Here is the thing, I have 4 RPi’s of different generations (all the way from Zero W to 4B 4GB) that I use to host services at home for personal use.

Lately, I have realized I am running out of RAM to host more services, not to mention not enough switch ports to connect to.

Now I know the obvious solution is to get a more powerful setup (maybe a thin client) but electricity isn’t cheap and I am not particularly in the best shape financially speaking to shell out $300+ on a decent client to host my services.

Any suggestions?

  • @maryjayjay@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I upgraded my Plex and *arr server (i3 nuc) with a beelink 12i N100 based mini pc and could not be happier. $167 with 512gb nvme and 16gb RAM. It pulls 6W peak power

    • @admin@lemmy.mohammadodeh.comOP
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      91 year ago

      Where do people find equipment this cheap? Ya’ll are mind blowing with your ability to score things for such low prices.

      Any links?

        • Matthias Klein
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          31 year ago

          Exactly my setup. 2x EQ12 with 32 GB RAM and a standalone network for my Proxmox Cluster. Nice little things.

        • @CraigeryTheKid@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I’ve been doing computer stuff for a long time and now I have a really dumb question… what’s the benefit of 2x NICs?

          In case you don’t have a 2.5gb switch and you daisy chain to a NAS or something?

          • @sploosh@lemmy.world
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            21 year ago

            You can use it as a firewall/router or a VPN gateway and even slap a wireless NIC or two on there and make it a combo router/AP, which can simultaneously play and transcode video as a Plex/Jellyfin server with zero hit to networking performance.

          • @helenslunch@feddit.nl
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            11 year ago

            Well I’m no network engineer either but I think the most common use is a VLAN but I believe you can also just connect both to get 5Gb/s.

      • @skittlebrau@lemmy.world
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        11 year ago

        It’s a 6W TDP CPU, but not 6W for power consumption.

        At full tilt it’ll be about 25-30W, but typically it’s around 10W for me.

        • @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Ah, that makes a lot more sense.

          Was wondering what magic was happening to get 6w peak.

          Still, 30w peak is pretty nice, especially if you’re idling at 10w.

      • @maryjayjay@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        With hardware support enabled it can live transcode four 1080p streams, which my old NUC (5th Gen i3) could also do. The GPU on the NUC could not handle 4k, so it would fall back to using the CPU which would not keep up with a live stream.

        The N100 can transcode one 4k HDR with Atmos 7.1 audio and stream in real time. It was just a test, there was a bit of a stutter as it settled in, but I think that might be due to the drive enclosure being connected via USB, so it was storage bandwidth rather than CPU/GPU. The USB ports on the computer are 3.2 gen 2, but the enclosure is only 3.0 at 5Gb/s.

      • Possibly linux
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        31 year ago

        Hardware transcoding is highly efficient. The downside is sometimes it introduces artifacting in low resolution live TV.

    • @JackSkellington@lemmy.world
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      11 year ago

      Hi! Could you please indicate how you manage the system on the beelink? Base OS, how you deal with storage , containers or VMs?

      Thanks in advance!!!

      • @maryjayjay@lemmy.world
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        21 year ago

        Base os is Ubuntu, Plex Media server is installed via apt from Plex repo, *arr services (lidarr, sonarr, radarr, bazaar, sabnzbd) all run on containers which I manage in a docker compose file. Media storage is an external, 4 bay SATA enclosure attached via USB. 4 six terrabyte disk drives in raid 6 on lvm/md, plus a 4tb SSD which is stand alone storage, formatted as btrfs.

  • @ramielrowe@lemmy.world
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    81 year ago

    I’ve heard good things about used/refurb HP (elite desk and pro desk) and Lenovo (m700 and m900) mini-pcs. A quick search shows they’re going for ~120-140$ for a quad core with 16 gigs of memory.

    • @terraborra@lemmy.nz
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      1 year ago

      That’s what I’ve literally just traded up to from a Pi. Prodesk 600 G3 comes standard with a 6 core i5 8500, has 4 full size ram slots, an m2 ssd slot and has a mount for 3.5” hdd, all drawing only 65w.

      There’s a low profile one as well but then you’re stuck with sodimm, no space for a full size hdd and no pci-e slots.

      I picked it up second hand for NZD 100 so I imagine it would be even cheaper in the states.

  • @Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Where I live, electricity is also very expensive. I monitor every watt.

    I asked the same question half a year ago, here’s what I’ve learnt: RPis tend to be less reliable and aren’t that energy efficient. They’re great for small appliances, but for servers (e.g. NAS) not as much.

    Get an used Thinclient/ mini PC. They cost something between 50-150€ and give you a huge performance boost, more ports, a x86 architecture, are better repairable (still often bad) and more.

    Mine uses about 10-15 W on normal use, and 20 rarely when my cloud is under heavy use.

    • @admin@lemmy.mohammadodeh.comOP
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      71 year ago

      Just curious, why is an x86 architecture a sought after feature in your opinion? My understanding is that ARM is more “bang for your buck” in terms of computation effort to power draw.

      I say this because my M2 (ARM based) MacBook does all sorts of heavy lifting and still lasts me more than a day on a single charge compared to my old Intel MacBook running the same services doing the exact same stuff.

      Please correct me if I am wrong. I would really appreciate to learn more from people who have more knowledge than I am.

      • @helenslunch@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        why is an x86 architecture a sought after feature

        Software compatibility.

