Hello All,

As every link I click via 'ddg' searching for these answers gives different responses, I'd like opinions from actual users (if there are any).

A conversation back in November with Mike (Niter3 - so if you're still here reading this we're not done yet! :)) over on FSX had really got me digging around for more information and thinking about it.

As I'm not certain how much power draw or how much it is costing me on my electric bill, the tower server I'm running is getting fairly old. I've had it for probably 10 years, and the BIOS I'm fairly certain is from 2013, so as much as I would like luck on my side to continue, I absolutely don't want to be burdened with failed drives or a motherboard failure, so I had been looking at newer refurbished servers.

Something that would fit my needs (and wants, because whatever lol), and is a newer generation than what I have, would cost me around $1k USD (probably a bit more), and is probably only a few years newer. This would also probably double the PSUs, bringing cost and power consumption up. So after Mike had mentioned Mini PCs and what he had, I /really/ started looking at these things quite a bit more.

I could get 4 middle of the line GMKtec's (which I wouldn't even need - could probably get away with one at this time and add more later, if necessary), with 4c/8t, 16gb ddr4 ram, and 1tb drives EACH, with an actual GPU (definitely not for high end gaming, of course) for about the same price, maybe less. But as an extra, I'd probably be saving noticeably on my power bill (5-30W when idle, compared to whatever monster, most likely non-efficient, 650-800 watt PSU I have in my tower - I don't remember the specifics and don't want to open it up).

Something with those specs, could probably handle 4-8 (or more, depending on specs, of course) VMs on each (for my use cases, most likely hdd space would run out before the rest, but I'll have to learn not to give 500g to a VM that only needs 200g, lol). And while there's more M.2 slots to add drives, I'm not even trying to consider that at this point in the thought process. I have entirely too much free space on hdds around here already, so I can just move things around with scp, which can easily be scheduled/automated for backups, etc.

Anyone have experience with them? Even better, anyone have any running 24/7 for a long time (ie. years)? How long are these things expected to last in comparison to say, server grade hardware? This is all assuming the same kind of maintenance and care is taken (dust removal, making sure it's well ventilated and in a cool place, thermal paste replacement, if needed, etc).

Do these things run hot as all get out, since they're confined to such a small space with like 1 or 2 fans in it?

Are these things worth it? Are they made with quality parts (in particular, GMKtec, Beelink, and maybe any other suggestions in that category)? I suppose for $250 it doesn't really matter as long as you can get the same longevity out of them, and you're getting way better specs than you would for that price on just about anything else.

I've looked up name brand Asus or HP and they seem way overpriced for similar specs. Paying for the name, most likely. So keep in mind, I don't need top tier name brand stuff. I want to know if it'll last, or if it's just a cool newer idea that will eventually fail.

Anyway, any and all suggestions and information appreciated!

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm, because beating people up is illegal.
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on 20 Jan 2026, Accession said...

Anyone have experience with them? Even better, anyone have any running 24/7 for a long time (ie. years)? How long are these things expected to last in comparison to say, server grade hardware? This is all assuming
the same kind of maintenance and care is taken (dust removal, making
sure it's well ventilated and in a cool place, thermal paste
replacement, if needed, etc).

Do these things run hot as all get out, since they're confined to such a small space with like 1 or 2 fans in it?

Are these things worth it? Are they made with quality parts (in particular, GMKtec, Beelink, and maybe any other suggestions in that category)? I suppose for $250 it doesn't really matter as long as you
can get the same longevity out of them, and you're getting way better specs than you would for that price on just about anything else.

I own a couple of old Qotom mini-pcs that I've used as BSD firewalls and they've been rock solid for me running 24/7 for years on end. Qotom has been around for ages and their devices a bit more geared towards running as network appliances. These particular devices are more or less passively cooled, with cases that are essentially giant heatsinks. They run silent and they don't get very hot at all from what I've seen.

I also bought a little Minisforum mini-pc year last which I'm using as a dedicated proxmox host, running a few VMs and some LXC containers. Minisforum is a bit more like Beelink in that they skew more consumer and while these two brands (amongst others) have pretty good reputations for being higher quality and better supported, I've been under the impression that its not unusual to have even devices from these more reputable brands conk out after 2 or 3 years. This model has fans in it but they don't run close to silent and they do a fine job of keeping everything cool. More importantly, performance has been killer for the price.

