00:00Okay, so if you've been anywhere near the homelab corner of the internet lately,
00:04you've probably noticed that mini-PCs have completely taken over.
00:08Rack servers are loud, power-hungry, and honestly kind of overkill for most of us.
00:13So I went digging and found 5 mini-PCs that are absolutely perfect for a homelab setup,
00:18and the deals on a couple of these genuinely surprised me.
00:22Let's get into it.
00:24First up is the Topton Fanless AMD Foo02, and this one's the powerhouse of the group.
00:30You're looking at a Ryzen 7 7730U with dual LAN, two HDMI 2.0 outputs,
00:36NVMe storage, and Wi-Fi 6 all in a completely fanless chassis, so it runs dead silent.
00:41At around $1,300 it's the premium pick, no question, but if you want one box that handles
00:47virtualization, firewall duties, and media transcoding without breaking a sweat, this is it.
00:53Nearly 5,000 sold and a 4.7 rating tells you people aren't regretting it.
00:58Next is the Chewyo box, and this is the one I'd point most people toward.
01:03You get a choice of Ryzen 7 8745HS or Intel i9-13900HK, up to 32GB of DDR4, a terabyte SSD,
01:12and Windows 11 Pro already licensed.
01:15It also takes two extra 1TB M.2 drives, which is huge for a home and S or Proxmox node.
01:21And it's only about $345.
01:25That's genuinely great value for that class of chip, and the 4.8 rating backs it up.
01:31Now if you're building a dedicated router or firewall box, take a hard look at this Intel 6305 soft
01:37router. 6 2.5GB LAN ports using Intel i226VNSEs, that's the good chipset, the one that actually
01:44plays nice with OpenSense and PFSense. Fanless, dual Unveamy slots, DDR4 memory.
01:51And here's the kicker, it's $121.
01:55For 6 2.5GB ports.
01:58That's the highest rated item on this list at 4.9, and honestly, I get why.
02:03Fourth is this 12th gen Intel N150 firewall box, and it's basically the budget sibling.
02:10For i226V 2.5GB ports, fanless design, and you can pick your CPU N150, N100, N5105, whatever
02:18fits your budget. It ships as a barebone, so you bring your own RAM and SSD, which is a
02:24which actually keeps the cost down and lets you spec it exactly how you want.
02:29$131, 4.9 stars.
02:31If 4 ports is enough for you, this is the smart buy.
02:35And finally, the one I'm personally most excited about, the Topton Metal VPN firewall with
02:40two 10GB SFP Plus ports plus three 2.5GB NICs.
02:4510GB networking in a mini PC, with DDR5, NVMe, and an Intel i3 and 305 option.
02:52That's Proxmox, OpenWrt, or a full home server all handled properly.
02:57At $280, getting 10GB SFP Plus at this price point is kind of unheard of.
03:03If you're future-proofing your lab, start here.
03:07All the links are down in the description with the current prices, so go check which
03:11one fits your build.
03:13If this helped you out, drop a like and hit subscribe I've got more home lab gear coming.
03:18Thanks for watching, and I'll catch you in the next one.
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