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Ask HN: Always on low power home server

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Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server

#41

Post by rendaw »

I use a DFI EC700-BT! It's been so awesome I've wanted to plug them forever but haven't found a chance! So thanks for this thread!

Fanless, ECC ram, space for a drive inside but I have it attached to a usb disk tower. I got it a handful of years ago so I'm sure it's aged, but I regularly stream video from it over an SSH tunnel. It has two ethernet ports too!

And the coolest part: I was having an issue with booting due to my buggy usb disk array, and it was a pain to move it over to my desk to attach a screen to troubleshoot. I contacted DFI support and asked if they could enable console port boot, and they built and sent me a new bios image to flash with the console port boot feature!

Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server

#42

Post by puzzlingcaptcha »

For the price of RPi (or less!) you can buy a second-hand thin client which will have much more robust storage options and easy expandability.

Some recommendations: HP T520/T620, Fujitsu Futro S520/S720, Wyse Dx0Q

https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hp/t520/ https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/Futro/s520/ https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/d/dx0q/

Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server

#43

Post by shaicoleman »

You can use a USB enclosure + drive with a Raspberri Pi, e.g. [1] [2]

If you plan on something more CPU intensive (e.g. running VMs), another option that looks interesting is the System76 Meerkat [3]

1. https://www.amazon.com/SSK-Aluminum-Enclosure-External-Based...

2. https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-1TB-SSD-WDS100T2B0B/dp/B073...

3. https://system76.com/desktops/meerkat

Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server

#44

Post by zhte415 »

I don't really understand why Plug Computers [1] didn't catch on a lot. A decade and a half later and hardly made a dent. Super things, very simple to use, just plug it in and leave it running. A decade and a half however is a long time and they've not come far other than getting bigger and less able to compete on features with new offerings. Perhaps the horse has left the stable on these.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug_computer

Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server

#45

Post by mettamage »

dewey wrote: post #31
mettamage wrote: post #30

For some Europeans: fly to US, buy Mac Mini with M1 chip for $699. For some other Europeans: go to country with lax tax policy, fly to US, buy Mac Mini with M1 chip for $699. You'd be set back by about 579 euro. In my country, the Mac Mini is 799 euro. So the difference is 220 euro. So if you wanted to visit the US, then it might be worth it. The tricky part: figuring out how to do this legally. It's probably not pos…

Seems a lot easier to just pay the taxes than to fly around the world in a pandemic?

I think it depends. If you decide to stay there for a month in a remote area, then you're probably doing the world a favor by not being a vector.

Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server

#46

Post by moocowtruck »

zhte415 wrote: post #44

I don't really understand why Plug Computers [1] didn't catch on a lot. A decade and a half later and hardly made a dent. Super things, very simple to use, just plug it in and leave it running. A decade and a half however is a long time and they've not come far other than getting bigger and less able to compete on features with new offerings. Perhaps the horse has left the stable on these. [1] https://en.wikipedia.or…

I thought a few plug computers over the last decade... honestly I always had fire hazard at the back of my mind...and the one time I opened one up that was getting hot only to be horrified by the setup inside and stopped using it! Of course this doesn't speak for all plug computers, just why I've avoided them since

Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server

#47

Post by dewey »

mettamage wrote: post #45
dewey wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems a lot easier to just pay the taxes than to fly around the world in a pandemic?

I think it depends. If you decide to stay there for a month in a remote area, then you're probably doing the world a favor by not being a vector.

I'd argue that staying at home is doing the world a bigger favor, both in terms of air pollution and in terms of "being a vector". For most people it also doesn't make sense to sit around on a flight to save a couple of bucks, their time is usually more valuable than that.

Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server

#48

Post by 40four »

I think there is an awesome setup that many are overlooking! With a RockPro64 board, you can configure it to use SSD's, both SATA & NVMe!

RockPro64 boards: https://pine64.com/product-category/rockpro64/?v=0446c16e2e6... Accessories: https://pine64.com/product-category/rockpro64-accessories/?v...

I think these RockPro64 boards are highly underrated. I got one a while back, I was looking for something more powerful than a Raspberry pi. You can get it with 2 or 4 GB RAM.

They have PCI-e slots, so the SSD interface cards plug into the board through them. With this setup you will get full performance from your drive, instead of having to rely on a USB connection on raspberry pi & others.

SATA: https://pine64.com/product/rockpro64-pci-e-to-dual-sata-ii-i... NVMe: https://pine64.com/product/rockpro64-pci-e-x4-to-m-2-ngff-nv...

I've not set mine up like this yet, as I've not been doing much with my board lately except running pi-hole. But I plan on getting an NVMe interface in the future, and maybe the metal desktop casing. I think this type of setup is exactly what you're looking for. The cost is reasonable. If you get a 4GB board, a power supply, and an SATA interface you'd be all in for ~$103 before shipping.

There are lots of accessories, and tons of OS options with an easy installer. I just checked, as of writing this the are builds for (both desktop & minimal) Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, CentOS, Manjaro, Armbian debian/ubuntu, DietPi. Also other stuff like Recalbox, batocera, OpenMediaVault, ChromiumOS, or Android. I not an expert in the entire SBC market, but I'm doubt many other boards have community support for that many different OSs.

Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server

#49

Post by postlmc »

I’ve been running a pair of BeagelBone Black SBCs for this for years. The one I just retired to replace with the current model had been running nearly continuously since 2014. (Powered down to move — twice — and for power outages here and there.) It's anecdotal, but my experience so far is that the onboard eMMC seems faster and is less corruption-prone than SD cards.

Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server

#50

Post by spiderpug »

ohuf wrote: post #24

I left the RasPi behind for a 2nd hand Lenovo m93p tiny for about $100. (An alternative HW would be the Dell Optiplex 9020 micro). You can upgrade the RAM on these and they use standard SSDs. I'm booting the Proxmox VM environment and it's currently running a VM and a LXC container, with lots of future opportunities. Proxmox allows you to reserve a vm's access to the USB ports, which comes in handy if you want to att…

I second that. I'm running the same machine, but without virtualization.

It's mostly idle and very power efficient, which was very important to me cause power is 35c$/kWh. Chose the version with i5-4590T.

Works out great so far.

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