If you don't care about GPIO/serial lines, frankly buy a small NUC or a used Thinkcentre M93p. Used, you can find them for very cheap (£100 in my case), they are powerful enough for your needs, you can have an actual SSD storage, and you will avoid the odd issue with a software not working on ARM (less and less the case but still worth taking into account).
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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I'll second the NUC--I use one as an HTPC and another as a headless server. Both run quiet, though there is a single small fan. Can't speak to power usage though.
I'll second the NUC--I use one as an HTPC and another as a headless server. Both run quiet, though there is a single small fan. Can't speak to power usage though.
Of the alternatives available, Libre Computer, Pine64 and Orange/Banana Pi all offer options that fit what you're looking for. You can generally find these on Amazon, eBay etc at a reasonable price.
I don't need to run amd64 containers, so I like the Orange Pi 5 for raw ARM compute. For $149 you can get one with 16GB of RAM, an NVMe slot and 8 cores, all for < 15 watts.
If you're looking for something to be a disk server, the Odroid HC4 doesn't have as many cores or RAM but it does have 2 SATA slots in a toaster configuration.
I gave up on using raspberry pi for running servers.
I ended up buying a $60 lenovo on ebay https://www.servethehome.com/lenovo-thinkcentre-m710q-tiny-guide-and-ce-review/2/ and then loaded it up with 32GB of ram. Now I run a proxmox hypervisor and around 20+ containers/VMs. Best decision I ever made. I just spin up servers willy nilly
If you don't need GPIO then run a hypervisor. Cheaper than SBCs and more useful.
I use a pi for servers because of the assumption that it uses very little power to run (compared to say, an old unused laptop), is that not the case?
Sure, but I just told you I'm running over 20 servers. Try running 20 raspberry pi's 😀
My resources are being shared for around 20W of power.
Pis consume lower power, but are less powerful also. I think thr Power Consumption VS Performance is way better on Tiny/Mini/Micros. The Pi4 may idle at 3-4W where a 8th gen USSF will idle at 6-8W, but will provide more than 2x the performance IMO.
I prefer paying almost the same price for a USSF with an i5-8500T than a Pi, even if it consume more, idle under 10W is great, and they let you go up to 65W if needed!
Old laptop or PC. I use an intel NUC for mine. Hosting 30 docker containers
Intel NUC running Ubuntu.
a cheap second hand laptop will be both faster and will have better wattage and what is basically an internal UPS
alternatively any used thin client will do well to. Cost around 50 bucks and has waaaay more power than a pi while not consuming much more.
i prefer the laptop due to impossibility of a brown out / blackout affecting it. it is basically an active ups
That's true - as long as the battery does not catch fire :D
Are you using any charging utility? Like Macbooks are drawing power from Power brick as long as the battery is full. Still they are sometimes discharging to around 50% to keep the cells alive.
nah laptops in the last 5 years have features like that so you dont need to worry about all that. most have them in the bios too so no weird software needed
After running Plex off a pi for like 6 years I think I'm finally about to graduate to a old PC in my closet
It’s not that difficult to get a Pi 4. I wrote a python script that scraped rpilocator’s rss feed every 5 minutes and would notify my phone when one was available in the US. It went off basically every day around 8:30am PST when Adafruit would drop 100+ Pi4s. I’ve picked up two in the past week (one for my Voron printer and another for a RetroPi cabinet). They did sell out fairly fast.. in about 10 minutes or so.
The thing is that right now it's not worth it to buy a raspberry pi if you want to selfhost. It is 4 years old at this point but it cost 50% more than when it was released.
Power wise you are absolutely correct. It is not the best performance value anymore. However, support for the Pi4 is much more robust when using them in specific projects designed to use them.
For everything else I have a much beefier Unraid server that hosts all of my dockers and VMs.
Sorry I have to laugh at this. If you have to write a script for it even if the script is easy there’s no way I can consider it “not hard”. Not hard is just being able buy it like anything else.
I get what you’re saying though.
I didn’t realize it would be so easy when I wrote the script. Knowing what I know now I’d just check adafruit every couple minutes starting a bit before 8:30am PST.
Hard for a "layperson", maybe. But IMHO for someone interested in self-hosting this probably should not be a hard problem to solve, or at least a decent "warmup exercise" to see if you'd like it.
I say this because you don't even need to write the script yourself, there are plenty of preexisting applications that can be configured to notify you of updates to an RSS feed.
I'm sure I could whip that up in changedetection.io or Node-RED pretty quickly, for example.
I don't use a dedicated RSS feed reader app, but I'd also be somewhat surprised if there isn't one that supports some form of push notifications.
Sorry I have to laugh at this. If you have to write a script for it even if the script is easy there’s no way I can consider it “not hard”. Not hard is just being able buy it like anything else.
I get what you’re saying though.
Thin client! They're significantly more powerful than a pi and you can grab them for nothing on eBay and you can use the nvme slots for storage, I've had sd cards go bad in pis
Lots of cheep SFF/thin client machines on eBay.
rock64 works pretty good for my use case as a 700 mbit router.
I've heard good things about the rockpi.
I can't get a usb webcam working on rock64. Just a heads up, the software support is very poor.
rock64 works pretty good for my use case as a 700 mbit router.
I've heard good things about the rockpi.
The Orange Pi 5 or Orange Pi 3 LTS are solid options, depending on your budget and how much horsepower you need.
Thin Clients are the way to go! I got a Dell Wyse 5010 for cheap on ebay and replaced the internal 8 GB DOM memory with a 1TB SSD so it's basically a NAS now.
It does take a little DIY (video) but after that it runs more performant than RPis I've had in the past
Look for secondhand thin clients such as HP T620. They're usually can be had for $30 or less (or more) depending on the configuration. They also have low power usage, not as low as a pi, but still low enough (<10 W).
Hi SirPyschoMantis,
I'm certainly no expert but just recently started a similar project you are describing. I went with a used HP ProDesk 400 G2 mini. It has a i5-6500t, 8GB and 250GB ssd.
I run Ubuntu server on it with docker. It's compact and capable of running a bit more then a Raspberry Pi I believe.
When searching for a Pi alternative I also came across a similar mini pc from Dell. Thats was a Dell OptiPlex 3040 SFF.
I'm from the Netherlands and used prices here were around 100-150 €.
Second this, but don't go for the dell minis. I have had trouble with them no recognizing 3rd party power supplies that are often shipped with refurb units.
I've had good luck with the lenovo tiny PCs.
Lewis from Everything Smart Home dropped a video a few weeks back, telling us about the Zimaboard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr7vo9NAWfo low power, fanless, single board etc.
Why are rpis hard to find? Are they not making as many anymore?
Still feeling the effects of the Chip Shortage of 2020-2022. They are still making a lot of pi's, but they have a huge backlog to work away. Large contracts get priority over distributors, unfortunately, so they are very hard to find.
https://rpilocator.com/ scrapes the web and displays available stock. Managed to get a rpi4 8GB a couple of weeks ago.
I had no idea either they were getting scarce - is it just the really decent ones or the older ones too I wonder
Pretty much all of them unfortunately. Although claims have been made that the situation should get better in the second half of 2023. It's about time tho, all pi models have been out of stock for at least 2 years at this point
WHAT wow... And here I am using my little 4 to display a dakboard :/ I had a B+ and gave it away since it was so slow but that was 2017 hah
I'm using one for my brewery as a controller. If that one dies I'm in trouble.
I'm looking around for a SBC too, under 100$. Can't find stock of banana nor orange Pis. So i forgot about those. I like the features of the odroid boards, and the radxa rock boards. I'll probably buy the rock 4; seems like a good option.
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