Latest recommendation for USED mini-pc to run HAOS

Hardware
1

I know this question comes up every once in a while but I want to focus here on USED mini-pc’s – the thought being that I don’t need the latest and greatest and that the best used models evolve with time.

I am currently running a RPI5 but my thinking is that for the cost of another new RPI5, I should be able to get a more powerful mini-PC.

Requirements:

  • Substantially more powerful than RPI5 to make switching worthwhile
  • Support M2-SSD (I have several 256 GB small footprint ones)
  • Low power
  • Presumably just need minimal graphics
  • Several USB ports (best if some USB3 too or even USB-C for future proofing)
  • Gig ethernet (even better if 2 ports so I can also see my IOT network directly but not necessary)

Again key is to find something that is now a couple of years old so that being sold cheap on the secondary market…

2

I doubt anyone is going to want to search used computers for you.
Just plug that into ebay and see what you get…

1 Like
3

@Sir_Goodenough I obviously was referring to MODELS not individual eBay ITEMS. To be honest, not sure how you could possibly infer that from my posting given that I was talking about features & functions rather than specific sale items.

Plugging “mini-pc” into Ebay gives 17,000 results, few if any of which shared detail specs, let alone how well they work with HA.

Given that there are generally even more USED models than NEW models available for sale, it would be helpful to know which ones are considered “better” based on people’s experience with them.

4

Hi, just have some time to chime in. I have several SBCs with HA installed. I’m using a board with a Raspbery Pi CM4 and Odroid M1. Both work well for my requirements. One Odroid M1 is only used for testing and other additonal applications.

5

I just bought the slowest new NUC I could find and it is plenty powerful enough for local TTS but not AI tasks like frigate. And it was only ~$150.

If you’re set on used, a few year old top of the line NUC should be overkill and not require much thought or budget.

6

There are lots of reconditioned lease units out there. That is all I have bought for the last 10-15 years for home desktops. For HA, I bought a HP EliteDesk 800 Mini pc a few years ago. Running a mid range i7 with 16 Gb RAM. Its running Proxmox with several containers for Frigate, MariaDB, and piHole.

These apps, with HA running as well, only use a fraction of the resources. I would think an older i5 with 8 Gb would be plenty of power.

7

If I want to future-proof to allow for AI, would I need a NUC with a graphic card that can be repurposed for AI models or should a “fast” NUC be sufficient for the types of voice ai/speech recognition coming down the road for HA.

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HP elitedesk 800 G2 mini i3 6100T, 8GB RAM 256GB NVME. cost me £60 about 2 years ago. never broke a sweat.

9

HP elitedesk 800 G2

knock on wood hasnt let me down.

got a mount for and its hidding under desk

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