Tiny Mini Micro PCs for Home Labs
Key Points
- Tiny “mini/micro” office PCs (like the Gen 3 HP Elite Desk) are highly sought after in the used market for their solid performance, tiny footprint, and sub‑$50 price tags, though newer generations cost roughly double without proportional performance gains.
- Despite the higher cost, newer HP Elite and Pro models add valuable features (e.g., remote‑management capabilities) that can be worthwhile for hobbyists who enjoy tinkering and customizing their home‑lab setups.
- The video’s sponsor, Private Internet Access (PIA), is promoted as a fast, no‑logs VPN with global servers, multi‑device support, Docker integration, and advanced options like port forwarding and split tunneling—useful for both personal browsing and routing homelab containers.
- The “tiny/mini/micro” naming stems from OEM branding (Lenovo Tiny, HP Mini, Dell Micro); these compact, energy‑efficient business machines are popular on r/homelab and can be snapped up cheaply on sites like eBay, often featuring enterprise‑grade remote‑management features.
Sections
- Budget Mini PCs and VPN Sponsorship - The speaker highlights the appeal of cheap used mini PCs like the HP Elite desk for home labs, notes that newer, pricier models offer limited performance gains, and then promotes Private Internet Access as a reliable VPN solution for secure remote access.
- Easy Case Access and Specs - The presenter shows that a single back screw opens the case to reveal internal parts—including the i5‑10500T CPU, RAM capacity, NVMe slots, Wi‑Fi module, and various front and rear USB, display, and audio ports—while also noting easy cleaning and thermal paste removal.
- HP Mini PC Benchmark Comparison - The speaker quickly reviews Cinebench R23, Geekbench 6, and idle/active power draw results for HP G6 systems, an i5‑6500T EliteDesk 800 G3 Mini, and an Intel N100 Mini PC, showing the 12‑core i5 leads in multi‑threaded performance while overall power differences remain modest.
- Upgrading Proxmox with USB‑C and 2.5 GbE - The speaker explains adding a USB‑C power‑delivery adapter and swapping in a 2.5 GbE (or 10 GbE) Intel i225V network card using a custom‑printed E‑key adapter to enhance a Proxmox router build.
- Customizing G6 Enclosure & Remote Management - The speaker explains how to adapt a G6 chassis with SATA adapters to install multiple NVMe drives, add a fan, and leverage Intel AMT remote management via Mesh Commander.
- Channel Membership Pitch & Sign‑off - The creator asks viewers to like, subscribe, and consider a $1‑a‑month membership for ad‑free early access before thanking the audience.
Full Transcript
# Tiny Mini Micro PCs for Home Labs **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzCoOkFtHFw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzCoOkFtHFw) **Duration:** 00:18:36 ## Summary - Tiny “mini/micro” office PCs (like the Gen 3 HP Elite Desk) are highly sought after in the used market for their solid performance, tiny footprint, and sub‑$50 price tags, though newer generations cost roughly double without proportional performance gains. - Despite the higher cost, newer HP Elite and Pro models add valuable features (e.g., remote‑management capabilities) that can be worthwhile for hobbyists who enjoy tinkering and customizing their home‑lab setups. - The video’s sponsor, Private Internet Access (PIA), is promoted as a fast, no‑logs VPN with global servers, multi‑device support, Docker integration, and advanced options like port forwarding and split tunneling—useful for both personal browsing and routing homelab containers. - The “tiny/mini/micro” naming stems from OEM branding (Lenovo Tiny, HP Mini, Dell Micro); these compact, energy‑efficient business machines are popular on r/homelab and can be snapped up cheaply on sites like eBay, often featuring enterprise‑grade remote‑management features. