Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup • Hacker News Board

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#41

Post by derekp7 » Mon, Oct 09, 2023, 2:24 PM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #20

If you care about Sata3 interfaces, the Odroid HC4 has two of them with vertical disk holders. https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-hc4/odroid-hc4 The one I'm using as home server is consuming 3.48 W now with a Samsung 850 SSD (1 TB.)

What speed can you get over ssh to that board? The big issue I had with the Raspberry Pi 4 when using it as a low-powered server is when I run my backups to it over ssh, the network transfers top out at about 20 MB/s (just raw transfer speed going to /dev/null) vs. around 100MB/s I get on a regular x86 board.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#42

Post by _cenw » Mon, Oct 09, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

lakomen wrote: post #3

A server without ECC RAM is not a server, sorry. It's a catastrophe bound to happen.

Just remember, corruption happens outside the memory too.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#43

Post by MisterTea » Mon, Oct 09, 2023, 2:28 PM UTC

alias_neo wrote: post #36

zekica wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90W is peak power consumption for these. They idle at about 8-9W measured at the wall socket or $22-25/year.

That's why I included a 60W cost too. What's the point running hardware 24/7/365 is it's idle?

So you can connect on demand? My server is mostly idle too as it only serves me.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#44

Post by orangeisthe » Mon, Oct 09, 2023, 2:32 PM UTC

alias_neo wrote: post #27

justinclift wrote: post #6

> This variant of the board costs 200 USD ... Doesn't sound like a good deal when compared with 2nd hand microservers and small form factor PCs from Ebay. Things like these: ∙ https://www.ebay.com/itm/175917817224 ⇦ 2x NVMe slots ∙ https://www.ebay.com/itm/204477355543 ⇦ 4x 3.5" drives, ECC memory capable Note - I don't know those sellers.

We don't all live in countries where electricity is near-free. In the UK, it would cost more in electricity than the $200 Zimaboard to run one of those eBay machines for a single year. e.g. 90W 24/7 for a year is ~£212 (~$258 US), 60W 24/7: ~£142 ($173 US) In this price range, power-consumption is a _major_ decision factor.

90W f24/7? Let me stop you right there

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#45

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia » Mon, Oct 09, 2023, 2:32 PM UTC

alias_neo wrote: post #36

zekica wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90W is peak power consumption for these. They idle at about 8-9W measured at the wall socket or $22-25/year.

That's why I included a 60W cost too. What's the point running hardware 24/7/365 is it's idle?

Instant availability of the services provided without waiting on bootup, wakeup, or anything else.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#46

Post by Zetobal » Mon, Oct 09, 2023, 2:36 PM UTC

alias_neo wrote: post #27

justinclift wrote: post #6

> This variant of the board costs 200 USD ... Doesn't sound like a good deal when compared with 2nd hand microservers and small form factor PCs from Ebay. Things like these: ∙ https://www.ebay.com/itm/175917817224 ⇦ 2x NVMe slots ∙ https://www.ebay.com/itm/204477355543 ⇦ 4x 3.5" drives, ECC memory capable Note - I don't know those sellers.

We don't all live in countries where electricity is near-free. In the UK, it would cost more in electricity than the $200 Zimaboard to run one of those eBay machines for a single year. e.g. 90W 24/7 for a year is ~£212 (~$258 US), 60W 24/7: ~£142 ($173 US) In this price range, power-consumption is a _major_ decision factor.

It's not the 00s anymore hardware can idle and handle light workloads without sucking the full tdp out of the socket.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#47

Post by alias_neo » Mon, Oct 09, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

_cenw wrote: post #39

alias_neo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't all live in countries where electricity is near-free. In the UK, it would cost more in electricity than the $200 Zimaboard to run one of those eBay machines for a single year. e.g. 90W 24/7 for a year is ~£212 (~$258 US), 60W 24/7: ~£142 ($173 US) In this price range, power-consumption is a _major_ decision factor.

More reason to buy the kind of passively cooled mini PC people get as pfSense routers from AliExpress & co. You get Jasper Lake (2021) or even Alder Lake (2023) instead of the much older Apollo Lake from 2016. The only thing you really miss out on is the form factor and the PCIe slot.

Can't disagree with you there.

And I'm not a huge fan of the form-factor either, it gets messy once you've got your SATA connectors, power and ethernet.

Not suggesting Zima is the right solution, but ebaying dated hardware often isn't either for many of us.

Don't get me wrong, it's great there are people who can use this stuff and not pay disproportionate prices for electricity to run it; but much of the world isn't in that situation; maybe one day.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#48

Post by firecall » Mon, Oct 09, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

alias_neo wrote: post #36

zekica wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90W is peak power consumption for these. They idle at about 8-9W measured at the wall socket or $22-25/year.

That's why I included a 60W cost too. What's the point running hardware 24/7/365 is it's idle?

Because home servers tend to be bursty on demand workloads.

If you doing something that is hammering a CPU at 100% 24/7, then you’d get a faster CPI to get the workload completed faster and you’d be back to having idle CPU cycles…

Now RAM on the other hand!

Free RAM is wasted RAM!

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#49

Post by tmpX7dMeXU » Mon, Oct 09, 2023, 2:41 PM UTC

alias_neo wrote: post #36

zekica wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90W is peak power consumption for these. They idle at about 8-9W measured at the wall socket or $22-25/year.

That's why I included a 60W cost too. What's the point running hardware 24/7/365 is it's idle?

This just flat-out isn’t representative of what I’d expect a home server workload to be.

Re: Zimaboard: The closest thing to my dream home server setup

#50

Post by MisterTea » Mon, Oct 09, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

justinclift wrote: post #6

> This variant of the board costs 200 USD ... Doesn't sound like a good deal when compared with 2nd hand microservers and small form factor PCs from Ebay. Things like these: ∙ https://www.ebay.com/itm/175917817224 ⇦ 2x NVMe slots ∙ https://www.ebay.com/itm/204477355543 ⇦ 4x 3.5" drives, ECC memory capable Note - I don't know those sellers.

The Lenovo Thinkcentre M720Q and M920Q have both an m.2 M key and an internal PCIe x8 slot you can stuff a GPU, quad gigabit or dual 10GbE into. No ECC though. Sells for about $100 on eBay for a decent one with PSU that is the same PSU as their laptops (Bonus if you're a Thinkpad user). You need a riser and rear bracket for the PCIe slot that can be found on eBay for like $25. I have a 6 core i5, 32GB RAM, a dual Intel 10Gb adapter and 2TB NVMe in mine. Idles at 19W which is 2W less than the rectangular trash can 10Gb Verizon router's 21W. Total build cost was around $200 for all used hardware.