        My understanding is that ARM is more “bang for your buck” in terms of computation effort to power draw.

        Yes but it’s also usually a small “bang”.

        my M2 (ARM based) MacBook does all sorts of heavy lifting

        The new Apple silicon is a quantum leap in technology in many ways. Apple managed to make something with desktop-level power and SBC-level efficiency. It’s why they abandoned desktop computers altogether.

        The industry is in the process of shifting in that direction but they’re still way behind Apple.

        • @admin@lemmy.mohammadodeh.comOP
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          1 year ago

          Thank you for your insight, I see your point.

          Why do you say they abandoned desktop computers though? Aren’t they still designing and selling iMacs? Aren’t those considered desktop computers?

      • @Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        There’s a big shift happening right now, you’re right on that.
        Traditionally, ARM is not as capable in solving complex issues, but more efficient.

        That’s why it has always been used on smartphones for example. You want a lot of battery and don’t need to do highly complex stuff on that, that’s what you have your PC for.

        The big focus in the last years has always been to top the competitor in terms of performance, and only right now, people begin to question if the computing power they have right now isn’t enough and if they rather wouldn’t like to have a device that’s more efficient.
        The tradeoff is, you’re more limited to this specific architecture. Apple solved this by making a compatibility layer for x86 apps, but that of course comes with a performance hit.

        I’m no expert in that topic tho, so take all I said with a lil grain of salt.

        Right now, I think you’re better off with x86, because your server will definitely run on some sort of Linux, and we don’t have any compatibility layer or something like that yet.

  • @ikidd@lemmy.world
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    71 year ago

    Get a cheap SFF desktop, slap some cheap RAM in it and run KVM. It’ll be 10X better than a fleet of Pi’s.

  • @Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzB
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    1 year ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    AP WiFi Access Point
    NAS Network-Attached Storage
    NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers
    NVMe Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
    Plex Brand of media server package
    RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC
    SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage
    SBC Single-Board Computer
    SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
    VPN Virtual Private Network

    10 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.

    [Thread #515 for this sub, first seen 15th Feb 2024, 04:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

  • haui
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    31 year ago

    I‘d just get an old computer. My server runs my whole homelab with 4 spinning disks, 2 ssds while having 10+ services. It takes 50 watts since it is pretty old but it works well. If I turned off the spinning disks it might be even lower.

  • Big P
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    01 year ago

    Power to performance wise a pi isn’t actually that good. A thin client can run on less than 60W and offer far more performance

      • @Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works
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        11 year ago

        Even raspberry pi 4 doesn’t run on 3-4w, it’s probably for the older models and zeros

        Rpi4 is more like 5-6w, and 8-10w theoretically

        RPI5 is 12-15w theoretically

        Rpi5’s power supply is actually 27w, my thinkcentre’s power supply is 60w

        Rpi5 has a 2.4ghz 4cores

        My thinkcentre has 2.4-5ghz 8cores 16threads

        Also, arm is fun, but it’s a headache to selfhost a lot of stuff on it

        And really, I moved from RPI hosting to x86-64, I didn’t know some apps like jellyfin, or elk, or basically anything can open instantly. Even nextcloud is working pretty well

        And you can put an ssd inside, or even two, or even do some soldering a put 3 ssds inside

        I’m even starting on RAM which you can buy and replace

  • @franglais@lemm.ee
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    21 year ago

    I use an oracle free tier server for my heavy lifting (wordpress and owncloud), and have a pi4 on my fibre optic connection which is my storage.

  • @Epzillon@lemmy.world
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    11 year ago

    I’m not super into the whole sphere here. But as you mentioned the Pi I thought I might chime in. I just ordered a Pi 5, 8GB RAM and 2-3x effective speed of the Pi 4.

    I’d youre looking for more powerful hardware in this format the Rockx 5 and Orange Pi 5 are alternatives that go up to 16GB RAM.

  • @hperrin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Your best option would probably be to buy a refurbished office PC that has at least 16 gb of RAM.

    Something like this:

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GCX4JKJ

    That way you get a bunch of memory in a decent system for cheap, and you’re only using up one port on your switch.

  • @cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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    61 year ago

    There’s the Orange Pi 5 Plus if you want something really energy efficient. It has 16GB of RAM, an 8 core CPU, dual 2.5G ethernet, and it can use an M.2 2280 SSD. It looks like there’s going to be a 32GB version, but it’s not available yet.

  • Jears
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    1 year ago

    I use a quartz64 from pine. Back when it came out it was beefier than the rpi4. With the 5 that has now changed but it still is a great little machine.

    My instance runs on it aswell as my other webservices (A Homepage, cgit instance and a small blog). Handles everything really well with the 8GiB of RAM.

    Setup is a bit of a pain, especially because I had the urge to run gentoo on it. Compile times are actually acceptable.

    It costs 80 bucks, which is really acceptable.

    Edit: Forgot to mention energy efficiancy, ARM is unbeaten by x86 in that department. People on here recommend old PCs a lot, which, depending on your local energy prices could quiet quickly void the savings made by buying it. Also it has a SATA port, which requires some tinkering with the Devicetree to get running but allowed me to use an old 1TB SSD i had in the house.

    • Possibly linux
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      11 year ago

      The Quartz64 is good but to slow to do anything to complicated. You can pickup minipcs for the same price that will have way more performance but will still draw only a few watts.