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzCoOkFtHFw&t=0s) **Budget Mini PCs and VPN Sponsorship** - The speaker highlights the appeal of cheap used mini PCs like the HP Elite desk for home labs, notes that newer, pricier models offer limited performance gains, and then promotes Private Internet Access as a reliable VPN solution for secure remote access. - [00:03:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzCoOkFtHFw&t=196s) **Easy Case Access and Specs** - The presenter shows that a single back screw opens the case to reveal internal parts—including the i5‑10500T CPU, RAM capacity, NVMe slots, Wi‑Fi module, and various front and rear USB, display, and audio ports—while also noting easy cleaning and thermal paste removal. - [00:07:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzCoOkFtHFw&t=446s) **HP Mini PC Benchmark Comparison** - The speaker quickly reviews Cinebench R23, Geekbench 6, and idle/active power draw results for HP G6 systems, an i5‑6500T EliteDesk 800 G3 Mini, and an Intel N100 Mini PC, showing the 12‑core i5 leads in multi‑threaded performance while overall power differences remain modest. - [00:10:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzCoOkFtHFw&t=638s) **Upgrading Proxmox with USB‑C and 2.5 GbE** - The speaker explains adding a USB‑C power‑delivery adapter and swapping in a 2.5 GbE (or 10 GbE) Intel i225V network card using a custom‑printed E‑key adapter to enhance a Proxmox router build. - [00:14:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzCoOkFtHFw&t=873s) **Customizing G6 Enclosure & Remote Management** - The speaker explains how to adapt a G6 chassis with SATA adapters to install multiple NVMe drives, add a fan, and leverage Intel AMT remote management via Mesh Commander. - [00:18:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzCoOkFtHFw&t=1087s) **Channel Membership Pitch & Sign‑off** - The creator asks viewers to like, subscribe, and consider a $1‑a‑month membership for ad‑free early access before thanking the audience. ## Full Transcript
Tiny mini micro systems like this are
extremely popular on the used market,
especially in the home lab space. This
makes a lot of sense. They have solid
performance, a small footprint, and you
can often grab them for under $50. Well,
at least certain models like this Gen 3
HP Elite desk. But if you start looking
at something just a few generations
newer, you're probably going to pay at
least double. Is the performance or
efficiency twice as good? Well, spoiler,
no. But these somewhat newer HP Elite
and Proesks have a lot of interesting
and useful features, and this might just
make them worth the extra money,
especially if you like to get a bit
hacky. Oh, and if you're lucky, you
might be able to find a really good deal
on whatever this is.
[Music]
Whether you're using one of these little
PCs as a desktop, a home server, or
something else entirely, chances are
you'll eventually run into a situation
where having a solid VPN service comes
in handy. Fortunately, today's sponsor,
Private Internet Access has you covered.
Now, odds are if you're watching this, I
don't need to explain to you what a VPN
is. You might already be self-hosting
your own. I run a few VPN servers
myself, but I've also been using PIA now
for over a year, and it's been great.
I've had no issues. psychic fast speeds
and I love having access to tons of
servers all over the world. It's perfect
for those occasional yet critical times
where I need to access georestricted
content or websites. I also really like
that I can use it on as many devices as
I want from my laptop to my phone or
heck even my router. And if you've
decided that this is finally the year of
the Linux desktop, well, good news, it
works on Linux, too. It can also be
helpful for your home lab. I've been
running PIA with a Docker container
called Gluten to easily route other
containers through their servers with no
issues. There's also a ton of other
helpful features like port forwarding,
split tunneling, and more. And they
follow a strict no logs policy that's
been audited by third parties. So, if
you're looking for a fast and reliable
VPN service, make sure to check out PIA
by using my link down in the description
below. With that, you get 83% off plus 4
months for free.
If you've watched my channel for any
amount of time, you've probably seen one
or two of these tiny mini micro systems.
Also, I guess I've never really
explained the tiny mini micro name, but
that term comes from the names of OEM
office systems that come in well this
form factor. For Lenovo, it's tiny. For
HP, it's mini. And for Dell, it's micro.
If you scroll on r/homelab for more than
like 5 seconds, you'll come across these
being put to use, and for good reason.
As the name suggests, they're small and
they're typically very efficient. And
since they were designed for businesses
and enterprises, they often come with
some helpful features such as options
for remote management. You can also find
great deals on these on sites like eBay.
