My primary use case is ZFS but none of these devices seem to package SATA multiples, and getting a PCIx<n> eg 3 or 4 so you get full speed access across the drives is complicated by crap chipsets.
Great wee device. Just not good fit for my project. I love fanless: lavalier microphones pick up rediculous amounts of throb from fans!
(I'm on a radxa 4 drive USB to SATA bridge hat on a pi4, so all the pain of USB and a jmicron SATA bridge which isn't being upgraded.)
i.MX8 series, as used in MNT Reform and the Librem 5. Rockhip chips as used in the PinePhone. Mediatek chips from some Chromebooks. Those let the OEM choose whether they want to lock TrustZone or not.
For the record, these chips do not have AMT in the first place, and even then they come with coreboot, for which ME is not really a concern.
I thought you were talking about proprietary microcode, which all of these chips you mention do come with. Or even worse, since they are all SoCs.... You'd have to e.g. avoid using the Ethernet controller on them (which generally has flashable eeproms with code) which would also happen to be an effective prevention of any ME issues even if were running an ancient version of ME.
I.e. the only threat vector you mentioned does not apply and can't possibly apply. A mac shares more firmware with your average intel laptop than this.
The only boards or computers with non-obsolete ARM CPUs and that are cheaper than the boards or computers made with Intel Alder Lake N CPUs, like this N200 or like the cheaper N100 CPU, are made by various smaller Chinese companies (Raspberry Pi have always been using obsolete ARM CPUs).
There are good ARM CPUs, like in the NVIDIA Orin modules, or in some boards offered by MediaTek and Qualcomm, which are derived from their smartphone products, but all these are very expensive in comparison with the Intel products.
If you are not scared by much higher than Intel prices, you can look e.g. for products including these:
(at the NVIDIA site you must ignore any module or devkit that does not include the word "Orin" in the name, everything else is too old junk, even if it appears to be cheaper)
For cheaper than Intel, but with performance at the level of the previous Intel Atom CPUs (i.e. Tremont-based, like Jasper Lake and Elkhart Lake) there are many products using the Chinese Rockchip CPU RK3588, for which much more public information is provided than for any Intel or AMD CPU, so I would trust it much more for implementing a secure appliance like a firewall, but not all of those products are well designed and some are overpriced (i.e. anything more than $200 for a complete computer with RK3588 is grossly overpriced).
The "uncompromised security" line suggests that the product is targeted at this group. The Intel CPU shows that it's actually aimed at people "just running Linux on a desktop anyway".
For a personal computer, an ARM-based computer does not make sense, for now.
On the other hand, for a very cheap, secure and fanless (i.e. reliable and silent) network appliance, like a firewall/router/NAT/Web server/e-mail server etc., a small ARM-based computer, e.g. one with RK3588, may be the best choice. (but not all ARM CPUs are documented well enough to make them more trustworthy that the Intel/AMD CPUs)
If your insecure personal computer is shielded from the public Internet by a secure firewall, you need not worry that its remote management features, which are supposed to be disabled, can in fact be activated without your knowledge.
> The advantage of ARM in laptops are clear - the battery life/performance/heat tradeoff is better.
And that would depend on the processor more than anything else. E.g. raspberry pis consume more power on idle than some of these x86 boxes which are more powerful (but more expensive)
Why do you think 16GB is not enough for a home server? I am currently running a NAS with SMB, NFS, Nextcloud, LDAP, mail server, Roundcube, Uptime Kuma and a couple of websites and using around 1GB of RAM. Just curious what other people is doing.
Well, yes, if you go full enterprise with 6 VM's and 30 Docker containers I can understand how you'd aim for 64GB of RAM but then, why would you want to use a fanless mini PC for it?
Technically they are fanless but I wonder how well they would work outside of a rack with high ambient, they seem to be fanless themselves but still rely on having plenty of air pulled across the casing. Mounting them vertically might work. 850 euro though!
Yep. I think they would throttle under heavy sustained load. But I don’t think these are for sustained load or home servers. Probably designed for places like traffic cams where maybe large image models need ram and prefer no moving parts that can fail. Even places like factory floors.
It seems the CPU only supports up to 16G :-/ I wonder if there are any technical reasons for this or if it's Intel's market segmentation strategy intentionally crippling it.
This is for me, large city dweller with no basement or a place to tuck away a noisy server with fans. In fact, I already have something like this, with older specs, produced by no name Shenzhen company, tucked away under the couch and hosting a bunch of services.
“Under the couch” is a literal statement. This is a modern, not traditional couch, so its legs are raised maybe 10 inches? Gives some room for access and passive cooling.
I live in a tiny village with a shit ton of space for anything, but would prefer this over a power hungry server anyway… At least until i fill part of the barn roof with solar panels.
