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Comment by margalabargala | Hacker News Reader

I have a lot of trouble trusting pre-built mini computers from random manufacturers. Way too easy to slap some malware on a chip on the board somewhere. Maybe I just have trust issues but I don't really want to give anything I buy on Aliexpress network access.

I wish these form factors were more popular with more reputable brands.

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Well, if you're willing to pay a bit more, you have Asus, Lenovo and HP all with mini/micro form factor options. I've had decent experience with Minis Forum, BeeLink and GMKTek... though I will buy through Amazon... the returns will usually work better than going through some misc Ali Express seller.

There have been many cases of spy chips installed on reputable brands. A famous case was Elemental (transcoding company, purchased by AWS) , where AWS discovered espionage chips installed while they were integrating Elemental's Supermicro-based units into AWS datacenter

(AI summary for example)

https://bytegiest2.substack.com/p/grok-breaks-down-supermicr...

All of these boards are made in China, so it's no safer strategy to bet on name brands.

Only Apple and a few other brands may have tight enough supply chains to guarantee BOM security.

That Supermicro story was never confirmed/verified. All the companies involved denied that it happened (that doesn't mean much however) but no other reporters were able verify the story as far as I'm aware. With Bloomberg saying they had something like 12 anonymous sources, the likelihood that the NYT, Washington Post, Wired, etc. etc. etc. were not able to reach any of the same sources or corroboration says something.

Also, if these things were out there in such a large supply, I would have expected some hacker would have literally found an old board and found the chip and presented it to the world as evidence.

In terms of a coverup, this was during the first Trump term, and he's not exactly a fan of China, so I don't see any real reason the entire US business and intelligence community would keep it a secret (never mind the fact that if they can keep it a secret... and contact their traditional ways of leaking, not Bloomberg.)

I'm not saying it didn't happen, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and there has been effectively zero evidence presented.

And I'm not debating the fact that I'm sure it can happen and will happen. But let's stick with facts, not just some rumors.

(This post written without an AI summary.)

I remember in one of the reports seeing a scan of the board with the inconsistent chip. The premise is plausible. It's not rocket science, so the bar for believing it is pretty low.

12 anonymous testimonies and a story is not zero evidence. Most of the history you are taught in school has a similar bar.

"Most of the history you are taught in school has a similar bar."

No, it does not.

The Mac mini exists. Suffering is a choice.

I've been Linux-only for over a decade, I've long since made that choice :)

Also, the cheapest Mac Mini is $600. The Mini PCs we're discussing are generally sub-$200.

And used intel Mac minis are cheap and work. They're pretty handy and upgradable actually.

I'm tired of maker-washed overpriced slow gear that was supposed to be cheap, but is expensive and impossible to find. There are infinitely better choices than RPis. I recently went through having to make a custom shielded M.2 cable (by wrapping it in aluminum foil and Kapton tape) and stability burn-in testing for an SBC that would otherwise spontaneously hang. I'm tired of craptastic SBCs.

PSA: Please reuse old stuff first and stop buying new, new, new when alternatives exist that are suitable for a particular use.

Pis are awesome if you have PoE+ or better. I have two pis one of them using the nvme+poe+ hat connected with just an ethernet cable. It also has serial UART port that counts as an offline remote access of sorts.

I also just sent a Rockpro64 on a NAS case with 2x25TB disks overseas to my parent's home where it runs as a low powered backup server.

Mkay but what is the advantage of Mac Mini over HP Elitedesk? If it's for running servers like CasaOS etc., you will have to deal with one problem after another. It's my biggest gripe with Apple's hardware: it's deliberately obsoleted after a few years (as opposed to what MS is doing - they only started playing this game with Windows 11) and at this point you are more or less limited to what was available at that time. (You can get around this with Dosdude etc. for some time but you hit the wall at some point.)

I rather not having my wallet suffer, starting at 700 € in Germany.

Beelink has served me very well the last decade. I used to use those old Shuttle XPC's and things but Beelink has proved you can fit a lot of power in a puck. You can also take it apart, add memory, add m2 drive, whatever.

Not an ad for Beelink, just saying they have some awesome little mini pc's that I've used for home lab clusters. Ryzen 9 16C+32T little beasts that are completely silent.

Some of the recent Beelink ones have soldered ram though.

Some of them have 128GB of unified memory…

It troubles me to see so many sketchy brands recommended by tech reviewers like LTT or ServeTheHome. It's going to be great when they all go rogue in the event of conflict.

What's your definition of sketchy? For me I'd say by definition a non-sketchy brand is one that has some kind of social proof. The next question though is who do you trust?

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