As for their build quality, it's hard to say - they typically use a lot of well known chipsets and chips (or knockoffs) which makes them really compatible, but the implementations are custom and perhaps a little sus with that in mind. I'd guess the cooling is a major contributor to that in a lot of cases, especially versus anything resembling a proper server. With my Minisforum, I took the cheap price and cheap operating cost in trade with knowing that I might need to replace it in a few years, and making sure I had damn good backups in-place as a contingency for the likelihood of that happening. Personally, with that in mind, I think they're worth it versus investing in something a lot more expensive. Maybe I'm overly paranoid due to the tens of threads I read when researching that purchase, but at least I don't be surprised if this one dies randomly in a few years. *shrug*

In the distant past I've used modded thin clients from bigger brands like HP (and had them die after years of service just the same!) as well as built my own Mini-ITX box, which was nice because it had better cooling, was a lot easier to expand or otherwise work on, but drew more power and took up way more space - that thing is actually still kicking despite being incapable of running much of use these days. I've got it running as a seed box (soon to virtualized) and it's just barely capable of doing that. :P

If you really want something you know should last a decade or more, I would probably steer clear of these cheap Chinese mini-pcs, but only if you can justify the cost of the alternative.

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

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Re: Re: Mini PCs
By: jack phlash to Accession on Tue Jan 20 2026 17:43:18

I've got it running as a seed box...

???
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Hello Accession!

20 Jan 26 18:36, you wrote to Agoranet.AGN_GEN:

likely hdd space would run out before the rest, but I'll have to learn
not to give 500g to a VM that only needs 200g, lol). And while there's

Are you creating the vm's with "Thin Provisioning" for the HD? If yes, then the vm's are only using hd space that is actually in use in
the vm.



Vorlon


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On 20 Jan 26 18:36:37, Accession said the following to Agoranet.Agn_Gen:

Anyway, any and all suggestions and information appreciated!

I've had mini-PC's like Beelink and they're "okay" as long as you don't have great expectations. If you are monitoring IP cameras or queueing up large amounts of Handbrake encodes before bedtime.... perfect.

But you said you don't want to be burdened with motherboard / PSU problem etc and eventually these will have them. The cheap wallwarts and eventual failure of components over long periods of uptime can happen.

No computer is perfect but you should consider an alternative; and pick up
a secondhand/offlease server such as a cheap Dell R620 which is more than enough for experimentation... can run VM's nicely and its redundant set of components, Idrac, Raid etc is beyond what any mini-PC can accomplish. Parts are cheap, runs relatively quiet, not even a blip on my hydroelectric bill.

Its whats ran my board for years now.

Nick

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Re: Mini PCs
By: Accession to Agoranet.AGN_GEN on Tue Jan 20 2026 18:36:37

Anyone have experience with them? Even better, anyone have any running 24/7 for a long time (ie. years)? How long are these things expected to last in comparison to say, server grade hardware? This is all assuming the same kind of maintenance and care is taken (dust removal, making sure it's well ventilated and in a cool place, thermal paste replacement, if needed, etc).

Do these things run hot as all get out, since they're confined to such a small space with like 1 or 2 fans in it?

Are these things worth it? Are they made with quality parts (in particular, GMKtec, Beelink, and maybe any other suggestions in that category)? I suppose for $250 it doesn't really matter as long as you can get the same longevity out of them, and you're getting way better specs than you would for that price on just about anything else.

MiniPCs are using Laptop CPUs. So they are not made for max and permanent performance. When you put to much load on those CPUs they will lower the clock speed GHz to avoid overheating.

I bought my first MiniPC in October 2023 and still use it as my main PC: "TRIGKEY Mini PC AMD Ryzen 5 5560U (Zen 3), up to 4.0GHz), 16GB DDR4 1TB M.2 NVME SSD".
I do all daily stuff, Internet, Youtube (take care of the video codecs your GPU supports in hardware, or you have to force youtube via browser addon to output x264 always). It is a decent machine that can run hot if you put to much work load on it. Like AI LLMs or Video editing. But i also did some video editing and whisper ai for transcribing with it.

I bught my second MiniPC to upgrade my BBS (was on a raspberry pi before) and as a video server (all the servarr and jellyfin stuff) for the living room (in combination with a 4k firetv stick for the jellyfin player on the TV.
"TRIGKEY Mini PC 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake-N100 Prozessor (up to 3,40GHz) Green G4 Mini Computer 11 Pro, 16G DDR4 3200Mhz 500G M.2 2280 SSD".

