Hello , dear lemmy users , I am starting to really like self-host because they are really fast and mostly i use open source stuff (like lemmy /photon etc) which were sometimes slow but after self hosting it now on the pc i am on using , i really like it
Now , I would like to host some stuff like jellyfin , navindrome , photon , adgaurd home and just leave it running on a device in maybe near future (i can convince my brother to pay for it , after he gets his job maybe)
TLDR : I wanted to ask What’s your favourite alternative to raspberry pi for simple self hosting or maybe possible near home automation
Edit: thank you all for helping me , I am starting to believe that i should look into using dell wyse or the likes which are meant to be used for hosting or a old laptop (since i dont own a laptop anyway , i just own a pc ) and since i run linux anyways , i am thinking of owning a laptop dual booting it with alpine (that has docker) and a simple minimalist os like hyprland on it just in case i need to travel with it (which to me seems very unlikely , I dont travel much so…) I am confused about it
Edit 2 : I am very new to self hosting so currently i would run stuff on my pc only (using portainer) , However when needed to buy , i am thinking of buying the cheapest thin client maybe a nuc or dell wyse
I am already trying searxng , shiori(bookmark manager) , portainer,freshrss , photon , froodle-s pdf tool which i have all closed except portainer currently I am also thinking of shifting to podman as well but cant find a good gui for it like portainer , (portainer really just blew my mind with its templates)
Go on eBay and look for “tiny” or USFF boxes. Dell, HP, and Lenovo make various models of 1L units that are commonly available. Just make sure to do some research on what the specific hardware capabilities are to make sure they satisfy your needs.
Source: my router is a Lenovo m920q tiny with an eBay dual SFP+ 10G NIC running pfSense 2.7.
Will second this idea. I’ve had good luck running low-use Samba servers on a Lenovo tiny model.
Thin clients are also solidly good as container hosts. I’ve used HP T630s and Wyse 5070s in place of RPis during the great pi shortage with good results. You know something is fucked when you can spend less money on a J5005 with 8gb RAM than you do on a Pi 4.
I’ve had good luck running more intensive loads on more recent models of these systems, say 3 to 5 gens old … multiple desktop OSes running concurrently on Proxmox, etc. The “1 liter” class of PCs is really quite capable these days!
With which CPU? How much does it consumes?
i5 8500T. I don’t recall exactly what the power draw is, but iirc it’s in the 20-30w range - admittedly a bit high, but that’s likely due to the old LSI nic in there which is technically an enterprise-grade card, and not terribly power efficient. Nonetheless, works great, full 10G speed, no thermal issues in the last few months I’ve been running it (in the summer, so I should be totally fine in the winter).
Can you get 10Gbps NAT throughput through it? That’s the main reason I’m not running my own pfSense/opnSense router.
I’ve currently got a TP-Link ER8411 which was affordable ($350) and can reach 10Gbps, but it doesn’t have an IPv6 firewall (what???) so I can’t actually enable IPv6.
So the big gain you’ll likely see is bang/capability for the money. If you’re careful and wait for a deal, can usually find 1L boxes for like $50-75. Get a cheap m2 ssd (and back up your confs regularly if you’re not running raid z2). The nic is going to be anywhere from about 30-70, but you’ll need to do your research on exactly what capabilities the thing you’re buying has (for example: I had a false start initially, because the RJ45 10G nic I found couldn’t negotiate at 2.5G (what I’m running now), and it’s actually pretty hard to find a 2.5G enterprise nic. Make sure the nic is intel, too - none of that Realtek crap, which is less performant and often has stupid driver crap you have to deal with under Linux and BSD (pfSense). You may want to spend a few extra bucks and get the Lenovo external pcie mount plate/bracket for aesthetics/“don’t stick your fingies in here”, and you will need an adapter for Lenovo’s proprietary PCIe-but-not-a-standard-PCIe-port thing.
I’ve actually got a spare HP ProDesk SFF PC with an Intel Core i5-9500. Would that CPU be sufficient?
I’ve also got a spare 10Gbps Trendnet NIC which uses an Aquantia AQC107 chip. Are Aquantia OK for this purpose?
Yeah, though the advantage of the T sku CPUs is that they have ultra low tdp. Great for 24/7 boxes.
The T version is usually the same price as the non-T version, and on a good motherboard you can modify the power limits in the BIOS to make a non-T CPU perform similarly to the T version.
Yeah Lenovo tinies ares great I have a bunch of m910q’s I use for everything