Big-Finding2976

I'm using a SFF Lenovo M700 (i5-6400T, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 16TB USB HDD, Debian 11) for my server.

At the moment, I'm just copying all the files from the drives on my Windows PC to the server using WinSCP to make sure that I have a backup. Speeds are around 40MB/s with large files, which is probably as good as I can expect transferring from/to spinning disk, but sshd on the M700 is using 35-50% CPU, and sftp-server is using 15-20%, so about 70% in total. That only seems to happen with large files, when transferring lots of small files they're using about 10% and 5% respectively, although it varies and can be double or half that.

If it's going to use this much CPU whenever someone (or my sync or backup software) is transferring large files, I'm concerned that it won't have the capacity to run the other services that I need (Adguard, Home Assistant (probably as a VM in Proxmox), Jellyfin, Tailscale, Crowdsec, etc.). The 16TB USB HDD is encrypted with Veracrypt, but I don't think that's the issue as I see separate processes in top for kcryptd, and they generally add up to less than 10%.

Is there anything I can do to reduce the CPU usage when transferring files to/from other PC's on the LAN to the server? Once it is deployed, the users won't be using WinSCP to transfer files, they'll probably use Filebrowser or STFPGo, and I'll set up automated syncs and pull backups, so will it use less CPU to transfer files using those methods rather than WinSCP?

I can SSH into my Oracle free VPS but after a while I find that the console is no longer working, and when I try to reconnect it doesn't respond. I can still ping it, but even logging in to the website and trying to "Launch Cloud Shell Connection" doesn't work, so it seems to be locking up completely after I SSH in, and I have to reboot it.

I'm only trying to use it as a reverse proxy with caddy, but it obviously needs to be reliable for that. There's a few errors in the boot log, which I've pasted here, but I'm not sure if they're important.

Oracle boot log - Pastebin.com

I've enabled Cockpit and the Services tab under that shows that kdump and SETroubleshoot failed to start. Should I just delete the instance and try creating a new one?

I followed this guide to setup the required rules for the VPS instance, and to create the iptables rules in the VPS, and to create the IPV4 and IPV6 A and AAA records on Cloudflare.

How to Host a Website in Oracle Cloud Free Tier (yoursunny.com)

then I followed Steps 2 and 3 in this more recent guide to create the caddy files

Install & Configure Caddy Web Server with PHP on Oracle Linux 8 (atlantic.net)

but even before the VPS stops working the caddy server doesn't serve anything when I try to access it in my browser.

I've been having problems getting Mandos to work, so I'm trying to update it to the latest version on my RPi 2 Model B running Raspian 11 (bullseye).

If I run apt-get update with the following lines in /etc/apt/sources.list

deb https://ftp.recompile.se/pub/mandos/debian bullseye-backports main

deb-src https://ftp.recompile.se/pub/mandos/debian bullseye-backports main

I get an error about the signature being invalid, and if I comment out those lines and create /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mandos.sources as shown here for bullseye Mandos (recompile.se) and download the key, apt-get update says that the repository doesn't support armhf architecture.

Can someone help me with this please, as I really need to get Mandos working first before setting up anything else on my server?

I've pasted the full output here Update Mandos errors - Pastebin.com

I'm looking for my first managed switch so I can set up some VLANs, and maybe some port forwards/firewall rules but I may not need that as primarily my incoming connections will be to my server and secured by Wireguard or Tailscale.

I need something that's not too expensive that will support the full 1Gbps speed I get from my Fibre Internet and not add loads of latency that will interfere with gaming.

The Mikro-Tik RouteBoard Hex has low latency and only costs £50, but it only supports 470Mbps so that rules it out. It also looks like it comes with a 2-pin US PSU which is no good for me in the UK, and I hate using those shaver plug adapters as the PSU isn't supported by them physically very well.

Would the Netgear GS305E be OK? The spec sheet says the bandwidth is 10Gbps, and it's only £30 and comes with a 3-pin UK PSU.

I've recently bought a Lenovo ThinkPad T480, i5-8350U, 16GB, 256GB SSD, which does everything I need from a laptop (I mainly use my desktop PC anyway).

My old laptop is a Travelmate 5720, Core 2 Duo T7300, 4GB, 128GB SSD. It boots fairly quickly and it's usable for basic stuff like browsing, but running Windows 10 the CPU is at 99% most of the time just from the background Windows processes, so the noisy fan is running at full speed, and doing Windiws updates takes ages

It's not worth spending any money to upgrade the RAM or SSD, but I could replace the DVD drive with a spare 256GB that I've got. The current SSD is almost full but that's because I've got dual-boot Windows and Linux installed, so if I was only running Linux it would probably be sufficient.

Before I scrap it (I'll keep the SSD), I was just wondering if there's anything that it might be better suited for than my desktop, laptop, M700 SFF PC (which is my main self-hosted machine and backup server) and my various RPis?

Maybe being portable gives it an advantage for some task over the other machines? The battery isn't great, probably runs for an hour or so, but at least I can disconnect it from the power and move it around without shutting it down, and it will keep running for a while if there's a powercut, or I have to turn off the mains to do some DIY. Of course, my modem/router wouldn't have any power then, not would any of my other PCs, but I could use my phone as a temporary hotspot to maintain connectivity for whatever is running on the laptop.

Or maybe having a keyboard and monitor gives it some advantages over the RPi for some particular task I haven't thought of? The M700 won't have a keyboard or monitor connected most of the time either, but I'm not sure it matters when I can just SSH or VNC into these machines from my desktop.

Or maybe there's some software I might want to run permanently on a dedicated machine, rather than having it on my new laptop or my desktop, where I need to reboot into Linux or Windows for different tasks (and with the new laptop I'll sometimes want to take it out with me), so they won't be able to run any software permanently? Although if that's the only reason, a RPi would probably be just as good for this.

I've got 4 x 16TB and 2 x 5TB USB HDDs currently running a Chia farm on a RPi v4 4GB. I'm thinking of using them for a Storj node instead, but I understand it could take 1-2 years to fill even one 16TB drive, so in the meantime I want to keep the other drives running the Chia farm.

I want to shuck the 4 x 16TB drives into an enclosure (Mediasonic HF2-SU3S3) to make things tidier, but I'll only be able to connect that to a single RPi via USB (or I could use a SFF Lenovo M700 PC instead of the RPi), so that will only work if Chia and Storj can run together on the same machine, with 1 drive assigned to Storj and the other three assigned to Chia (I assume the enclosure is just like a USB hub, so the machine still sees all the drives as separate).

If that won't work and I'll need two machines, I'll need to get a s/h tower PC case with 4+ 3.5" bays for the drives, and then get some SATA to USB adapters to connect them to the respective machines.

So I need to know whether I can just use one machine before I decide whether to buy an enclosure or a PC case.