This one is better in regards of video codecs already but there might still be more complete GPUs out there in other CPUs. It has 3 HDDs and a SSD attached to it via USB3.?

This one has alot of work to do too, but not that CPU heavy stuff. BBS and Video Playback and stuff does not make it sweat alot. But it runs 24/7 and the N100 CPUs are very energy efficient.

The switch from my Desktop MidiTower PC (it ran 24/7) to the MiniPC in 2023 saves me round about 20EUR a Month on the electricity bill. (German electricity prices).

The BBS-, Video-Server- and Home-Server-MiniPC replaced 3 Raspberry PIs.

If you are afraid you don't get spare parts like the fan later, it might be wise that you also by a spare fan right when you buy the Mini PC.
I guess any other components break as soon or late as in any other computer. Like the NVME drive or RAM etc. Most of the times you can easily access components like the internal NVME or SSD / RAM and replace those in case of a defect.

Maybe watch some repair videos upfront, to see if it is easily done in the model your are looking to buy.

Well, my oldest MiniPC is 3 years old and everything is still running. I one time renewed the thermal paste between CPU and heat spreader.

If you want your Computer to do heavy workload stuff like modern gaming, video editing and local LLM stuff, your are maybe better off with a system with a desktop CPU, seperate GPU and decent cooling or you have to spend a but more for a MiniPC with a stronger CPU/GPU, but i personally think it is not a good idea cause there will be heat.. in a small case. But maybe someone else can let us know about MiniPCs with stronger CPUs and if there are overheating issues.

For everyday work, internet, youtube, BBS and homeserver stuff like video server etc., with the right GPU (check it can do all current video codecs in hardware) and energy efficient CPU, MiniPCs are almost perfect. Low price, low energy consumption.
When you do homeserver stuff, add proxmox to all that as your OS and run your software in seperate Containers and VMs and you will be very happy! ;)

i hope giving you my perspective helps you in your decision what to buy.

Best Regards,
Mindsurfer
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Hey Jack!

On Tue, Jan 20 2026 19:43:18 -0600, you wrote:

I own a couple of old Qotom mini-pcs that I've used as BSD firewalls
and they've been rock solid for me running 24/7 for years on end.
Qotom has been around for ages and their devices a bit more geared
towards running as network appliances. These particular devices are
more or less passively cooled, with cases that are essentially giant heatsinks. They run silent and they don't get very hot at all from
what I've seen.

Not sure if I'm being a wierdo, or not. But these look interesting. Where did you buy them up from? I went directly to the site and there's a warning about European and American purchases needing to pay customs and/or duty taxes, or some shit, because the company originates in China. That, and the fact the only option available currently is "barebones" because of the ridiculous ram and hdd prices.

I also bought a little Minisforum mini-pc year last which I'm using
as a dedicated proxmox host, running a few VMs and some LXC
containers. Minisforum is a bit more like Beelink in that they skew
more consumer and while these two brands (amongst others) have
pretty good reputations for being higher quality and better
supported, I've been under the impression that its not unusual to
have even devices from these more reputable brands conk out after 2
or 3 years. This model has fans in it but they don't run close to
silent and they do a fine job of keeping everything cool. More
importantly, performance has been killer for the price.

Yeah, the performance for the price point is what is drawing me in, and for around $250-$300 you can get something pretty damn good that could be used for server related purposes. Keep in mind, I'm referring to 'server related' in the sense of my own personal shit (BBS, FTP, Web, etc) where it's not tasking a 2 vCPU 4 gb ddr3 ram VM at all.

As for their build quality, it's hard to say - they typically use a
lot of well known chipsets and chips (or knockoffs) which makes them
really compatible, but the implementations are custom and perhaps a
little sus with that in mind. I'd guess the cooling is a major
contributor to that in a lot of cases, especially versus anything
resembling a proper server. With my Minisforum, I took the cheap
price and cheap operating cost in trade with knowing that I might
need to replace it in a few years, and making sure I had damn good
backups in-place as a contingency for the likelihood of that
happening. Personally, with that in mind, I think they're worth it
versus investing in something a lot more expensive. Maybe I'm overly
paranoid due to the tens of threads I read when researching that
purchase, but at least I don't be surprised if this one dies
randomly in a few years. *shrug*

Are these things x86/x64 based? I don't want to deal with arm, or aarch64 or whatever other "half-supported" architectures any more. I'd like to stick to the basics, if you will.

