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I built a $5k Raspberry Pi server (yes, it's ridiculous)

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: I built a $5k Raspberry Pi server (yes, it's ridiculous)

#21

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

The headline buries the lede: It’s a NAS build that uses expensive SSDs. I’m looking forward to the day that I can retire my spinning-disk NAS, but at $700 per 8TB SSD I think it’s going to be a while before they’re cheap enough that I want to take that leap. Like this article concludes: Using a Raspberry Pi for an SSD NAS is a huge waste. There are plenty of low-power Mini-ITX or smaller x86 boards with substantiall…

> I’m looking forward to the day that I can retire my spinning-disk NAS, but at $700 per 8TB SSD I think it’s going to be a while before they’re cheap enough that I want to take that leap.

It's not just the price - SSDs are not a good choice for long-term storage, especially if they're not powered up continuously.

Re: I built a $5k Raspberry Pi server (yes, it's ridiculous)

#22

Post by colechristensen »

rym_ wrote: post #7

I get so frustrated with the idiotic thumbnails on youtube video these days. I am sure it's all optimized for the maximum number of clicks/views but if I see a still that looks the way it does at the bottom of this page I generally just don't watch it on principle.

Lowest common denominator psychological manipulation.

It works, optimizing for it makes you a part of the march towards idocracy, but hey, profits!

Re: I built a $5k Raspberry Pi server (yes, it's ridiculous)

#23

Post by [deleted] »

ulzeraj wrote: post #10

I have a question about this. I don't use unencrypted storage and RPis have no hardware accelerated extensions. But modern SSDs do, and IMO it is good enough for some stuff even considering the issues. They call it Self Encrypted Disks but I don't know if this feature requires some BIOS specific instructions or special devices like TMPs or if there are special parameters one could pass to GEOM or LUKS to use those en…

[deleted]

Re: I built a $5k Raspberry Pi server (yes, it's ridiculous)

#24

Post by geerlingguy »

rym_ wrote: post #7

I get so frustrated with the idiotic thumbnails on youtube video these days. I am sure it's all optimized for the maximum number of clicks/views but if I see a still that looks the way it does at the bottom of this page I generally just don't watch it on principle.

Believe me, I had a nice discussion yesterday with my sister (who helped me take pictures for the thumbnail), and we both agreed it's one of the dumbest things about current YouTube...

The thing is, from all my own A/B testing, a face vs. no face will automatically get 20-30% more views (all else equal). And an exaggerated face, a bit more than that.

Re: I built a $5k Raspberry Pi server (yes, it's ridiculous)

#25

Post by tw04 »

ulzeraj wrote: post #10

I have a question about this. I don't use unencrypted storage and RPis have no hardware accelerated extensions. But modern SSDs do, and IMO it is good enough for some stuff even considering the issues. They call it Self Encrypted Disks but I don't know if this feature requires some BIOS specific instructions or special devices like TMPs or if there are special parameters one could pass to GEOM or LUKS to use those en…

SED requires a key server to function or a utility to manually enter a password. sedutil appears to be the go-to on linux assuming it's not your boot drive:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Self-encrypting_drives#Encr...

In the enterprise we use external keyservers like the ones Thales sells.

Re: I built a $5k Raspberry Pi server (yes, it's ridiculous)

#27

Post by geerlingguy »

dragontamer wrote: post #12
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

The headline buries the lede: It’s a NAS build that uses expensive SSDs. I’m looking forward to the day that I can retire my spinning-disk NAS, but at $700 per 8TB SSD I think it’s going to be a while before they’re cheap enough that I want to take that leap. Like this article concludes: Using a Raspberry Pi for an SSD NAS is a huge waste. There are plenty of low-power Mini-ITX or smaller x86 boards with substantiall…

Hard drives can easily saturate a 1Gbps link. And RAIDed hard drives can saturate 5Gbps or even 10Gbps with enough parallelism. I'm not sure if any NAS is cost-effective when you use SSDs, aside from maybe a cost-effective SSD cache (Maybe a $100 to $250 1TB L2ARC cache, depending on the speed of the SSD you get).

Indeed, the board in the video (Radxa Taco, hopefully for sale next month) would actually make a decent 1 Gbps NAS (with a 2nd 2.5G port if you want to also use it as a router or have higher network storage speed for short bursts) for HDDs.

Most of the average NAS HDDs top out at speeds that are within the Pi's performance realm, though software RAID and ZFS both bottleneck a bit, so you can't get a full 2.5 Gbps (2.3 Gbps real-world) through the Pi to the disks.

Re: I built a $5k Raspberry Pi server (yes, it's ridiculous)

#30

Post by ZiiS »

ulzeraj wrote: post #10

I have a question about this. I don't use unencrypted storage and RPis have no hardware accelerated extensions. But modern SSDs do, and IMO it is good enough for some stuff even considering the issues. They call it Self Encrypted Disks but I don't know if this feature requires some BIOS specific instructions or special devices like TMPs or if there are special parameters one could pass to GEOM or LUKS to use those en…

The common standard for SED is TCG OPAL. This has a pre-boot image allowing you to enter your password. Once the drive is decrypted it is completly transparent with your unmodified bootloader and kernel loaded with normal commands. I don't think the RasPi can trigger this unlocking nor could be modified to.
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