For me specifically: wireguard, strongswan (ikev2 vpn in iPhone), freshrss, paperless ngx, webdav server for iOS apps like genius scan and photosync, filebrowser for web access, archivebox, wallabag, airsonic, gitea.
Not the person you are replying to, but I host my local dev environments, HomeAssistant for various home automation tasks, Unifi controller, Paperless-ngx, Jellyfin media server, NAS and cloud backup of PCs, adguard, and occasionally some game servers for friends. There's a tremendous amount of self hosted software available for about any purpose you can think of though.
I use them for k8s nodes. Well... I use cheaper ones for nodes. At ~100$/node, you can't really go wrong.
I feel these machines in particular are probably for office work where everything needed is online. I don't do IT but I would imagine that these machines would make the reduction of windows licensing fees pretty straightforward if your business is all done online.
I wonder if it has 10gbe though, probably not.
I want all my new computers/peripherals to support 10gbe, but it’s surprisingly hard (and expensive) to find.
> I want all my new computers/peripherals to support 10gbe, but it’s surprisingly hard (and expensive) to find.
That's because it is top of the line and very few devices actually need that kind of bandwidth. For switch-to-switch links I can see the point (and for specialized datacenter applications) but for home use it is mostly overkill.
In small computers or laptops you can always choose those that have USB 4 a.k.a. Thunderbolt ports.
There are adapters from USB 4/Thunderbolt to 10 Gb/s Ethernet.
Moreover, when 2 computers are close enough, you can connect them with a Thunderbolt cable and you will have the equivalent of a fast Ethernet connection. The operating systems will show extra network interfaces that can be configured and used for communication between the two computers.
Now all new Intel and AMD low-power CPUs include a controller for two USB 4/Thunderbolt ports, so there are no good reasons for any new small computer or laptop to not have them.
If the USB 4/Thunderbolt ports are not occupied by a monitor or power supply, so both are free, you can daisy chain a large number of small computers in the equivalent of a 10 Gb/s Ethernet network, without expensive switches, adapters or NICs.
Why only one USB C port and why a DisplayPort and HDMI? If there were more USB C ports, you would have more flexibility and you can have video over USB C. I have a portable external display that gets power and video over one USB C port.
Or is video over USB C a Thunderbolt thing and not a USB C 3.0 thing?
On another note, this is why it was never a big deal for Intel to get out of the NUC market, another company would fill in the niche.
I’m not sure what this tells us. Base clock is 1Ghz, turbo 3.7Ghz, but somewhere (hopefully between the two, but technically it could be less than 1Ghz) there’s a clock speed that the chip can run that produces less heat than the passive cooling solution can dissipate.
Presumably it depends a lot on the outside temperature and humidity. It's the reason I'm very wary of buying anything fanless since I live in a tropical part of the world.
Amazon and other vendors have literally dozens, if not over a hundred, alternatives these days, starting close to $100. You can find N100s for $179 new and that is supposed to have fairly close performance to the N200 (20% difference?). It's a tough market for this to compete in.
I just searched for N100 on Amazon and I could find ones for 160$ with 8gb ram and 256gb ssd. What an incredible value. Compared to this I’ve spent well over 80$ on my raspberry pi 4gb (cases ssd cooling charger etc). Sure a pi4 is low power. But I find it less appealing for those wanting simple cheap home servers now that things like these consume less power and are much faster with much better I/O and cooling. Not to mention upgradable memory.
Also things like MinisForum and BeeLink with Zen4 “Phoenix” 7945HS models that can take 64GB DDR5, have strong igpus, dual M.2, dual USB4, 2.5GbE…I’m building up a maxed out one now to replace an old 6th-gen Intel NUC that runs my HomeAssistant and other things.
I just ordered a Bosgame Ryzen 3 Mini PC (U32) with 8GB DDR4 RAM and a 256GB M.2 drive for $160 USD. And it comes with Windows 11. I'm blown away by how much you can get for so little these days.
I had a very unfortunate experience with Star Labs. I had their StarLite IV laptop and it was wonderfully slim and light. I was delighted with it. The CPU is no powerhouse, but it did exactly what I needed. Then eight months later it started experiencing power issues (e.g. when I picked it up, there was a power blip and it froze). It took four months going back and forth with them before they finally refused to fix it under warranty and demanded I pay for it.
Full disclosure: they said I broke it. My side of things is that it's stayed on my desk or in a bag most of the time. It never got subjected to rough handling, and this has never happened with any other laptop I've owned. I think it was an issue with build quality if even gentle handling can break it.
The whole experience was very disappointing. I'd really hoped that supporting a smaller company like this would mean I'd get more personal support, but that wasn't the case with Star Labs. This isn't a reflection on the Byte mini PC, of course, but just be cautious about dealing with companies if their products break easily and they don't offer good customer support.