If you really want something you know should last a decade or more,
I would probably steer clear of these cheap Chinese mini-pcs, but
only if you can justify the cost of the alternative.

That's exactly where I'm at right now. I'm not sure I can justify paying over a grand for a hobby server to run my BBS, and whatever other VMs I would want to do something with. Even if a mini-pc craps out after 3-4 years, I could basically do that 4-5 times before I would pay the same amount as a tower server. Plus, it's MUCH easier to drop a few hundred than it is a grand or more. I get the fuckin' shakes when spending that much at one time. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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Hey Atreyu!

On Tue, Jan 20 2026 17:49:03 -0600, you wrote:

I've had mini-PC's like Beelink and they're "okay" as long as you
don't have great expectations. If you are monitoring IP cameras or
queueing up large amounts of Handbrake encodes before bedtime....
perfect.

Or, running a BBS, while doing some other hobbyist things that don't eat up a lot of resources.

But you said you don't want to be burdened with motherboard / PSU
problem etc and eventually these will have them. The cheap wallwarts
and eventual failure of components over long periods of uptime can
happen.

Technically, everything has those burdens. I guess it's just more of longevity that is a key factor here.

No computer is perfect but you should consider an alternative; and
pick up a secondhand/offlease server such as a cheap Dell R620 which
is more than enough for experimentation... can run VM's nicely and
its redundant set of components, Idrac, Raid etc is beyond what any
mini-PC can accomplish. Parts are cheap, runs relatively quiet, not
even a blip on my hydroelectric bill.

Its whats ran my board for years now.

That's kind of my setup now, except I'm using an HP Proliant tower. It's probably not costing too much to run, but it's upwards of 14 years old now. I've had it for 10 years, and who knows how much use it had before me, but at the very least I can assume it's been ran 24/7 for at least 10 years, probably more.

I guess I'm just trying to be proactive, to avoid some kind of meltdown or failure I don't really want to deal with. I can't imagine it has a much longer lifespan, but who knows. Looks like the Dell R620s were released the same year as my Proliant tower (2012?), so they're getting up there in age, and it's pretty unknown what the lifespan from here on out will be on these things, and most of these machines sold on Ebay or Amazon don't tell you how much use they have had while you haven't owned it (although, maybe some mention of being taken out of a colo or something - still no timeframe, though).

Granted, I just looked up the 2X Xeon tower I was eye-balling, and it was originally released in 2014, so I'm still looking at old shit, just more expensive. :(

Regards,
Nick

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Hey Mindsurfer!

On Wed, Jan 21 2026 10:11:29 -0600, you wrote:

MiniPCs are using Laptop CPUs. So they are not made for max and
permanent performance. When you put to much load on those CPUs they
will lower the clock speed GHz to avoid overheating.

I'm looking for permanent, but nowhere near max in any case.

I bought my first MiniPC in October 2023 and still use it as my main
PC: "TRIGKEY Mini PC AMD Ryzen 5 5560U (Zen 3), up to 4.0GHz), 16GB
DDR4 1TB M.2 NVME SSD".

I don't think I even need that much CPU, but I wouldn't mind 8c/8t for VM purposes.

I do all daily stuff, Internet, Youtube (take care of the video
codecs your GPU supports in hardware, or you have to force youtube
via browser addon to output x264 always). It is a decent machine
that can run hot if you put to much work load on it. Like AI LLMs or
Video editing. But i also did some video editing and whisper ai for transcribing with it.

I'm not doing any of that. Basically just running small servers, including the BBS. It wouldn't come close to taking the CPU to it's limits, at all. Even if I were to run 8 VMs on it, not a single VM would max it's usage, or probably even come close. I don't even have a media server any more.

I bught my second MiniPC to upgrade my BBS (was on a raspberry pi
before) and as a video server (all the servarr and jellyfin stuff)
for the living room (in combination with a 4k firetv stick for the
jellyfin player on the TV.

This would be more in line with what I would want it for. I'm currently using an almost 15 year old tower server. While (knock on wood) it's still running like a top at the moment, I'm just thinking about ways I can replace it, get more cores/threads, maybe even ddr4 ram instead of ddr3, save power consumption, /before/ anything does happen to it, and then I'm frantically trying to fix/replace it. At least now I can be calm about it, and do my research.

