can use Chocolatey, Winget, or Scoop, or maybe all, to manage the installation and upgrade process of applications.

Regarding VAX-VMS, do you still use? It was the first system I used that was connected to the Internet, ca. 1993/4/5.
I know there's a personal evaluation copy (or something like that) that we can use, but never tried it.

[ozboomer]

Quick OT sojourn...

Regarding VAX-VMS, do you still use? It was the first system I used that was connected to the Internet, ca. 1993/4/5.
I know there's a personal evaluation copy (or something like that) that we can use, but never tried it.

Haven't used VMS in maybe 10 years... but have a lot of history with it. Managed a few machines (VAX 11/750s, VAX 8650, 8250, 6220, 6230) in a CI VAXcluster, as well as maybe a dozen or more MicroVAXes, VAXstations, DECstations, etc in a wide-area VAXcluster from ~1986 through ~1995.

One of the earliest 'applications' I had for getting into Puppy was so I could run SIMH on a spare Pentium-based PC, which would let me install VMS on a virtual MicroVAX II. I then ran a simulation of a SCATS ( also see SCATS info video ) system on it, the idea being that if the 'live' systems (running physical VAXes and Alphas as 'central managers' and PDP-11s as 'regions') ever failed, we could keep Victoria's (au) traffic signal system operating.

An old site that refers to most of what was needed 'back in the day': https://makezine.com/article/technology ... linux-box/

I think HP's version of the 'Hobbyist Program' closed down some years ago... but p'raps I"m wrong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXsEfZE4cVk

If you follow the link in the video and beyond, there's some mention of VMS 9.2 for x86 being released and accessible.. although they use VirtualBox for the hosting now.

Like I need to open yet another rabbit hole to explore - I'll be searching for DECUS and the NOPSIG again...

Edit 21/12/24: Don't know what the 'YOUTUBE_ADMIN' thing was about ...but I've tried relinking to the 'VMS on a PC' video - "A quick video of installing OpenVMS X86 9.2-1 in Virtualbox". We'll see if it disappears again.

[ozboomer]

Please, share your experiences about how it works out.

I haven't done too much with the 'file server' functions per se just yet... other than seeing yes, I can get to the drives on the Mini PC remotely from Windoze/Puppy/Android/other Linuxes all Ok when it's booted under Windoze or F96-CE...

...but a short story of today's efforts..

My 'main' Windoze PC (Win 8.1 32-bit) is coming up to 10 years old now... and is a bit 'temperamental' about finding disks sometimes (I think is the problem, as the BSOD appears sometimes.. but powering-down and unplugging from the wall generally fixes it - I have paging files on a couple of spindles). I'm currently (still) installing all my guff on a new PC... but it's very possible the current PC could just stop any time. I have regular and reliable backups running on it.. so I can restore to 'yesterday' fairly easily.

Short version: I created a virtual disk (.vhd file) of the running Win 8.1 PC's Windoze installation. I then installed VirtualBox on F96-CE (via Quickpet, etc) on the Mini PC, and set-up a VM using the .vhd... and it works pretty well. Still working out the display resolution.. but the applications all work and so on, networking is Ok, still need to check the audio... I've also created a 'rescue media' VM so I can (theoretically) re-establish the virtual disk (it's 'only' 100G in size) from the backups if I need to.

So, if the old PC gives up the ghost, I should be able to get back to something pretty reasonable and timely, I think.

'mazin' what we can do these days, innit?