Looking for mini-pc / nuc, any recommendations?

[mikegeek]

I'm seeking out either a nuc or mini-pc (gigabyte brix poissbly?) to run ~ 14 VMs. I'm needing this to be a small mini-pc as it's location has very little room, and the existing tower must go (T110 II, 32G, E3-12xx series).

 

Storage will be provided over NAS, but would like some M.2 SSD ~120G or greater internally.

 

Looking to do this as cheap as possible (sub ~$500 CAD)

[Origami Cactus]

Mini PC  to run 14VM's at sub 500$ CAD?

For that price the best you can get is a 4core 8gb ram machine, so that means each VM gets 0.5gb of ram, and 0.25 cpu core. So unless they are a very low powered Linux distros i can't see these VM's performing well.

 

You best bet would get some older mini pc, possibly used, so for example last get Intel NUC or the gigabyte brix.

[NunoLava1998]

14 VMs? wtf

[GoldenLag]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($159.99 @ Newegg Business) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($73.95 @ Newegg) 
Memory: GeIL - EVO POTENZA 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Team - MS30 512 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($51.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Apex - Vortex 3620 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($39.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CX (2017) 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($52.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $448.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-19 07:44 EDT-0400

 

 

Pick up a used GPU for like 50$. Something like an HD 7950 or similar

 

Edit and no its not very small. What did you expect

 

Edit: oh its canadian rupees.

[GoldenLag]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($213.88 @ Mike's Computer Shop) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450 I AORUS PRO WIFI Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard  ($159.50 @ Vuugo) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($89.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Storage: Kingston - A400 240 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($34.30 @ Amazon Canada) 
Case: Silverstone - SG13 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Canada Computers) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CX (2017) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($64.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Total: $622.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-19 07:59 EDT-0400

 

 

No chance for 500CAD. 

 

Find a used GPU and slot it in. It will be 700CAD total.

[jake9000]

At that price range you are better off just buying used enterprise gear. There are some very capable PowerEdges and Proliants on ebay in your price range. 

In an SFF rig you will be getting a cost premium in the form of it being a rarer form factor vs what businesses are selling to refurbishers, and a second cost premium in the form of higher density memory you'll need for that workload on a machine that has not very many memory slots. 

[Mikensan]

14 vms is kind of vague - a single M$ SQL server could consume 16gb+ of RAM and all your disk I/O.

 

Buy a used NUC canyon - just about the most power per square inch I think.

 

I would almost tell you to just buy a powerful laptop or used mac mini. At least the laptop gives you a keyboard monitor mouse.