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)
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Compact business desktops like others have mentioned are great. Depending on your needs, I also like using older or used laptops. They’re still power efficient if you get a recent processor model, people sell them for fairly cheap used, and sometimes having an attached keyboard and display is more convenient than having to hook up a crash cart
Plus it’s got a built-in UPS
Are they cheap though? Maybe in the grand scheme of things.
Like $200 for one Thinkpad versus five raspberry pis.
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!
my router is a Lenovo m920q tiny
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).
Yeah Lenovo tinies ares great I have a bunch of m910q’s I use for everything
A used NUC blows a raspi out of the water performance-wise, and they use surprisingly little power when not under load. I run proxmox with a NAS, pihole and homeassistant on a NUC from 2015, and it draws around 9W.
If you want embedded boards Rockchip and Sunxi/AllWinner are pretty well supported by the Linux kernel. Go have a look at boards with full Armbian support, that’s usually a good shortcut to finding one.
My preference runs to the Nanopi boards, they’re better built than Orange Pi hardware. You’re going to see a lot of Orange Pi recommendations based on cost but be aware that they’re not all that well made and occasionally have reliability problems. I was pretty chuffed for my $20 Orange Pi zero until I realized that the WiFi basically had zero chance of working reliably. Pick models carefully after reading about people’s experiences with them on the Armbian forums so you can avoid duds.
If you don’t need embedded arm check out the thin client selection on eBay. You can buy a J5005 Dell/Wyse thin client for like $100, some models even have a low profile pcie slot (these cost a bit more because they’re desirable as pf/OPNsense platforms.) These make pretty solid Proxmox or container host platforms, or you can use them for their intended purpose and jam in a low profile graphics card.
My personal “I don’t feel like spending $150 on a 4gb pi” favorite is the HP T630 thin client. On a good day you’ll find an 8gb RAM model with the power brick for <$60 shipped. Do the eBay thing with any of these and try to best offer the price down a bit if it’s an option.
If you want to step up a notch check out the HP T730, this one comes with a pcie slot and makes a fairly decent Proxmox virtualized router host. They’re usually available for <$130/shipped or less. The HP T740 is the same thing with a Zen1 embedded SoC, those run ~$220 or so and support NVMe. The Wyse 5070 offers Celeron or Pentium options and is a <10W machine, the J5005 version actually works pretty well as a hardware transcoding PLEX host (provided you’re not transcoding 4k.)
The T730 and T630 use SATA m.2 storage, the 5070 and T640 support NVMe. All of these have an m.2 A+E key slot for WiFi or an extra 2230 NIC.
Thin clients off eBay. I picked up a Dell Wyse with 8gb memory, 4 cores, 16g emmc, and a 256G M.2 SSD for about $40. Includes the case, power supply, power button, etc. Still uses very little power. Install the x86_64 version of dietPi on that and it’s been Rock solid running my docker projects.
Also picked up and HP T620 with similar specs. Haven’t started using it yet but I expect similar results.
Much better deal than RPi and for most use cases equal or better able to do the job.
I’ve got a t620, and am using it as a firewall. It has aes-ni so I can generate certs. Plus it has a pcie slot, so I threw a nic in there. Its powerful for around the same price as a raspberry pi is going these days. I think I got it for about $80 plus $10 or $15 for the nic.
I picked up a Dell Wyse with 8gb memory, 4 cores, 16g emmc, and a 256G M.2 SSD for about $40
Wow, that was a very good deal! I’ve just had a look and for those specs 100€ are not enough here in Europe. For that price I’ve bought some Fujitsu Futro that are not even near those specs (2/4GB RAM, 8GB SSD).
Does lol like the prices have gone up a tad, but I just looked and could still pick up a Wyse 5060 with 8gb memory for about 33 USD shipped. Doesn’t seem to include power supply or ssd so add about $10usd each for those maybe $55 or so.
Can’t say what prices are like in Europe tho.
I migrated on to a NUC. They seem to have the right mix of performance and power efficiency, for me. The i3 processor also means you’re not dealing with the extra complexity of Arm64.
Do you mean NUC?
Yes I did. Autocorrect decided to “help”. Apparently the edit I made hasn’t propagated through.
Pine64 single board computers. Rock64, Rockpro64, Quartz64.
