Mini PC vs Server for running virtual machines

Are you thinking about a home lab refresh this year? The Mini PC market has exploded with many options. In this episode, we take a look at a mini PC I picked up from Amazon, how well it can run VMs, and the possibilities of using mini PCs for home lab hardware moving forward.

Introduction to mini pc home labs - 0:00
A new mini PC that I picked up from Amazon - 0:57
Describing the GMKtek G2 Nucbox - 1:30
Describing the TDP values at idle and turbo - 1:45
Overview of the networking and gotchas with VMware ESXi - 2:25
Using a USB NIC with VMware ESXi and supported Realtek adapter - 2:52
Looking at the storage on the Nucbox - 3:39
Overview of the Nucbox connected using the ESXi host client - 4:09
Looking at vCenter Server monitoring after powering on VMs - 4:40
Looking at the specs in VMware ESXi - 5:13
Powering up additional VMs on the Nucbox - 5:33
Looking at performance metrics after powering on additional VMs - 5:55
Opening virtual machine consoles and looking at performance - 6:12
Pulling down a Docker container and running it in a VM on the Nucbox - 6:49
Thinking about the mini pc as a Docker container host - 7:20
Overview of the cost of the Nucbox - 7:36
Mini pc vs server thoughts on price, value, and power consumption - 8:14
Discussing power efficiency and electric costs - 9:16
Rethinking a home lab refresh with mini pcs? 9:30
Concluding thoughts on mini PC market that is growing and becoming more powerful - 10:03

Check out the following writeups:

Mini PC vs Server: Best Home Lab Server in 2024?

Mini Server for Home Lab: GMKtek Nucbox G2

5 Tips to install ESXi on a Mini PC:

[scsirob]

Thanks for the review. I went through a similar exercize end of last year and found a really good candidate. It's the Topton CW56-58 which runs an AMD 5825U 8-core /16-thread laptop CPU with low TDP. I bought three of these, William Lam reviewed this micro-PC a while later. They have a number of advantages over the GMKtek unit:
- 8 core instead of 4
- Supports up to 64GB of SO-DIMM memory (not DDR-5 though)
- Has 4 (four!) builtin Intel i226V 2.5GbE NICs, no need for USB NICs
- Has two M.2 NVMe slots
- Runs VMWare ESXi 8 right out of the box, ESXi 7 with a network fling.
The only thing that's not functional on these gems is the TDP 2.0 module (same as on the GMKtek). Other than that I run ~40 VMs on two of these and I have a unit to spare for tests.
These units are somewhat more expensive but you'd need to buy two or three GMKteks to match the Topton.

Adding a QNAP TSB464 all-NVMe shared storage, a no-name pfSense firewall/router, a NetGear MS510TXM storage switch and a NetGear GS324T access swich, my homelab consumes ~130W.

[charr]

A really good spec for mini pc would be something like i9 12900h 64gb DDR4 ram 8TB M.2 NVMe SSD :)

Not so much for power efficiency but its indeed powerful and small

[TheBeardedLibertarian]

I’ve been running a unraid server on a mini for some time. Nice to see a micro doing it 😊

[mackayd]

Interesting discussion but having been in the game long enough to go full circle. Grew tired of compatibility so realised the simplest solution is high core count desktop ddr4 is cheap and comes in large dimms on windows with VMware workstation and nested esxi with vcenter native to workstation. Consoles accessible directly on desktop. With 16 core and 128gb ram on nvme storage allows for 2-3 64, GB ram esxi hosts. I've run 2 DC solution with 2 esxi hosts per vcenter. 20-30 vms. It allows me to rapidly create customer environments with little hassle and I don't need to mess with switches etc. Lab refreshes are simply a case of buying new desktop parts or whole device

[PowerShellWizard]

I have a ryzen 7 5th Gen mini PC with 32gb of RAM and nvme storage. VMs run like total crap on it with tons of lag even with power settings cranked to performance and running windows server with hyperV. Long story short : don't waste your time or money. Not designed for the purpose

[budgiekiller]

Many older network and storage devices are no longer supported because VMKlinux drivers have been completely removed from vSphere 7 ESXi . I have not found any 2.5gb ethernet for native ESXi-v7 yet. 10gb is cheaper these days so I don't mind. You can still lab v7 and v8 ESXi as VMs in WMware Workstation (on windows, linux or Mac) 2.5 gb networks.

