I found this PC on Newegg, and it’s pretty affordable. You will definitely wanna swap out the SSD for a bigger one though.
There’s a teardown comparison between the G4 and G5 if you’re interested.
Both models can hold up to 3 SSDs!
Here's a video on that teardown.
And here’s another one that shows how to install RAM.
Interesting find. From quick search, the CPU is about 50% faster than N100 that usually found on cheap mini PC. And considering price and old type, it's surprising it has both DisplayPort and USB-C.
[1] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/3454vs5157/Intel-i5-9500T-vs-Intel-N100
yeah it is easy to add a 4tb sata ssd or a 2tb nvme ssd.
it had 16gb ram. not sure if it is 1 stick of 16 or 2 sticks of 8
but you can stick with the 16gb if it is 2 sticks of 8 or go to 32gb if it is 1 stick of 16gb
that unit with 16gb and a 2tb nvme ssd is pretty good for a node.
Pretty good price for these specs, indeed. But, a Bitcoin node requires really negligible specs. Right now, I'm running a Bitcoin node on a Raspberry which you can get it for less than $80 on a Cyber Monday. Unless of course you want to run a lightning node, or more than just a Bitcoin node (e.g., Monero node), and performance is prioritized.
if you are running a full node rasp pi is meh.
If you want all blocks and tx in all their glory this is the better choice.
You can do it with a 4tb sata ssd clone a backup. and do it all .
I have always found rasp pi's to be under powered needing to shorten the full chain and limit what you do.
But just doing a rasp is still a valid way to do it.
Wasting energy is meh, and that's what you do if you use a decent PC just for the sake of running a node. Sure, with Raspberry verification takes more time, so if that's so much big of a deal, just finish syncing on your main desktop first, and then migrate it to the Pi.
You probably won't need more than 2TB for a very long time, but sure.
it uses much less energy than you realize. it is a t cpu .
it uses under 30 watts which at my prices for power is under 15 cents a day maybe more like 13 cents a day
the rasp pi is 3-6 watts so say 4.5 x 24 = .11 kwatts at 17 cents = 2 cents.
2 cents or 13 cents 11 cents difference. cost in a year 40 dollars more to run a real pc. over the pi.
and the pi needs more power to run the ssd than what I said above. a lot depends on the nodes use.
if you want a full node with zero coin ie no wallet in it. the pi kind of works.
here is a blog on a small Samsung
https://smist08.wordpress.com/2024/05/24/raspberry-pi-5-with-ssd/
"Also, make sure you have a good enough power supply for your Raspberry Pi, as the SSD will draw more power than a microSD card. Im running the official Raspberry Pi 27 Watt one and it seems fine, so far no low voltage warnings."
but if you read deep it is may be pushing 15 watts. see quote above.
which means very little power savings maybe 6 to 7 cents a day saved. and what is the largest nvme2 that fits. 2tb I think