For example, this HP Elite Desk G3 Mini
with a sixth gen i5 can probably be
found right now for under $50. I've used
this thing a ton on the channel because
it still works great for tons of
applications. But this is pretty much
the most modern tiny mini micros system
I've ever used, so I decided it was time
to try something else out. So, I picked
up this HP Prodesk 600G6 Mini. Now, if
you just go look at the buy it now
prices, you might find listings for
these well over $200. But if you're
patient, you can probably win one in an
auction like I did for around $150 plus
$15 shipping. Unfortunately, I didn't
realize it didn't come with an AC
adapter, so I also had to buy one of
those as well. The unit was in pretty
good shape when I got it, aside from
just some typical dust buildup.
Fortunately, one of the other great
things about these systems is that
rather than having to remove a ton of
screws or anything, you can simply
loosen a single screw on the back to
open up the case. This gets you access
to just about everything. And then to
get to the RAM, you can just lift up the
fan. You can also loosen three screws to
take off the CPU heat sink. And oh my
goodness, that's a lot of thermal paste.
One second. Okay, that's better. With
the case opened up, it was really easy
to dust everything out so that we could
get a good look at what all this little
proesk has to offer. The CPU in this
unit is the Intel i5 10500T, a
hyperthreaded 6core from Intel's Comet
League lineup. It has a base frequency
of just 2.3 GHz, but can turbo up to 3.8
GHz. It features Intel's UHD graphics
630 and can support up to 128 GB of DDR4
2666 soda memory, although my system
just came with 16 GB. The inside
includes two NVME M.2 sockets that both
support PCIe Gen 3x4. There's also an
M.2 E key socket for the included Wi-Fi
card that supports one lane of PCIe Gen
3. Now, there are a few more useful
features on the inside, but we'll come
back to those here in just a minute. On
the front, you get some pretty standard
IO with two 10 Gbit per second USB ports
with one being type-C and the other
being type A. And then you get another
type A 5 GB per second port. There's
also a combo audio jack and the power
button. On the back, you get two display
port 1.4 outputs, a handful of 5 and 10
Gbit per second USB type A ports, a
gigabit Ethernet jack, and the DC barrel
plug for the 19volt power supply. Now,
there's also this USBC port here, but
this actually comes from what's called
the Flex IO port. Well, this is the
first Flex IO port, which can be swapped
out for a variety of modules from HDMI
adapters to Thunderbolt to even network
interfaces. There's also this blank
panel here for the Flex Port 2, which is
just for USB 2 or serial. However, on
some of the Elite Desk models, not the
Proesk models, this is actually where a
dedicated GPU could go. Now, we'll
definitely be coming back to these Flex
Ports here in a moment, but first,
what's that mystery system I mentioned
in the intro? Well, this is actually an
HP Engage Flex Mini, which is part of
HP's Engage lineup. These systems are
primarily designed for point of sale use
in retail and hospitality sectors, which
means this little Flex Mini is
completely different from the Proesk.
Sure, they share the same form factor.
They have the same IO. They look nearly
identical, but okay. Yeah, from what I
can tell, this engage flex Mini is
basically the exact same thing as the
Proesk, aside from just a few small
details. First, there isn't a product
name on the front of the case. Also, the
engage system doesn't include a Wi-Fi
adapter. And the motherboard is a
slightly different revision, although
really the only difference I could find
is that the VRMs were soldered into
slightly different places, but the
number of the VRM was the same on both.
Oh yeah, and the CMOS battery looks a
little bit different, but that's because
somebody didn't know how to get the
battery out properly and broke it. So, I
had to super glue on a little 3D printed
part to fix it. So, yeah, these two
systems are pretty much the same except
the Engage came with 8 GB of RAM and an
i3 10100T. This CPU is similar to the
10500T, but only has four cores and
eight threads, a higher base frequency,
and half the cache. Now, I would love to
say that these lesserk known point of
sale systems can be bought for quite a
bit cheaper, but that doesn't
necessarily seem to be the case. In
fact, it seems to commonly be the
opposite. That being said, I did buy my
Engage Flex Mini for just $160 plus free
shipping. Now, that's not that much
cheaper than the Proesk, which also has
better specs, but I did win the Proesk
in an auction. Whereas, with this
system, I just bought it using a buy it
now listing. There aren't a ton of these
point of sale systems on the market, but
it's still possible that you might be
able to come across one and find a good
deal in the future and pretty much get a
ProDesk. It's no silver bullet for
getting a good price, but it is one more
option to be aware of when you're out
there searching for good deals. Now,
there's also the option of getting an
Elite Desk, which I've mentioned a few
times now. From what I can tell, as long
as you don't go for one of the GPU
equipped models, these are very similar
to the Proesk in terms of core features,
but they might come equipped with
higherend CPUs and therefore more power
phases and I think even a mesh lid to
help with thermals. There also might be
a few more helpful enterprise features
that only work with the Elite Desks, but
sadly I can't say for sure. I did buy
one, but it's taking a long time to
ship. So, at least at the time of
filming this, I was only able to test
these two systems here. If the Elite
Dust does get here before I finish
editing, I'll make sure to note anything
important.
