Why is the Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H suitable as a home server?
The Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H was chosen as a home server due to various characteristics of the system itself.
In addition to 6 power cores, the CPU also offers another 4 efficient cores, which are particularly relevant in the home server sector due to their energy-saving properties.
Expansion options play a major role in the home server sector; according to the current status, it should be possible to expand the Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H to up to 64GB RAM, 8TB NVMe and 16TB SATA SSD. Thanks to this feature, the Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H opens up many possibilities in the home server sector.
With a relatively large number of connections as well as a gigabit network card and WLAN 6, the Beelink Mini PC also offers all the necessary network standards. The possibility of passing the WLAN/Bluetooth module on to a virtual machine via passthrough should not be underestimated.
The mini PC can be set up anywhere easily and to save space and can be easily hidden thanks to the VESA monitor mount. Its pretty design also fits well into the existing living environment.
Installation
When installing you can follow the Proxmox installation instructions. The only thing to remember is to choose the right one of the two network cards, preferably or depending on the intended use.
The following installation script is suitable for Home Assistant in Proxmox, which can be found at https://github.com/tteck/Proxmox , which can be executed in Proxmox with the following command.
bash -c "$(wget -qLO - https://github.com/tteck/Proxmox/raw/main/misc/post-pve-install.sh)"You will then find a Home Assistant VM in Proxmox, which can then be started and set up.
Power consumption
Below I have put together a few load scenarios for you with a consumption of up to around 30 watts. The measurement was carried out with a Shelly Plus Plug S without a connected monitor and without USB devices. The powertop --auto-tune setting was used for all tests.
Consumption when using one E-Core
| Usage (%) | Power (watts) |
|---|---|
| 10% | 7.6 |
| 20% | 8.4 |
| 40% | 11.3 |
| 60% | 14.8 |
| 80% | 18.1 |
| 100% | 20.9 |
Consumption when using four E-Cores
| Usage (%) | Power (watts) |
|---|---|
| 10% | 9.5 |
| 20% | 11.2 |
| 40% | 14.5 |
| 60% | 19.5 |
| 80% | 27.5 |
| 100% | 31.7 |
Consumption when using one P-core
| Usage (%) | Power (watts) |
|---|---|
| 10% | 8.9 |
| 20% | 10.9 |
| 40% | 14.7 |
| 60% | 20.4 |
| 80% | 26.4 |
| 100% | 30.0 |
Consumption when using four P-Cores
| Usage (%) | Power (watts) |
|---|---|
| 10% | 14.5 |
| 20% | 18.0 |
| 40% | 24.5 |
| 60% | 29.5 |
Application-specific energy consumption
- Without load, i.e. without an active virtual machine, the power consumption is 6.3 watts.
- With the Home Assistant running, the idle load is 6.5 to 7.3 watts. If Home Assistant carries out computationally intensive processes, consumption increases to up to 15 watts.
- An active ZigBee stick increases the idle consumption to 9 watts.
The Beelink Mini PCs as a home server
Computationally intensive tasks
In addition to simple tasks such as Home Assistant, the Beelink Mini PC is also suitable for more complex tasks thanks to the powerful CPU. The mini PC achieves very high scores in Geekbench under Linux. When looking at the results, it should of course be noted that thermal throttling does not occur in Geekbench, but this would reduce the clock frequency of the CPU when converting a video, for example.
The mini PC is audible under high load, but was not found to be annoying. When not under load, the mini PC can only be heard from a distance of a few centimeters.
Simultaneous use as a Linux desktop
With the option of passing the integrated Intel graphics card through to a virtual machine, the Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H can be used as a desktop computer at the same time. To do this, you simply create a virtual machine and install Ubuntu, Debian, Arch Linux or other distributions with the latest kernel and pass the Intel graphics card to the virtual machine via PCI passthrough. Hardware acceleration with the Intel GPU is then also available in the VM.
This setup, which is only located in a virtual machine, makes it possible to use the mini PC at the same time as a media PC with Jellyfin or as a desktop computer. All of this without affecting the other virtual machines that are already running in Proxmox.
Storage servers
With the option of replacing the NVMe SSD or installing an additional SATA hard drive, the Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H can be used with up to 24 TB of very fast storage. This statement is based on the possibility of buying an NVMe SSD with a maximum of 8 TB and a SATA SSD with a maximum of 16 TB, but has not been tested. I tested a 4 TB SATA and NVMe SSD.
WiFi access point
It can also be used as a WLAN access point thanks to the integrated WLAN adapter. In this case, you simply pass on the WLAN adapter to a virtual machine. I will not go into the configuration and operating system of the access point in this article.
Conclusion
I really liked the project with the Beelink SEi12 i7-12650H. The low power consumption and at the same time very high performance are definitely worth highlighting. What was even more important to me was the expandability and the ability to simultaneously use it as a desktop computer.
Buy Beelink SEi12
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