My eyes has been set on this product. I will be using containerization over virtualization. The lab will not be open 24x7. It will be open for 7-8 hours per day with heavy workload. And extra 5 hours with lightweight workload(reading pdfs, writing notes etc).
I am wondering if this is a best deal or there are other stuffs? Buying a mini pc helps to save costs on various stuffs like PSU etc that are a baggage while building a desktop PC.
baobun•4mo ago
One gotcha with these systems is that you may not get firmware/BIOS updates for that long if at all. So if theres some security patch from AMD and you care about security you may be SoL. In particular relevant if you run untrusted code in VMs or containers.
Another thing to consider is I/O. Two m2 slots and no SATA ports is pretty crowded if you want to expand with more storage in the future. USB adapters can work in a pinch but it's hard to find reloable ones.
Other than that, great CPU that will not hold you back. What you really want is the cores.
If you want cheaper then even something like an intel N300 should be a great start depending on how heavy those workloads are and will use less power. (Or maybe you save that for a later NAS build, giving you that storage flexibility :))