Something small and 2 or 4 GB RAM. Raspberry pi’s compute power is good enough for me, I’m not doing anything too intensive.
Is raspberry pi 4 still the best answer?
I am a tinkerer and don’t mind tinkering. I typically use Gentoo Linux as main OS. I also don’t mind ARM or other architectures. I’ve been eyeing the RockPro64 as well.
I asked the same question a few months ago on a german community.
Most people advised against a SBC (RPI, …). They’re not that much more energy efficient than Mini-PCs (especially with an Intel NUC or Celeron), are more modular + repairable, and use the more common x86-architecture.
You can get an used ThinClient for less than a RPI3, not even to mention a 4. This, and that you don’t contribute to more E-waste, is great.
I use a Fujitsu Esprimo Q920 with an Intel i5-4590T processor, 8 gb RAM and only SSDs.
It draws about 11W under normal load, a RPI3 draws about 5-7, including hard drives, the 4 even more with the active cooling and more performant CPU.The RPI isn’t that more energy efficient, even with the enormous german energy prices, the thin client costs only a few bucks a year.
The RPI is also more prone to break, especially the SD-card.I’m pretty happy with my current setup, would recommend.
I remember reading that thread! Well, kindly asking my half-german wife to translate it for me. It was very helpful!
NO. SBCs aren’t as good as x86 computers, also don’t get server hardware, use regular desktop/laptop machines as they’ll be more than enough for you. Server hardware is way more expensive and won’t be of any advantage. If you’re looking to buy you can even get very good 9-10th gen Intel CPUs and motherboards that are perfect to run servers (very high performance) but that people don’t want because they aren’t good to play the latest games. This hardware is also way more power efficient and sometimes even more powerful than any server hardware that you might get for the same price. Get this hardware for cheap and enjoy.
Is raspberry pi 4 still the best answer?
If you don’t require a TON of computer power some people might suggest ARM board, such as the Raspberry Pi, but be careful with those. ARM is great for power savings but compared to consumer hardware is it shit when it comes to performance and reliability. Also I personally like to avoid the Raspberry Pi and their stuff as much as possible. They’ve done good things for the community however they’ve some predatory tactics and shenanigans that aren’t cool. Here a few examples of what people usually fail to see:
- Requires a special tool to flash. In the past it was all about getting a image and using etcher, dd or wtv to flash it into a card, now they’re pushing people to use Raspberry Pi Imager. Without it you won’t be able to easily disable telemetry and/or login via network out of the box;
- Includes telemetry;
- No alternative open Debian based OS such as Armbian (only the Ubuntu variant);
- Raspberry Pi 5 finally has PCI. But instead of doing what was right they decided to include some proprietary bullshit connector that requires yet another board made by them. For those who are unware other SBC manufacturers simply include a standard PCI slot OR a standard NVME M2 slot. Both great option as hardware for them is common and cheap;
- It is overpriced and behind times.*
*For what’s worth the NanoPi M4 released in 2018 with a RK3399 already had a PCI interface, 4GB of RAM and whatnot and was cheaper than the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ from the same year that had Ethernet shared with the USB bus. If you still want ARM and you’re about just serving a few websites, cloud service wtv pick a Chinese brand such as friendlyelec or rockpi. More computing for less money and a lot less proprietary BS.
I what would recommend is instead a Mini-PC like the HP EliteDesk 800 G2 DM or the Dell OptiPlex 3050 Micro.
If you plan to create a small NAS for storage and self-host a few services even an old laptop will do it, however there are advantages to picking a mini PC. Those machines are quiet, don’t require much power and some can even fit a 2.5" hard drive so you won’t need external hard drive enclosures. More on that later.
Mini-PCs are also cheap second hand, you might be able to get an 8th Gen Intel CPU for 100-200€. Sometimes you’ll find really old models (i3 CPU + 4 GB of RAM) selling for 50€ and while those aren’t usable anymore as a Windows desktop they’re are still more than enough to run your NAS/Cloud solution. I would pick something 6th gen or more recent.
For eg. for 100€ you can find an HP Mini with an i5 8th gen + 16GB of ram + 256GB NVME that obviously has a case, a LOT of I/O, PCIe (m2) comes with a power adapter and outperforms a RPi5 in all possible ways. Note that the RPi5 8GB of ram will cost you 80€ + case + power adapter + cable + bullshit adapter + SD card + whatever else money grab - the Pi isn’t just a good option. Aside from the big brands like HP and Dell there are other alternatives such as the trendy MINISFORUM however their BIOS comes out of the factory with weird bugs and the hardware isn’t as reliable - missing ESD protection on USB in some models and whatnot.
A very important thing for you to consider is the storage / hard drive interface. On a Pi you’re usually constrained to USB for your hard drives, however on a Mini PCs you’ve the following options:
- USB Storage - is slower and USB isn’t very robust, not recommended, the only advantage here is that you don’t have to DIY anything;
- Some of those machines come with a SATA port and space for a 2.5" hard drive, either use it a single drive if you don’t need much storage or get a 5 SATA port card to expand it;
- Recent models come with a NVME M.2. slot (PCIe) and that can be turned into 6 SATA ports with a cheap adapter like this.