This one has alot of work to do too, but not that CPU heavy stuff.
BBS and Video Playback and stuff does not make it sweat alot. But it
runs 24/7 and the N100 CPUs are very energy efficient.

I was looking at some GMKtec N100/N150 options for the same reason. Efficiency! ;)

The switch from my Desktop MidiTower PC (it ran 24/7) to the MiniPC
in 2023 saves me round about 20EUR a Month on the electricity bill.
(German electricity prices).

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll ever /not/ own a PC, as I do still play newer releases of games. This is only an option to replace this bulky ~15 year old tower server that I'm currently using.

The BBS-, Video-Server- and Home-Server-MiniPC replaced 3 Raspberry
PIs.

I have a few Pi2's around here collecting dust. I ran my BBS on one of those for a year or two over a decade ago. It ran fine, but the arm architecture was kind of a pain in the butt, and SD cards are a joke. It was a fun project while it lasted, though.

Maybe watch some repair videos upfront, to see if it is easily done
in the model your are looking to buy.

I already have. It seems pretty painless, just very compact.

If you want your Computer to do heavy workload stuff like modern
gaming, video editing and local LLM stuff, your are maybe better off
with a system with a desktop CPU, seperate GPU and decent cooling or

No, absolutely no gaming or heavy workload would be involved. Most likely not even any desktop environments. That is what I have a PC for. I just don't run my servers on my gaming PCs. I'd rather they have their own dedicated hardware, and the current hardware is getting old, in my opinion. Who knows, it could last another 10 years, but I'm starting to feel like I'm going to be playing Russian Roulette sooner than later. ;)

For everyday work, internet, youtube, BBS and homeserver stuff like
video server etc., with the right GPU (check it can do all current
video codecs in hardware) and energy efficient CPU, MiniPCs are
almost perfect. Low price, low energy consumption. When you do
homeserver stuff, add proxmox to all that as your OS and run your
software in seperate Containers and VMs and you will be very
happy! ;)

Minus the youtubes, desktop environments, internets, etc.. this is exactly what I'm looking to do. Run Proxmox and host any/all of my VMs there, and even having more cores and threads available for future VMs, for far cheaper and a lot more efficient than actual (affordable) server hardware.

i hope giving you my perspective helps you in your decision what to
buy.

Very much so! Thank you for the detailed reply, I appreciate it!

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Mini PCs
By: Accession to Mindsurfer on Thu Jan 22 2026 21:19:40

I was looking at some GMKtec N100/N150 options for the same reason. Efficiency! ;)

just one quick addition:

TRIGKEY Mini PC 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake-N100 Prozessor (up to 3,40GHz) Green G4 Mini Computer 11 Pro, 16G DDR4 3200Mhz 500G M.2 2280 SSD

This model did cost 194,-EUR (May 2025) but i got -70,-EUR discount at Amazon when they had one of their sales. So it can be worth it to wait for sales as they give huge discounts on miniPCs. At least back then in may 2025.
If you can wait, next Amazon sale should be Big Spring Sale March 25-29

Mindsurfer
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Hey Mindsurfer!

On Fri, Jan 23 2026 05:16:14 -0600, you wrote:

TRIGKEY Mini PC 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake-N100 Prozessor (up to
3,40GHz) Green G4 Mini Computer 11 Pro, 16G DDR4 3200Mhz 500G M.2
2280 SSD

Seems like this brand is unavailable from Amazon at this time, for me at least. There are links from Amazon to go directly to their site, though.. but then I'm sure customs and duty taxes are going to be in play.

This model did cost 194,-EUR (May 2025) but i got -70,-EUR discount
at Amazon when they had one of their sales. So it can be worth it to
wait for sales as they give huge discounts on miniPCs. At least back
then in may 2025. If you can wait, next Amazon sale should be Big
Spring Sale March 25-29

I see a few discounts on some of the other brands, but don't see much of the brand you mentioned. Maybe they are restocking?

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Mini PCs
By: Accession to Mindsurfer on Fri Jan 23 2026 07:54:24

Seems like this brand is unavailable from Amazon at this time, for me at least. There are links from Amazon to go directly to their site, though.. but then I'm sure customs and duty taxes are going to be in play.