[Music]
As I hinted at in the intro, the
performance on these isn't mind-blowing
or anything, so I'll just go through a
few benchmarks really quick. I tested
both HP G6 systems and also grabbed some
results from other systems for
comparison. First, that Elite Desk 800
G3 Mini with an i56500T
and then also this Camui Mini PC with an
Intel N100. In Cinebench R23, the
Prodesk with its 12core i5 was clearly
the best when it comes to the
multi-threaded benchmark, but when it
comes to single threaded performance,
the improvement from the older HP Elite
desk isn't insane. This pattern is
pretty similar here with Geekbench 6 as
well. Also, sorry that I don't have the
N100 numbers for this one. Moving on to
system power draw when just sitting idle
in Windows, the newer HP systems
performed the best. Granted, all four
systems were within just a few watts of
each other. I also tested idle power
draw in Proxmox after running power top
autotune and the autoaspm script and
with no display connected here. The
older Elite desk actually performed just
a hair better.
When running the multi-threaded
Cinebench render, most of the systems
had a fairly consistent total power
draw, but while the Proesk eventually
sat at around 51 W, it initially jumped
up to 72 watts while the CPU boosted to
a higher clock frequency. When looking
at just the sustained power draw, the
Engage and Proesk systems drew quite a
bit more power than the other two.
However, they both performed better as
well. If you divide the Cinebench score
by the total wattage, you can sort of
get a points per watt metric where the
higher the number, the more efficient
the system is. And here, while the N100
system takes the lead, but we can also
see that the older Elite Desk falls
quite a bit behind in terms of
efficiency. Now, I was a bit curious why
the 10100T didn't have a similar turbo
boost behavior to the 10500T, and I
wasn't quite sure if that was due to the
CPU or the system it was in. To try and
figure it out, I dropped the 10500T into
the Engage Flex Mini and reran
Cinebench. Now, it turns out that it was
mostly just the behavior of the CPU as
the clock speeds of the 10500T jumped up
as you would expect here, but
interestingly, the clock speeds didn't
boost quite as high and therefore the
system didn't draw as much power and
performed a bit worse. I double checked
that there weren't any settings to tweak
some sort of power profile in the BIOS.
So, I guess one actual difference
between the Engage system and the Proesk
is that the Engage seems to run with a
slightly lower power profile or
something along those lines. Now, that's
really it for all of my benchmarks and
such. If you're really curious to learn
more, I highly recommend checking out
the Serve the Home website. They have a
ton of in-depth reviews and benchmarks
so you can really see how a variety of
these tiny mini microsystems perform. I
think for the most part, these systems
can all handle typical home server or
desktop workloads just fine. So, to me,
what really sets these newer systems
apart is the I/IO. The Elite Desk G3
Mini and many other systems from this
generation typically have one NVME
socket, a SATA port for a 2 and 12 in
hard drive, and then an M.2E key slot
for Wi-Fi. With the newer G6 systems,
you get two NVME sockets as well as the
Flex IO port. Now, the older HP minis
also had a flex port, but that
generation didn't have a ton of great
options for it. When it comes to
tinkering or self-hosting, really the
best use for it was just to remove it
entirely. Then you could use that space
for a cool 3D printer bracket like this
one for an M.2 two to Ethernet adapter.
The G6 models, however, use the Flex IO
V2 cards, which offer a lot more
options. Now, most systems come with
something boring like HDMI or display
port, but there are much better options.
