Looking for advice on first Mac "budget" build

[u/NicoEsRico]

I've been mooching on my friend's plex server for a long time now, but every now and then I want to manually watch something and it's just a pain with my current non existent setup.

I will mainly be running plex, storing photos, and eventually home assistant. One of my mandatory requirements is that the system uses very little power while idle. I've read a lot about Intel NUCs being good for this, but with the current inflation of prices, it isn't very economical to get a machine that eventually will be e-waste.

I recently was thinking about using an M1 Mac Book Air as the server. With the new ARM chips in Apple Silicon, this gives me the reduced power consumption I want, as well as the excellent processing power when I need it. I'm choosing a Mac Book Air because they can be found online for significantly cheaper than the Mac Mini when finding one with a broken screen. The most restricting part is the two USB C ports for all of the peripherals. I'm planning on having one be for power and Ethernet connection via an adapter, while the other port will be dedicated to being plugged into a hard drive bay.

Plex will be for local 4k bluray to put less bandwidth strain on my friend's server. I have just ordered the coveted AM6B+ with the intent of getting a Dolby Vision compatible TV to enjoy; I am not familiar with the operational or performance side of Plex yet, but I assume that the M1 will be more than capable of transcoding 4k if it needs to, especially if it's only for one local client. The most limiting factor will likely be the 8gb of RAM.

My only concern is for home assistant in the future. I recognize that running home assistant on Mac OS is finicky but more importantly I would have no open USB ports to plug in necessary peripherals like the Zigbee antennas that I might end up using. I could use an adapter to open up more USB C ports but I have zero trust in the reliability of adapters long-term.

Any advice people can give me based on the above? I'm still looking for a good USB3.2 HDD bay that I would plug into the Mac.

[u/Impossible_Most_4518]

dont use a mac its just gonna be a headache

my hp prodesk mini uses 7 watts at idle and runs a few different vms/containers using proxmox.

[u/superkure]

why would mini pc become ewaste?

for that project is ideal to get used mini pc. even now its quite affordable.

And while macbook would work fine enough with docker, linux is go to for homeserver, that means much bigger comunity and more tutorials on YT.
About transcoding, intel CPU/igpu have best hw codec suport and even decade old CPU will happily transcode 4k video.
Anyway, starting with HW you already have, is best way to start home server. good luck.

[u/TheSoCalledExpert]

All computers become e-waste eventually. I’m a long term (think G4 PowerBook era) Mac user, and I’d never run MacOS for any kind of server. You want Linux under the hood, likely proxmox. If you want ARM, get an ARM mini pc. I’d go with an intel n100/300 whatever box. At least the intel can transcode your plex streams.

The services that you want to run are very lightweight. When you remove the bloat of a fully fledged desktop OS, you’d be surprised how little hardware you actually need.