The annoying thing with a lot these mini-PCs is the external power brick which ends up being nearly as large again. I'd like to seem more with an integrated power supply
The downside for the company is that they'll have to field complaints from people who use underpowered power supplies. Although I suppose that could mostly be prevented by shipping an approved power supply with the computer.
Same with laptops. I feel like every review should always lead with a picture showing both the power supply and the device.
I recently got a couple of Asus Deskmini X300s. Great little machines. But the power supply is 1/3 of the size of the machine and has really long cables on both sides.
The new GaN chargers are nice and compact, but for some reason only available as third party accessories. I'd have thought laptop manufacturers would be jumping on the tech, but even Apple are still shipping bulky power supplies.
My laptop was advertised as being 2.4kg. But the charger weighs 900g, so it feels almost like a scam to claim that (it's a 240w charger and it's the size and weight of a literal brick). The real weight of the laptop + charger + plug is 3.5kg.
It's become a kind of hobby of mine, once a month or so, to search AliExpress to see if there's any way I can replace my 240w MSI charging brick with a GAN version yet. I keep finding GAN chargers that almost work - either not quite powerful enough, or don't have the right adapter.
Depending on the use case that is a big plus. E.G. My homeoffice desk has a hidden cable gutter in the back, to hide all the power and data cables, and I just leave all the power bricks there as well, so for me a small mini-pc on the desk with a power brick tucked away out of sight is much better than a bigger all-in-one.
They make good low powered virtualization machines (proxmox)/firewalls (opensense etc)/linux desktops. Network doesn't seem great on this though, most of the Aliexpress N200 boxes support 2.5G and fanless.
I believe the, slightly larger, asrock deskmeet x300 supports ECC with ryzen pro APUs.
It has 4x DDR4 slots, and can be cheaply equipped with 128G ecc memory nowadays.
I got a similar priced, but slightly larger form factor, an AsRock X300 mini-STX.
A silent Noctua fan, 64GB RAM with an AMD Ryzen 5700G (about 77% faster than the Intel N200 in this mini pc) it idles at 12 Watt but can go up to 133 Watt if required. I think the mini-STX form factor is more serviceable and doesn't take up that much more space. It's "fanless" on idle but can spin up the fan when it needs to. You can get a lot more bang for the buck with a custom build.
I had a NUC for a long time, I liked it because it fit in my bike’s under seat bag, or in the bigger pockets of my cargo pants. More portable than a laptop, I didn’t even need a backpack—assuming I was going somewhere with a keyboard and monitor (or I could ssh from my cellphone, with a fold out keyboard, but that is a pretty cramped experience).
Which is just to say it is a different niche than any desktop.
Note that 0 in dB scale indicates a 1:1 ratio with something, and not a zero in linear scale. Indeed, a zero in linear scale corresponds to -infinity in dB scale.
For sound, dB is shorthand for dB SPL, or dBs above 20 μPa, which is roughly the threshold of human hearing. So 0 dB means 1:1 with that threshold, or essentially “silent”.
I think most people would intuitively conclude as much without knowing the specifics, so it’s not unclear or wrong to label this device as 0 dB (unless it actually does produce an audible sound, or course).
84 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 166 ms ] threadGreat wee device. Just not good fit for my project. I love fanless: lavalier microphones pick up rediculous amounts of throb from fans!
(I'm on a radxa 4 drive USB to SATA bridge hat on a pi4, so all the pain of USB and a jmicron SATA bridge which isn't being upgraded.)
As if that existed.
Also, I ponder what is the threat vector presented by an "unpatchable mystery blob" that is not already present without one.
Let me explain what unique threat the blob poses:
https://securityaffairs.co/58656/hacking/intel-management-en...
I thought you were talking about proprietary microcode, which all of these chips you mention do come with. Or even worse, since they are all SoCs.... You'd have to e.g. avoid using the Ethernet controller on them (which generally has flashable eeproms with code) which would also happen to be an effective prevention of any ME issues even if were running an ancient version of ME.
I.e. the only threat vector you mentioned does not apply and can't possibly apply. A mac shares more firmware with your average intel laptop than this.
There are good ARM CPUs, like in the NVIDIA Orin modules, or in some boards offered by MediaTek and Qualcomm, which are derived from their smartphone products, but all these are very expensive in comparison with the Intel products.
If you are not scared by much higher than Intel prices, you can look e.g. for products including these:
https://www.mediatek.com/iot/products/genio1200-devkits
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-sy...
(at the NVIDIA site you must ignore any module or devkit that does not include the word "Orin" in the name, everything else is too old junk, even if it appears to be cheaper)
For cheaper than Intel, but with performance at the level of the previous Intel Atom CPUs (i.e. Tremont-based, like Jasper Lake and Elkhart Lake) there are many products using the Chinese Rockchip CPU RK3588, for which much more public information is provided than for any Intel or AMD CPU, so I would trust it much more for implementing a secure appliance like a firewall, but not all of those products are well designed and some are overpriced (i.e. anything more than $200 for a complete computer with RK3588 is grossly overpriced).
