I use a NUC running ESXi and it’s superb. Generally it’s pretty silent if VMs are idle, which is 95% of the time.
Ask HN: Always on low power home server
51–60 of 139 posts
Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server
#52I'd again recommend a Raspberry Pi (ideally 4 with 4GB+ RAM), but with some modifications. - You can choose an high endurance MicroSD card to maximize its life. - You can delegate big file storage to something external (a HDD or SSD w/USB 3.0 connection). If you want something small, SanDisk Extreme Pro USB stick is a real SSD with USB-SATA bridge inside and 400MB/sec throughput. - Armbian writes logs and swap to RAM…
To put the money where my mouth is:
1. A little how-to for storing your logs in RAM, a la Armbian style:
- https://github.com/azlux/log2ram (It's still updated)
2. Move your SWAP to ZRAM, again Armbian style:
- https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap
This two will improve your SD card life considerably.
Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server
#53I'd again recommend a Raspberry Pi (ideally 4 with 4GB+ RAM), but with some modifications. - You can choose an high endurance MicroSD card to maximize its life. - You can delegate big file storage to something external (a HDD or SSD w/USB 3.0 connection). If you want something small, SanDisk Extreme Pro USB stick is a real SSD with USB-SATA bridge inside and 400MB/sec throughput. - Armbian writes logs and swap to RAM…
To put the money where my mouth is: 1. A little how-to for storing your logs in RAM, a la Armbian style: - https://github.com/azlux/log2ram (It's still updated) 2. Move your SWAP to ZRAM, again Armbian style: - https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap This two will improve your SD card life considerably.
Are these useful for a normal laptop's SSD?
Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
To put the money where my mouth is: 1. A little how-to for storing your logs in RAM, a la Armbian style: - https://github.com/azlux/log2ram (It's still updated) 2. Move your SWAP to ZRAM, again Armbian style: - https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap This two will improve your SD card life considerably.
Are these useful for a normal laptop's SSD?
Yes, but if it's a relatively modern SSD; this might be overkill.
Take a look to your writing stats with smartctl and how worn is your SSD over time. If it's in good condition, I wouldn't worry.
What's the SSD you're using?
Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server
#55I 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
Right. I think this is a huge missed gap that may or more likely may not be filled in the future. A phone USB charger isn't in risk of being a fire hazard, nor an eSATA, nor some RAM, nor a wireless card. Passive cooling is plenty as long as not stuck in a cupboard, and being plugged into a wall brings the benefits of heat transfer to the wall.
I agree that most implementations have got me cautious as well. But it shouldn't be so. I feel the concept has been eclipsed on several fronts and it'll take quite an effort to become mainstream.
Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server
#56I use a mini-ITX board (GA-C1007UN), which has an embedded Celeron CPU and two GbE ports. It serves me for almost five years now as a home server, router and Wi-Fi access point. The downside is that it requires an ATX power supply and is not completely silent.
You could use a picoPSU.
Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server
#57I'd again recommend a Raspberry Pi (ideally 4 with 4GB+ RAM), but with some modifications. - You can choose an high endurance MicroSD card to maximize its life. - You can delegate big file storage to something external (a HDD or SSD w/USB 3.0 connection). If you want something small, SanDisk Extreme Pro USB stick is a real SSD with USB-SATA bridge inside and 400MB/sec throughput. - Armbian writes logs and swap to RAM…
I'm guessing that kind of setup won't be powerful enough for something like hosting a Plex Server to stream x265-content to a chromecast, right?
Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server
#58I 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
I used a ShivaPlug and part of it melted. I was glad when I had planned for that by putting it on a low risk surface - it came with a cord option, and I was using that partly because I also don't like the strain it was likely to induce on the outlet.
Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server
#59I 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…
You can add the Fujitsu Esprimo Q910/Q920 to the list of alternatives. There are many cheap options on eBay.
I also run Proxmox, with a few LXC containers and full KVM virtual machines, including a reverse proxy that routes traffic to them —- it’s great!
Re: Ask HN: Always on low power home server
#60Not super low cost, but I've been happy with my Synology DiskStation.
It's a NAS device that can act as a general-purpose Linux server.
Install Docker and you're off to the races.