First, there's this USBC power delivery
adapter that came with my Proesk. This
not only adds another USBC port, but can
actually be used to power the system
using USB power delivery, which is
pretty neat. The best options, in my
opinion, though, are either the 2 and
1/2 gig or 10 gig network cards. The
Tink adapter is pretty tough to find and
it's also pretty expensive. Granted, not
really that expensive when compared to
other M.2 adapters, but the 2 and 1/2
gig adapter can be found much easier for
around $30 on eBay. It's really easy to
swap these cards out. You just remove a
few screws, pop out the old card, and
then pop the new one into place. After
booting into Proxmox, I had a second
network interface. Oh, and I should also
mention that this card uses the Intel
i225V controller rather than a realtech
controller. So, you should have a much
better time if you plan to build a
PFSense or OpenSense router. There's
also that second Flex adapter, which as
I mentioned is really only for serial or
USB 2 adapters, but it's also a handy
removable panel, perfect for mounting
something like another 2 and 1/2 GB
nick. Since I still had that E key
socket available, I picked up this E key
to Intel i26V 2 and a half GB adapter. I
found this great model online from John
Douglas, but it wouldn't quite fit my
adapter. So, I used it as a starting
point to make my own and ended up with
this. It printed out in just a few
minutes and was super easy to screw in
place. Because of how tall the adapter
was, there was a bit of a clearance
issue, so I had to trim away this little
clip from the inside of the lid. And
then I also used some captain tape just
to make sure and avoid any shorts. It
probably would have been just fine
without it, but I've been a lot more
cautious ever since, well, ever since
the incident that a spark flies off to
the side. A spark flies off to the side.
If you're not sure what I'm talking
about because you don't watch every
single one of my videos, I was working
on a project for this little uh custom
Nazbox thing up here where I used an
Intel Nuck, but I accidentally shorted
it out with a loose wire and I had to
buy a whole replacement and it really
sucked. So, yeah. Anyway, with the
system booted back up, sure enough, I
now had dual 2 and 1 half GB nicks. And
it looks so cool. Now, if you only
needed the one two and a half GB port
and you didn't need Wi-Fi, you could
also use this e key port for something
else. I wouldn't recommend what I did
here, though. Uh I was hoping to see if
I could get this old ESA enclosure
working by using this M.2 to SATA
adapter and then a SATA to ESA adapter
and then and then plug that into the
enclosure. And I actually dropped in
four hard drives and to my surprise,
they all showed up. However, when I
actually tried to do anything, well, it
got really buggy and Proxmons crashed
and yeah, it wasn't a good time. I
probably just don't have a good grasp on
how this enclosure works or really even
how the SATA protocol works. Also, this
corrosion probably wasn't doing me any
favors. So, how about moving on to a
more reasonable idea like using this E
key to M key adapter for an NVME SSD?
This specific adapter is great here
because it reverses the orientation of
the SSD so that it can actually fit in
the case. Using a 2280 length NVME SSD
was still going to be a bit too big
though, so I just snapped off this bit
here and used a 2230 SSD instead. Since
the adapter was barely brushing up
against one of the other SSDs, I used
some more captain tape here for safety,
but in the end, everything fit just
fine. Now, sure, this SSD would be
limited to just one lane of PCIe Gen 3,
but that's still kind of close to a
gigabyte per second in terms of
bandwidth and would probably work just
fine for a boot SSD, leaving you with
two NVME sockets for mirrored storage,
VMs, or whatever. Or you could take
advantage of those extra PCIe lanes for
other cool adapters. And if this still
isn't enough storage for you, well, if
you look closely, you can see that
there's a tiny little connector labeled
hard drive, and it actually looks nearly
identical to the SATA connector on the
older Elite Desk G3. Now, I just assumed
that these G6 systems didn't have an
option for a hard drive since they came
with an extra NVME slot, but as it turns
out, you could originally configure
these to also come with a 2 and 12 in
hard drive. Obviously, neither of my
systems included the cage or the
adapter, but I did still have my 2 and
1/2 in adapter from the older Elite
Desk. Now, I probably should have been
safe and checked online beforehand, but
I just sent it and hooked up the G3's
adapter, and well, it actually worked.