[nadtz]

The GMK's are nice with that tiny form factor but I prefer any of the options with intel 2.5GbE nics which aren't hard to find for 'mini servers' that are slightly larger. I hope someone fills the 10GbE hole one day, right now the cheapest/smallest option I could find is an asrock epyc board which is kind of hard to find and isn't actually all that cheap by the time you add memory nor as small as the typical mini pc. Not quite as low power either though it's not bad for what it is. I just got a beelink ser 5 which will end up being my windows machine but since it will probably be a while before I move my main desktop to Linux it will be a fun box to play around with till then.

[-rm-rf]

Enjoyed this one! would be cool with an actual “tier” list based on some criteria’s you already mentioned in the vid.
Power consumption, value/price, form factor (size), features, also noice levels would be interesting to know, both on idle and when you push em. At that price point for the one in the vid, I could for sure consider picking up a couple just to play around with cluster features and not having to wait in my next actual build or use nested proxmox to get out HA and/or CEPH as a concept

[chrisumali]

thanks for the demo and info, have a great day

[oneamongmany]

Cool video! I bought something with the same spec recently (n100, 12gb, 1tb) - smaller than that but only a single nic (but built in WiFi). Put Proxmox on it because I saw realtek NIC and value my sanity. I can manage it over WiFi and use the NIC for bridge.

Certainly cool to play around with but would you use this for a service that your home relies on (e.g. for a firewall or NAS) ? That's a little different to the fun/labbing scenario you described. The appeal is it's tiny and can run 24/7 so it may as well right?

[DudeSkinnyTall]

So, could you please elaborate on the exact model of that Realtek-based USB NIC? That's very interesting quirk from vmware)

[marcusrodriguesadv]

I have 3 Mini PCs ina Proxmox Cluster with Ceph Storage, i use a Beelink EQ Pro, N305 with 16gb of RAM, it uses 2280 nvme nd tehre is room for a SATA, i boot the servers form an externam 256gb nvme in a case USBC 3.2 and use the internal storage slots with 2TB NVME and 2 TB SATA in each node, as a Ceph storage, they have 2 nics of 2.5gbps and i use them connected to a 2.5gbps switch to sync data and conected by cable to my wi-fi 6 router... this is my homelab...

[accesser]

I'm currenting using an older 8th gen intel NUC to run ESXI, I'd love another soon, I'd really love somebody to create a lab orientated NUC with lights out management, that would be really quite fun

[normtomlins]

I was looking at the mini PCs but you could buy an Acer TC-1760 with a Core i5-12400 for about $450CAD load them with 64Gb's of memory and add a 10Gig Nic card and you have a nice little lab setup for ESXi 8.0. I purchased 3 of them.

[KCYT]

With the buyout of VMware I can't imagine too many home lab builders being interested in running ESXi .

[medlotfi]

I'm not sure why you're not thinking to post some serious videos on what we can do inside those vms (Windows servers or Linux ) and some Ha vMotion StorageHA some serious stuff

[nectarinetangerineorange]

Or maybe a 16c/32t ryzen with 32GB DDR5 and a 2.5 Gbe NIC

(and if oyu want to get a little hack-y, oyu can pull the wifi card out and replace it with another dual 2.5Gbe NIC... run one nic direct to your data server for hostsing your vm ssds on a massive encrpyted, compressed zfs array & use the internal nvme drive as a OS drive and a giant swap/tmpfs space to allow the OS to keep active things in the ARC and passive things on local nvme storage, with everything backstopped by the ZFS server....
and use the second nic as a virtual switch to connect all the vms to the actual network...)

Just a thought....

[ronwatkins]

Question. How did you get vcenter? Isn't it cost prohibitive? I've asked VMware and it's several thousand dollars.

[Pongo]

Can you show how well the unit at doing real work instead of idling VMs?

[eduardonobrega]

Can you share how you installed ESX in the Mini PC, i have one with a ryzen 8 cores and 64GB of memory with proxmox to do some tests but i would like to test with VMware too. I've tried to use the usb fling but i had problems with the NVME too on the install - Thanks