The advantage of ARM in laptops are clear - the battery life/performance/heat tradeoff is better. It’s also clear for server farms.
But if I’m just running Linux on a desktop anyway, why would I care about ARM vs x86 unless I’m targeting my builds for other ARM computers.
The "uncompromised security" line suggests that the product is targeted at this group. The Intel CPU shows that it's actually aimed at people "just running Linux on a desktop anyway".
On the other hand, for a very cheap, secure and fanless (i.e. reliable and silent) network appliance, like a firewall/router/NAT/Web server/e-mail server etc., a small ARM-based computer, e.g. one with RK3588, may be the best choice. (but not all ARM CPUs are documented well enough to make them more trustworthy that the Intel/AMD CPUs)
If your insecure personal computer is shielded from the public Internet by a secure firewall, you need not worry that its remote management features, which are supposed to be disabled, can in fact be activated without your knowledge.
And that would depend on the processor more than anything else. E.g. raspberry pis consume more power on idle than some of these x86 boxes which are more powerful (but more expensive)
https://www.ahead-it.eu/en/shop/servers/embedded-iot/intel-a...
Those?
Technically they are fanless but I wonder how well they would work outside of a rack with high ambient, they seem to be fanless themselves but still rely on having plenty of air pulled across the casing. Mounting them vertically might work. 850 euro though!
I feel these machines in particular are probably for office work where everything needed is online. I don't do IT but I would imagine that these machines would make the reduction of windows licensing fees pretty straightforward if your business is all done online.
https://www.servethehome.com/the-gowin-r86s-revolution-low-p...
That review is old, meanwhile R86S has been updated to use the newer Intel CPUs, N100 (4-core) or i3-N305 (8-core).
However it has some flaws, e.g. it is not fanless.
That's because it is top of the line and very few devices actually need that kind of bandwidth. For switch-to-switch links I can see the point (and for specialized datacenter applications) but for home use it is mostly overkill.
That's not what I want from a vendor. I want clarity.
There are adapters from USB 4/Thunderbolt to 10 Gb/s Ethernet.
Moreover, when 2 computers are close enough, you can connect them with a Thunderbolt cable and you will have the equivalent of a fast Ethernet connection. The operating systems will show extra network interfaces that can be configured and used for communication between the two computers.
Now all new Intel and AMD low-power CPUs include a controller for two USB 4/Thunderbolt ports, so there are no good reasons for any new small computer or laptop to not have them.
If the USB 4/Thunderbolt ports are not occupied by a monitor or power supply, so both are free, you can daisy chain a large number of small computers in the equivalent of a 10 Gb/s Ethernet network, without expensive switches, adapters or NICs.
https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/07/14/star-labs-byte-mk-ii...
Or is video over USB C a Thunderbolt thing and not a USB C 3.0 thing?
On another note, this is why it was never a big deal for Intel to get out of the NUC market, another company would fill in the niche.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Alternate_Mode_partner_s...
Full disclosure: they said I broke it. My side of things is that it's stayed on my desk or in a bag most of the time. It never got subjected to rough handling, and this has never happened with any other laptop I've owned. I think it was an issue with build quality if even gentle handling can break it.
The whole experience was very disappointing. I'd really hoped that supporting a smaller company like this would mean I'd get more personal support, but that wasn't the case with Star Labs. This isn't a reflection on the Byte mini PC, of course, but just be cautious about dealing with companies if their products break easily and they don't offer good customer support.
Seems to me both are for similar use cases. I'm using mine as firewall appliances for example.
The annoying thing with a lot these mini-PCs is the external power brick which ends up being nearly as large again. I'd like to seem more with an integrated power supply
The downside for the company is that they'll have to field complaints from people who use underpowered power supplies. Although I suppose that could mostly be prevented by shipping an approved power supply with the computer.
I recently got a couple of Asus Deskmini X300s. Great little machines. But the power supply is 1/3 of the size of the machine and has really long cables on both sides.
It's become a kind of hobby of mine, once a month or so, to search AliExpress to see if there's any way I can replace my 240w MSI charging brick with a GAN version yet. I keep finding GAN chargers that almost work - either not quite powerful enough, or don't have the right adapter.
Which is just to say it is a different niche than any desktop.
Note that 0 in dB scale indicates a 1:1 ratio with something, and not a zero in linear scale. Indeed, a zero in linear scale corresponds to -infinity in dB scale.
I think most people would intuitively conclude as much without knowing the specifics, so it’s not unclear or wrong to label this device as 0 dB (unless it actually does produce an audible sound, or course).