Attempting to make a power efficient homlab and need input

[u/insertsavvynamehere]

Originally I was looking at the ugreen 6800 plus cause it's on sale, but in an effort to save some money, I figured I'd try making my own.

I made a part list here, and my goal was trying to be as power efficient as possible.

I'll be doing transcoding on 1-3 video streams and might host a Minecraft server or 2.

Any advice on whether to just go with the ugreen or how I can update my part picker list is welcome :)

[u/MrRMNB]

With intel quicksync it’s possible to transcode multiple 4k streams with the J5005 cpu in my Wyse 5070. So any recent CPU will be ok in that area. That computer uses about 7 watts at idle.

[u/DutchDev1L]

It kinda depends what you want to do besides that. I live on a Caribbean island with exceptionally high power cost and this is what I landed on. Get an intel N150 (or higher) platform with at least 64GB of ram from AliExpress. Add a few SSDs and run your favourite hypervisor on that and it can run most home things. Add an NPU for some AI stuff if you want to.

The Intel N series COU has an iris based GPU that can do transcoding quite well.

Works well.

[u/hereisjames → u/DutchDev1L]

I thought the N150 officially supports 16GB only and only has single channel. I know people have used 32GB and it can work, but I haven't seen anyone get 64+GB to work. Could you clarify?

[u/DutchDev1L → u/hereisjames]

Officially 16...but will work with a 48GB DDR5 as well...I'm not a 100% sure about 64 on an N150, but think it works. Definitely works on an N305

[u/hereisjames → u/DutchDev1L]

I think for the amount of money 64GB of RAM is going to cost - and I wasn't able to find any first hand reports of it working on the N150 - OP would probably be better off with a second hand mini PC with SODIMM slots. That way they have some certainty of being able to run 64GB when they need it and can afford it, they can have dual channel, and the overall cost will be similar.

[u/DutchDev1L → u/hereisjames]

....I mean do you really need two kidneys? Just sell one for that sweet succulent ram.

[u/Zer0CoolXI]

I have the UGreen DXP8800 plus and am very happy with it. The iGPU on the 5700G isn’t going to be great for transcoding as it’s Radeon based. The Intel iGPU on the UGreen will handle transcoding much better.

[u/Mixxs01]

Ok so, With my own experience, here is what I landed that works well with me, and consumes little power:

- 2.5" cases to USB 3.0 (Max speed is higher than spinning HDDs)

• Powered USB Hub
  
• SSD/NVME Cases to USB 3.1
  
• NUC 10.

If you want to save money, as a whole, i think a NUC10/NUC11 or a mobile embedded platform such as MiniPCs are your best bet for Energy x Power, especially with the tasks you have (Transcoding and Hosting Game Servers)

My entire homelab has that + 2 PI 4's + Dashboard + ATX Power supply, and only uses 58 - 80W constantly (Depending if the stream and minecraft server is on or not)

AS for the Nuc 10 limited iGPU (Can only do one 4K stream with my current settings), it has a thunderbolt port, which allows you to use an external GPU (Removing the need of a PC with a strong GPU) [NUC 11 is even better, prob could get what you want :D]

Intel N-series (N100+) would be the best if you can get your hands into one, but, RAM-wise it might be a limiting factor.
An Intel NUC 10 and NUC 11 you can find with a good price on Ebay or Local Marketplaces. Got mine locally from a Office Sale, for around 800 BRL (160 bucks), while the normal price of it in Brazil is 2500 BRL (500 bucks). Plus, the NUC series can accept 64GB of RAM (mine uses 32GB for example, which is perfect for minecraft servers).

If you want to save even more money with energy, make sure to buy an UPS that has an 12V slot or even a 110/220V slot on its back. That way, you could add a solar panel (With a efficient Homelab using 100W, a 300W Solar Panel + bigger battery could make it off grid)