How about one of the NUCs? Some of them (the i3 and i5 ones) will run on anything from 10-19V so ideal for lead acid. The DN2820 only runs on 10-14V, so it might need a regulator to keep the power in trim.I'd be happy with eight watts! I currently use an older Mac Mini as my boat server, and it draws more like 80 watts.
And so while I would not be surprised to see actual consumption above 2.2 watts, which is the misleading "SDP" specification from Intel, something between 3.5 and 5 watts seems likely (with wifi disabled since it's a server) , and would be a big improvement over to the old Mac Mini.
You can load VMware esxi on them. Your limited in max memory, but a small box and not so expensive used.I would probably go with a NUC before a Mac mini server, unless you use Mac OS X. You can get a more powerful NUC for the same amount of money.
Just suggesting a different option.yeah, you can get mac mini's fairly cheap used, but for $100 more, I can get more NICs, ECC memory for stability, and I can customize the case/package to fit my needs. Not so easy to do with a mac mini.
I think all Macs nowadays can run ESXi, which is the only legal way to run Mac OS X VMs (by running it on Mac hardware).Very interesting options everyone. I hadn't realized that the Mac Mini could run ESXi. I have s spare one that I am using as my Mac machine for testing website et al. NUC I have bought many of, the Broadwell problem of not booting headless is bad or else I would buy one.
New Raspberry Pi hardware a possible contender?