SFF for Parents?

[Valnar]

I want to buy/build a SFF PC for my parents. They have a Core2Duo E8400 Micro-ATX based PC now. It will run Windows 7.

They live across the USA from me so something Tiny is enticing for a couple reasons. One, it is small to ship back & forth in case something goes wrong, and two- they don't need much horsepower. So long as the RAM and SSD are there, I think anything will be snappy.

My first instinct is the new Broadwell based NUC. Although, I wouldn't object to something slightly bigger if it was markedly better in some way. Is there a good mini-ITX based PC out there, or something between a NUC and mini-ITX?

 

[xx9e02]

The NUC is entirely too convenient for your situation imo. If anything is wrong they can toss it in a USPS Priority 2 Day box + some padding for $15 and you can take care of it. NUC + SSD + ram makes for a nice neat package. Maybe they'll like the tiny form factor too - definitely a space saver

You could custom build using something Silverstone's new SG13 case or Antec ISK100, etc. but they'll cost you quite a bit more to ship back and forth if you run into any problems. With performance not really being a factor the mobile cpus in NUCs would be fine and as you said, the same RAM and SSD across both builds makes any difference negligible.

 

[JBark]

Yeah, a NUC is almost always the answer in a case like this.

Though I will say, if they don't need much in the way of local storage, something like the HP Stream Mini with an additional 4GB stick of RAM (giving it 6GB total) is apparently a great little PC for <$200. The 32GB SSD is going to be a pretty big limitation if they do anything other than surf the web and/or watch streaming videos or similar. It is a regular M.2 SSD, so it's not slow like eMMC and can be upgraded if you really want, but at that point, probably better just starting off with a NUC.

 

[kooki]

How about a NUC with Bay trail or even the upcoming Braswell? They might be cheaper than the ones with Broadwell and, depending on your parents need, it might be just enought horse power for them

Some future Braswell NUC:
http://liliputing.com/2015/03/ecs-introduces-liva-mini-pcs-with-braswell-broadwell-chips.html

 

[Valnar]

Broadwell would be my minimum speed. I'm mostly concerned about ports, and audio. Only a single speaker-out. If it had a laptop CDROM that might be safer, but I can always do a USB one too.

Although they do need a new monitor too, so I could get one with speakers built-in that works via HDMI.

 

[Black5Lion]

Broadwell would be my minimum speed. I'm mostly concerned about ports, and audio. Only a single speaker-out. If it had a laptop CDROM that might be safer, but I can always do a USB one too.

Although they do need a new monitor too, so I could get one with speakers built-in that works via HDMI.

I'd just VESA mount the NUC behind the monitor, and get a USB hub for all their peripherals.

 

[Valnar]

I got the i5 Broadwell NUC. Danke.

 

[Zap]

I'd just VESA mount the NUC behind the monitor, and get a USB hub for all their peripherals.

This.

Other thoughts since it will be far away from "support."

Since it isn't a handheld device, run off a network cable and not WiFi if at all possible, to reduce another point of failure. Also, label and make sure they know what the router is, and how to identify the power cable. Many of us have experienced cheap broadband routers crapping out and needing a power cycle periodically.

Set up some kind of easy remote access for yourself. Unless you do something like DynDNS or trust that the IP doesn't change, use a remote connection service. I use Teamviewer, but plenty others on the market. Software is set to automatically run on Windows startup, so as long as machine is in Windows and the internet connection is not dead, I can connect to it.

Set up some kind of regular backup for their files, and make a system disc image. Windows 7 has it built-in. You can create a restore disc set that uses multiple DVDs and has a bootable disc.