Unfortunately, if you didn't already
have this adapter, it looks like the
cable and drive cage assembly for the G6
models will cost you a fair bit on eBay.
But you might be able to find a better
deal if you just buy the SATA adapter
for one of the earlier models. In that
case though, you would have to get a bit
creative when it comes to mounting
solutions. But hey, technically you
could fit three NVME SSDs and a 2 and 12
in hard drive all in this tiny little
enclosure. Oh yeah, I also noticed this
little second fan header that I think
would have been used for a dedicated GPU
if needed. And I'll spare you the
details of how I came up with this janky
solution here. But yeah, technically you
can add a PWM fan if you wire it up,
right? Unfortunately though, there's no
software control, so it's probably not
all that useful, and realistically, it's
probably going to be easier to figure
out using USB power or something.
Something that actually is useful,
though, is remote management. Since
these systems were designed for
professional work environments, they
include Intel's AMT platform. This means
you should be able to control some of
the functions remotely, even if the
system is powered down. After setting up
a password and configuring the network
settings in the BIOS, I was able to use
some software called Mesh Commander to
connect to and manage the Proesk. With
this, you can remotely power on and off
the system, get access to serial over
LAN, and more. But unfortunately, the
ProEsk doesn't support KVM
functionality. This is where you'd be
able to have a video output and use a
virtual mouse and keyboard. And I think
this is actually one of those features
that separates the Elite Desk from the
Proesk. Okay, so the Elite Desk actually
came in while I was editing this video,
and I can confirm that the KVM
functionality does work. Now, like I
said, this does support serial overland,
but I've actually never been able to get
that working. It's always just been a
blank screen for me, but I decided today
was the day I would try and figure it
out. I pretty quickly learned that as
long as you don't have a display
connected to the system, it works in the
BIOS menu just fine. But once you boot
into the operating system, well, I once
again just had nothing. After a bit of
Googling and tinkering, I figured out
that I could check DM message and
Proxmox to see which serial device was
active and then I could make some
changes to the grub config and enable
this service to finally get a console
working properly. It's not perfect. It's
a bit sluggish, but it's much cheaper
than buying a KVM. So, all in all, I
think these HP G6 minis are pretty
awesome, and there's a lot you can do
with them. However, well, they're still
a bit expensive when compared to the
older models. Now, if you want to save
some money and you don't care about
aesthetics, you might be able to buy a
beat up one like I did with my Elite
Desk, but if you're looking for really
good deals, you might be tempted by some
BIOS locked systems. Now, you might
actually remember that this Elite Desk
G3 was also a BIOS locked system, but I
managed to pretty easily clear that by
just simply shorting a jumper. The G6
systems sadly don't have that jumper,
but I was curious if there might be a
way to clear a BIOS lock without having
to get into desoldering chips and
modifying binaries and such. I ended up
stumbling across an awesome blog post
from Reese Goodwin where he outlined a
process for resetting the password.
Essentially, on one of the two flash
chips, you just short pin two to ground
and attempt to start the system. Then
you just pretend that these scary red
lights aren't there and then power cycle
the system again. And magically for me,
it just worked. Now, I want to be clear.
If you want to go out and buy a BIOS
lock system and try this, do it at your
own risk. Don't blame me if anything
goes wrong. I just thought I'd share
that bit of information I found in case
it's helpful. I think these little
machines are pretty awesome, especially
if you're like me and you want to
leverage all of the slots and flex IO
and such. If so, I think they're
probably worth the money. However, if
you just want some simple little systems
to run some services on or build a
cluster with or just mess around with,
it's really hard to beat some of the
older inexpensive tiny mini model tiny
mini model micros out there. It's really
hard to beat some of the older
inexpensive tiny mini micro models out
there. Hopefully you enjoyed taking a
look at these systems. I certainly did.
If so, maybe give the video a like.
Maybe consider subscribing or even
becoming a Raid member for as little as
a dollar a month. With that, you get
early access to all of my videos without
any ads. I think it's a good deal.
That's about it for this one, though.
So, as always, thank you guys so much
for watching. Stay curious, and I really
can't wait to see you in the next one.
[Music]
[Music]