In both SATA cases you just have to throw NAS hard drives and a cheap power supply at it and you’ll be done. SATA is faster and way more reliable than USB for storage, it won’t randomly disconnect and you will be able to take full advantage of the disks, no speed limitations like in a typical USB connections. Personally I would pick model that has both the SATA connector and the NVME slot and then use the SATA connector for a small 2.5" SSD (boot drive) and the NVME with the adapter above for the NAS hard drives - this option will give you the best performance.
tldr: don’t waste money on a Pi, get a Mini PC instead that comes with more stuff out of the box and way more performance / stability.
Look up 1L mini PCs - Dell, Lenovo, and HP have similar one liter mini PCs that would’ve been used as a lightweight frontend in offices. They are easy to find on eBay and can be pretty cheap.
For example, my lab at home consists of three Lenovo Thinkcentre tiny machines. I bought them off eBay for $60-80 USD. They each came with a 500gb HDD and 8gb RAM. I have since upgraded them all to a 500gb NVME, 500gb SSD (they have a 2.5" drive bay), and 32gb of RAM. They run as a Proxmox VE cluster.
I think I might have $500 USD into the entire setup, including my 10" wide rack enclosure.
ooh i like the idea of the proxmox cluster
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Pi’s have kinda garbage IO. You’re limited to USB only which is a shared bus (so if you’re saturating one hard drive, the other drives won’t be able to do shit and I dislike it) you’re also required to boot from SD card on a Pi, and OS level writes tend to kill SD cards frequently.
The Orange Pi 5 that I have technically has a PCIe NVME M.2 slot that runs at PCIe 2.0x2 iirc. I’ve not done it with mine yet, so I can’t guarantee compatibility, but that can theoretically be split using a m.2 to SATA controller adapter like that
But at that point and cost the Rockpro64 look like a legitimate option, since PCIe to SATA adapters using a 4x slot exist all over the damn place.
Honest opinion though: look for used office PC sales or government/school district clearing sales. I’ve gotten a stack of older 2nd/3rd gen intel Core machines at $50 a pop that are plenty fast for light home server use and have full fat motherboards for connecting up a bunch of SATA devices. They’re a little more power hungry- expect 50W or more at idle when you have drives spinning - but they simplify setup a lot, they package nicely since you can put the drives inside, and the power supply is built in.
Note that the Pi5 finally exposes PCIe, which introduces the potential for much better IO. technically the CM4 already did that, but that moves the price outside normal Pi prices with the necessary carrier boards to make use of it).
But I agree that for most tasks there are better, more competitively prices SBCs out there. The major reason to pick the Pi is popularity and wide usage/support (which is especially useful for new users IMO).
yeah, it exposes PCIe, i forgot about that. but still a single lane and requiring an additional adapter card and ribbon cable that complicates packaging a bit and adds cost. I dunno, I’m sour on Pi these days since they’ve spent years screwing over consumers in favor of business customers. I’ve chosen not to buy their stuff despite the better software support.
I just snagged a Lenovo thinkcentre m700 for £85 on eBay. It’s got an i5 2.7ghz, 16gb ram and 6usb3 ports. It’s perfect.
I recently wrote a blog post about the new NAS I built myself and why I didn’t choose for a RPI 4. https://jeroenpelgrims.com/diy-nas/
I think it terms of price it won’t be much more expensive than an RPI NAS, but you’ll get more performance and stability.
If you don’t care about power usage and/or connecting stuff through USB you can also buy some older hardware instead.
A low end celeron NUC would be best. I have one that has been doing the heavy lifting for my home services for 4 years
While the RockPro64 is great if you are looking for something ARM based, I will recommend the x64 based Odroid H3(+).
Mine has an nvme as OS drive and 2 sata SSDs as storage drives. It idles below 10W and uses like 15W under load.
Can recommend.
H3+: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h3-plus/
H3: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h3/ (what I have)
Mine is running on one of these https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BYZC4SMW which exceeds your specs by quite a bit. They have substantially cheaper models closer to your range, I’ll bet you can find something.
I haven’t had mine for very long but so far it’s been A+.
Yeah that one is way OP. My 4yo celeron NUC 8GB with 128GB SSD and 2x4TB external drives is ample for everything I throw at it
EDIT - there is a Ryzen 5 option in that page for 350 would be ample
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Just wondering why noone advices to use your NAS for this? Very basic specs but it’s on 24/7 anyway and it has disk capacity?
Are they not expensive?
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters NAS Network-Attached Storage NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage SBC Single-Board Computer SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
7 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 7 acronyms.
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I’m not a shil for them, but I’ve been using a zimaboard as my main “server” with a raspi 4 clone running the *arr suite. 2 SATA connectors and a PCIe slot, I’ve got a daughter card with two more SATA spots, 2HDDs and 2SSDs. I’m powering the whole setup with an old pc power supply.
A steam deck might be a cheaper alternative.
