Mini PC vs SFF PC: Which is BEST For Your Homelab?

Great video, I have 3 computers from this generation, and if you are looking to get one of these, be aware: Prodesk 400,600: same form factor, 400 doesn't have m2 nvme slot 600 does, 400 has only two sata connectors, one is usually connected to DVD, other is for Hdd/ssd. Both only have 2 RAM slots. They use the same PSU. PCIeX16 slot is next to the PSU as mentioned in the video, LIMITED to 35W. Prodesk 400 supports m2 nvme disks in bios and can be used via pcie expansion card. Both 400 and 600 do not support RAID directly from BIOS. Elitedesk 800: Max Memory 64GB, at least 3 Sata Connectors(some come with four, if shipped with DVD from factory) . Supports RAID 1(mirror), configured from BIOS. Comes with integrated m2 nvme slot, and more nvme's can be added with pcie expansion cards. Supports Hardware RAID expansion cards with battery backed up buffer and RAID 0,1,5,6,10,50,60 configuratios. PCIe x16 slot with room to spare, although 35W specified, it runs 75w GPU's with ease. My kids have two 400's with GT1030 and PSU gets really hot with those card. Pcie nvme card installed next to it, gets really hot also. All three are incredibly power efficient, meaning You can run it on UPS longer. Being business products, all three are designed with airflow from front to back, no vents on the sides, meaning you can stack many of them one on top another and just ran them that way. Didn't have the chance to try the mini. For homelab 800sff is the way to go. For gaming 800 in a tower configuration, has more power in pcie slots, and room for full height GPUs.

I love the detail that you go in to, the thoroughness of the material.

I've been using the same Small Form Factor (SFF) EliteDesk non-stop for two years with Proxmox. It's modern enough to be energy-efficient and reasonably priced, making it a great choice for continuous usage. Coming from someone who abandoned old dell xeon server 😉

Great video, I love how through your materials are! As a fan I have one request: please add more tables and visualisations, especially when you go through differences between systems. I believe it would bring more work, but also it would make the material easier to follow. This channel has a lot of potential to become one of the biggest in its area. Whatever you do please keep up digging into the specs and fetures as much as you do now! Recently I bought the bigger Elitedesk with the i7-8700 (6c/12t). Plan to use it with proxmox for jellyfin, home assistant, frigate (with coral TPU), pfsense/opnsense, wireguard, pihole and bittorrent at the same time. Can't wait to get it running!

Crazy timing! I just bought one of each of these. One is my Proxmox server, the other is running TrueNAS with two 4TB hard drives. So far they've been pretty solid and didn't cost much.

Just what I was searching for posted at the same time. Thank you for this video, your explanations are very clear and interesting :) As mentioned in another comment, I would add some text to your videos in order to catch key elements. Keep it up 💪

Thank you so much, you helped me make a call on what I should use for my needs. Much appreciated.

Thanks for the clear info. Very helpful

Just found your channel. Excellent content - Another sub for you sir!

Great and informative video! As an ex-product specialist for HP I really appreciate the way you present the information regarding the generations and form factors. Keep up the good work!

Good info, thank you!

Happily using the G4 Elite Desk 800. $150. Added 32GB ram, 2x12tb drives 2x2tb nvme, and 10Gbe. Nice chassis to work with. Just needed right angle sata connectors.

Excellent and very informative video. Right to the point with no nonsense. I've learned a lot from this. One thing that I experienced with the differences between the HP EliteDesk series and the newer HP Prodesk Series was power. I have an HP EliteDesk 800 G1 SFF 4th Gen Intel system that I still use as my "daily driver" PC to this very day. With the upgrades that I added to this system it out-performed a 7th Gen ProDesk 800 G4 Mini Tower case by quite a wide margin. What I discovered was that the ProDesk was grossly under-powered and based on a "green" power consumption initiative that literally ham strung all its internal components and wasn't very suitable for anything more than a mainframe slave system. An 8th Gen EliteDesk 800 G4 mini tower system that I just purchased a few weeks ago I discovered is a much more capable and versatile system that I have seen from the "business class" of PC's from the prebuilt lineup so far. It's still a completely proprietary system but the OEM specs and upgrade path isn't completely horrible (and it has WIFI and an NVMe slot) I haven't had much experience with the "mini" form factor but I might have to look into them in the future! Thanks for all the great information!

i was going to say this video got me to sub, but im already subbed 😁

Thanks for your insight on this! Great video, I learned some new stuff today

I have an 800 G4 SFF, 600 G3 SFF and 400 G2 mini, excellent desktops.

A power consumption of both would have been interesting

I fitted Intel Xeon CPU E3-1265L v3 @ 2.50GHz × 4 to my Lenovo M93 Tiny ThinkCentre they run well did come with i3 4130T 2.9GHz CPU.

Hey. What is the idle power comparison between the two?

I’m personally using a Dell 4th gen sff with a 10 gig sfp and 4 x 1gig network card for my router