SFF Server Help

[Phizix]

Budget (including currency): £250 to £300

Country: United Kingdom

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Docker, Pi-Hole, Torrenting, Bitwarden

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Good evening all, 

 

So I'm looking for a small ideally SFF style machine that can handle small jobs ideally in a Docker function which will include docker itself, Pi-hole, bitwarden, torrenting (not illegal) as well as anything else I might need in the future. I have recently been looking at the likes of eBay specifically at small HP office machines, Lenovo's etc. I figure an I5 would be more than enough for this task with 8-16GB RAM?

 

Obviously this is the first time I'm going to be setting this up so would be guided by your input. 

 

I should note that I do have an old Intel 2600k from an old gaming machine, motherboard included but was a little hesitant about setting this up because of the power draw, I'm looking to use as little power as possible ideally. 

 

Thanks in advance

 

[Biohazard777]

47 minutes ago, Phizix said:

I should note that I do have an old Intel 2600k from an old gaming machine, motherboard included but was a little hesitant about setting this up because of the power draw, I'm looking to use as little power as possible ideally. 

Edit: Recommended an SBC 1st, yeah nah that won't do... no arm64 support for Bitwarden server (only amd64). Disregard...

[Needfuldoer]

26 minutes ago, Phizix said:

I should note that I do have an old Intel 2600k from an old gaming machine, motherboard included but was a little hesitant about setting this up because of the power draw, I'm looking to use as little power as possible ideally. 

With an efficient power supply, I'd expect this machine to draw around 40 watts most of the time.

 

If power consumption is the primary concern, look for Ivy Bridge to Skylake based laptops. They don't even need to have a good screen on them. Idle power draw should be in the single digits, and they'll be plenty fast for the services you want to run.

[Kilrah]

The HP/Lenovo business SFF desktops run at ~15W. You should be able to get some 7-8th gen i5s for that budget.

 

 

[ryd994]

9 hours ago, Kilrah said:

The HP/Lenovo business SFF desktops run at ~15W. You should be able to get some 7-8th gen i5s for that budget.

 

 

These are not SFF. They are USFF or "micro/tiny".

 

The drawback is expandability. Only two sodimm slots. And not much space for storage. Um... well ... laptops are equally bad, lol.

 

These tiny PC usually come with good manageability options, such and Intel AME. They can partially substitute IPMI, which is very handy for a server.

 

STH has a nice series for these: https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/