I don't know. Maybe they don't sell to the US via Amazon. Just look for similar models from other brands then. I was lucky to get both my trigkey miniPCs with good Discounts on Amazon. and 194EUR -70EUR was already including VAT and shipping.

Mindsurfer
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Hey Mindsurfer!

On Fri, Jan 23 2026 08:29:05 -0600, you wrote:

I don't know. Maybe they don't sell to the US via Amazon. Just look
for similar models from other brands then. I was lucky to get both
my trigkey miniPCs with good Discounts on Amazon. and 194EUR -70EUR
was already including VAT and shipping.

It wouldn't surprise me if most of those Chinese brands were all the same originator for parts, anyways. But either way, I've been looking at around the same prices ($250 USD, which is close to the same as what you've mentioned). Anything more than that gets into much higher specs, which I don't think are needed for my use case. If I were to become interested in pulling the pin on any of this, it's definitely a cost/efficency route for me, which would end up with much better specs than I could pull from another server grade setup, for the price.

I'm still up in the air at this point. I have never had an issue with my server grade stuff, so I still lean a bit that way as far as trust goes. But, for the price point of a mini-pc, you could just keep replacing them for the same price over 10-15 years, take up a lot less room, and are way more efficient.

I'm still reading, discussing, and throwing around ideas. I'm in no rush at this time, so it's nice to get advice and discuss, do research, etc. before making any decisions. Unlike when your refrigerator goes out and you have to choose something quick or all of your food will spoil. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Mini PCs
By: Accession to Mindsurfer on Fri Jan 23 2026 08:57:02

I'm still up in the air at this point. I have never had an issue with my server grade stuff, so I still lean a bit that way as far as trust goes. But, for the price point of a mini-pc, you could just keep replacing them for the same price over 10-15 years, take up a lot less room, and are way more efficient.

I'm still reading, discussing, and throwing around ideas. I'm in no rush at this time, so it's nice to get advice and discuss, do research, etc. before making any decisions. Unlike when your refrigerator goes out and you have to choose something quick or all of your food will spoil. ;)

thats me :) even if it is just about 200,-EUR, i will make sure i is spend well and what i buy will be the right thing for the task and will work for the years to come.

Take the time if you are not in a hurry and make sure you get the right MiniPC. No need to rush it.

I also compared alot, like how many usb3 ports, how many nvme's or SSD can you connect internally. Watching Tests and reviews on youtube . etc etc etc =)

week points can be those very small wifi antenna connectors that you easily can bend when you unplug them and try to plug em in again.

the connector for an internal SSD are very thin and can be easily damaged. Some manufacturers of MiniPCs pack a second replacement connector with your miniPC, cause they know that it is easily damaged.

if you want to attach many usb3 external hdd or ssd etc, i recommend to also get a powered usb3 hub. Depends on how many usb3 ports the MiniPC has and what you plan to connect to it.

For my daily driver MiniPC i have and like that external docking station wich can take 2 bare HDDs or smaller SSDs, has SD Card Port and extra usb ports. Very handy if you retired your desktop PC but still have those 3,5" HDDs. Still good for Backups and Storage.

Mindsurfer
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Hey Mindsurfer!

On Fri, Jan 23 2026 11:12:58 -0600, you wrote:

Take the time if you are not in a hurry and make sure you get the
right MiniPC. No need to rush it.

I'm not even sure I'm on the mini-pc bandwagon yet, but I'm definitely interested in learning more about it so I can make a better informed decision.

week points can be those very small wifi antenna connectors that you
easily can bend when you unplug them and try to plug em in again.

I have no interest in wifi. This would basically be a server hosting a few VMs, and would be hardwired (the 2.5g lan connections are intriguing, too).

the connector for an internal SSD are very thin and can be easily
damaged. Some manufacturers of MiniPCs pack a second replacement
connector with your miniPC, cause they know that it is easily
damaged.

That's nice of them. I see a lot of the warranties are only about a year, and limited. So that is a nice little addition, I suppose.

For my daily driver MiniPC i have and like that external docking
station wich can take 2 bare HDDs or smaller SSDs, has SD Card Port
and extra usb ports. Very handy if you retired your desktop PC but
still have those 3,5" HDDs. Still good for Backups and Storage.

I don't think I can ever "retire" my desktop PCs. So I'll always have a place to plug in an HDD or SSD. ;)

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm, because beating people up is illegal.
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