I am several months into the self-hosting journey and I feel I have outgrown my Pi 4 B 8GB. I’m only running around 3 dozen containerized services and it seems to struggle to keep up. But I’m not sure of the best bang for my buck. I’d like good, long-term performance, but I don’t really have a grand lying around for a Lenovo Tiny or Dell Optiplex or ASUS NUC. I’m thinking of buying an SSD to boot from, but will this even help much? For $350-500, could I make a more cost effective homeserver upgrade?
I got a free computer and upgraded the processor to an i7-6700T (eBay) and some old SSDs. It measured around 15W and I haven’t had any problems with it. It is miles ahead of using any Pi or ARM-based SBC. I would really recommend just finding a used computer nearby, if possible. Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace has some killer deals.
I use an i78500 hp elitedesk g4?
Shop goodwill.com or eBay.
A grand?? You can pick up a used Lenovo Tiny for 50 bucks (US) on EBay.
This is what i did. In europe, viable options start at 200€ on ebay (imo). If your use case outgrows one lenovo tiny (which is unlikely since you’re coming from a pi), you can buy more / other tiny pcs / a desktop pc / a server rack and put proxmox on everything for running services inside a cluster.
You can get a decent Lenovo Tiny for 75€ + 10€ IMO. On eBay.
Like some 2-4 core 4-8GB 120-240GB SSD. Blasts a hole in any SOC like the raspberry.
Wow, that’s pricey!
You could build a Framework desktop with one of their past gen motherboards. Also look for surplus servers. The first 1U servers I bought were only about $150 and lasted many years.
For $350-500 you could easily get a used desktop and processor with 16-32 gb ddr4. But it sort of depends on your home lab goals and workloads. Do you need a lot of storage? Are you CPU bound or memory bound? Some people will suggest used Dell/HP servers, and they’ll look affordable, but keep in mind enterprise gear will eat power and is usually loud. Personally I’d go for a used AMD 5800 or 5900 processor and mobo, install your favorite Linux, and call it a day. AMD processors don’t have quick sync which makes them slightly worse for plex hosting but better for everything else.
Not sure if I’m CPU-bound or RAM-bound, but I’d hazard to guess both lol And the lower the power consumption the better as this is an always-on, very passive deal.
Personally, I only plan to run another dozen or so containers. What I want most is reliability/stability. I want everything I set up to, once it works, continue working without issue. This is where the Pi has begun frustrating me as it seems to just seize up sometimes. I do need as much storage as possible as I’m a bit of a media hoarder, but that can always be solved with more drives.
Makes sense. I think you’d be fine with pretty much any modern(post DDR4) motherboard/CPU combo these days. I feel Linux hardware support is only really shakey if you’re using a SoC without upstream patches or if you’re using brand new hardware/laptops. With that being said if you’re running a lot of containers on one host have you looked into docker compose or kubernetes(k8s)? Maybe k8s is overkill for home use, but both offer support to restart containers if a health check fails. With k8s you also can spread out containers across multiple physical node, so you could just add a second RPI and “double” your resources.
Also worth looking at k3s if its running on a single node to reduce resource usage
Second hand Intel 6/7 gen is probably the best bang for the buck right now. Relatively power efficient too if you turn off the turbo-boost in the bios.
Debatable. Boost through a task and be done quickly, with some more power usage, or chunk along longer with probably more power usage. Would have to be tested, but I’d bet on the boost.
Yes, it depends a bit, but you can use a smaller ATX PSU if you don’t have to account for power spikes due to turbo boost, and these PSUs are somewhat more efficient when they don’t run at 10% utilization only most of the time. Also allows using smaller DC/DC Pico PSUs that would struggle providing peak power.
I can vouch for the power of a nuc, they’re basically laptop grade hardware.
Dominant failure modes are fan failure and ssd failure. The latter can be solved by using a quality ssd, the former by keeping your nuc out of dirty areas. You can clean it up if it gets dirty, but it’s a high risk operation, I’ve seen fan blades break.
Lenovo m715q, ryzen 2400ge isn’t bad, put more ram and an nvme and it’s solid.
What about something like one of those Beelink Mini PCs? A friend sent me a link to one and I was amazed at the specs.
Check out minisforum, for example this intel mini-pc. They have a ton of selection, not just that one example.
This seems like exactly the site I’m looking for! Thanks
You also have beelink that makes these small PCs
My suggestion is to either recycle an old pc/laptop or find one on craigslist for $100 and use the rest of the money to take your husband/wife out to a nice dinner.
Pretty much anything built in the last 15 years will be a big upgrade from a Pi.
I have a stack of 5th - 7th Gen tinies I can’t seem to get rid of lol
PM me if you need help getting rid of 'em lol I’ll take one off your hands
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Just get a used ultra-small form factor PC a la the Tiny, Mini, or Micro series. A higher-end one which is 7 generations old will still absolutely destroy the Pi in terms of performance.
Once I gave up (for now) on doing all this on ARM and switched back to x86, everything got way easier to actually accomplish.
You could pick up a used laptop for pretty cheap. Low TDP, leagues ahead of a Pi
This is a great suggestion. There’s so much e-waste out there that could be more than powerful enough to be a major upgrade from a Pi. If OP has a PC built in the last 15 years it’s almost certainly the cheapest (and greenest) solution.
