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Comment by liability | Hacker News Reader

I recently thought about getting an RPi4 but ultimately spent about a hundred dollars more to get a cheap NUC. It was a bit more expensive but it seems like a more robust platform. A real AC adapter instead of USB (apparently the RPi4 kind of botched it in some revisions? What I read wasn't confidence inspiring), takes normal SO-DIMM ram and a typical SSD, doesn't have a reputation for overheating.. it seems generally more straight forward with fewer 'gotchas.'

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The USB thing, while not great, was a bit overblown. Official power source never had a problem.

As far as overheating, there are several passive cooling cases that handle the heat just fine. ETA Prime is one place to look for videos with tests.

No doubt you get more power and flexibility from a NUC, but Pis are pretty great for what they are.

If you have an i5 or i7, you may also have the advantage of remote KVM (via Intel's vPro) so that you can revive it remotely if needed.

Not to mention the built-in advantage of Intel's much better supported QuickSync video encode/decode if you're doing any sort of media streaming.

Won't matter if your main computer does the decoding, and for the price of one good computer that can stream to all devices including crappy ones versus all good ones and a cheap NAS to host, which would you choose?

Guess the question then becomes, do you need transcoding on the device streaming?

If it only costs you $100 to upgrade all your non-server devices from crappy to good, you have to tell me where you shop.

I'm torn, I don't think of Pis as traditional servers and have two dedicated servers on my network. AND I have a half dozen Pis that I use for hosting OctoPrint, DNS, SSH, IoT, Pi-Hole, etc... which are traditionally Server functions.

I tend to think of Pis in terms of single function appliances. They're obviously capable of more but they're so cheap you can just throw one at a single problem and forget about it.

Yes! They're the computer equivalent of buying a water filter for your kitchen sink or a dimmer switch for your bedroom. No point in redoing the plumbing or rewiring the entire house but you can throw one tiny cheap appliance in there and solve a single discrete problem pretty quickly.

I have a couple at hand near my desk at all times and can just flash a MicroSD card and boot one up in a couple minutes. They're incredibly handy for prototyping things.

I needed to test out an Onvif setup, I was able to flash a Pi Zero W and have a functional Onvif camera in 20 minutes.

We got some windows blinds and I noticed they used Z-Wave remotes so I pulled out a Pi and setup an HA server running them on schedules with-in half an hour.

What advantage does an NUC have over let's say your old laptop? They seem like they're the same price as laptops with laptop specs but are missing most critical components and are a bit smaller.

My last 'old laptop as a server' dying is actually what prompted me to buy the NUC. It was a chromebook pixel long out of warranty. Until it bit the dust it suited my needs. Being a bit smaller is a nice bonus, it might be silly but I think the NUC is kind of cute.

Seems rather expensive, didn't you have another laptop laying around? I have so many that I don't think I'll ever see the point to them, especially with thinkpads for cheap or free

The laptop I had before the last was an Asus Eeepc that developed a dodgy AC adaptor port. I still have it and it could be made to work, but it was never a very good computer in the first place. It runs loud and hot for what it is. Before that, and the oldest computer I still have in my closet, is my T60p thinkpad. I'd need to buy a replacement fan before using that one again, and I'm not sure it would be worth the hassle to resurrect (again.) If I were inclined to fix up an old thinkpad I think I'd rather get a second-hand X-series since they're not nearly so huge.

+ real time clock, definitely worth a few dollars.

Which NUC did you end up with?

NUC7CJYH1. With RAM and an SSD it was about $200, while the RPi4 kit I was considering was about $100.

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