Cheap chinese SBCs/TV boxes on Allwinner.
I really Dont know I am Ok with running chinese boards and also https://pine64.com/product-category/rockpro64/?v=0446c16e2e66
the boards you are showing me are 80-90$ which to me is maybe a lot since raspberry pi prices have started to slow down as well
Plus some dockers may not work and jellyfin is saying its not recommended to run it on rasp pi so i dont know actually
I use Hardkernel products for my kid’s PCs, as pihole, etc. Their products are sold under the Odroid brand. I have the Odroid C1 and C4 line of SBCs and they work as expected. The C1 used to be my mediaplayer, now it runs a game server and pihole. A little older, but it still has use.
I’ve been using an XU4 for a number of years. Not used it as a server but it works great as a client. I’m sure it would with excellent as a server. I’ve had Ubuntu, tried Android, and currently running Batocera for gaming.
I like that it has an SD slot like a Pi but also a storage module which plugs onto the board which is much faster. I can boot from one or the other by flicking a switch on the board.
Only draw back is that it doesn’t have onboard WiFi or Bluetooth and limited USB ports. I had to use a powered USB hub then find a PSU with a step down inverter to power it all, making it bigger than a small board. I’d still highly recommend it though.
I use their toaster NAS. The HC4 I think. Not the best multimedia server but it’s a serviceable file server.
I’m a big fan of dell wyse machines. Loads on ebay, ex business machines. X86 so decent support, decent dell power supply, on / off button / in cases and low power.
I have wyse 3040 for pihole cost 39.99
I have wyse 5070 with windows 10 for plex and running a Ubuntu 22 server in virtual box, cost 59.99
Thanks for the suggestion (I am looking forward to other comments as well) Well , I like x86 in general but not for self-hosting maybe? i have heard that they are bulky and take a lot of energy
When people say x86 is not power efficient, it usually means it’s not very efficient for battery powered devices, or is kind of wasteful in situations like in data centers where they’re running thousands of machines. For home use, with a machine that’s gonna probably end up idling most of the time, my best guess is it would cost you a couple tens of dollars a year to run vs a slightly smaller amount.
Personally, just so I don’t have to deal with software compatibility on different architectures, I’ll gladly pay that small difference in power usage, but this will of course vary depending on what you’re looking to run on there.
What you are after is basically a server. Your next logical step if Pi is not enough - Intel NUC.
intel is out of the nuc business.
But you can still get a bunch of good ones on the second hand markets. Also, NUCs are still a thing. Intel deemed the formfactor mature enough too pull out themselves and leave it too the partners to develop further.
Another option is the Dell Optiplex micro. It’s got a Core processor and is about the size of a couple Bluray cases stacked on top of each other. I believe they run about 10-15W under a light load too.
Asus took it over.
Yes, Intel would not make them anymore, but it doesn’t mean there would not be no NUC-alike computers on the market. There are loads of them already, so no issues.
Used an rpi4 for a year as a media server and was quite happy but wanted to run a few more things so I switched to an i3 NUC11 and I really like it. Running an arr stack + plex + jellyfin + nextcloud and its using 7w ‘idle’ (mentioned services running) with a headless debian 12. Fit a 5TB HDD in it and a 1TB nvme. 16GB or ram. It definitely runs faster and jellyfin is actually usable. Still though, rpi4 can handle the load (sans jellyfin). The rpi5 will also fit into this market very well.
Jellyfin recommends not using SBCs. I was in the same boat as you a month ago. Started on an RPi. Works fine for raw (no transcoding). Poor performance if you do any scrubbing or try to watch something while new content is processing. Got a mini PC. It was better but its basically a laptop chipset, so still not the best experience. Had other things I wanted to do on my self-hosted setup so decided to just bite the bullet and make a proper build: 12th gen i5, Intel Arc GPU, 4+8 SATA ports with PCI card, 3xNVME, 10xHDD/SSD case. Can’t speak to the performance yet. Learning Ansible to automate managing it including installing the OS.
I would stay away from NAS systems like QNAP or Synology. They tend to not be much better than a SBC.
For the budget constraints I would just echo getting the cheapest desktop-class PC you can get your hands on in a suitable form factor.
While hardware acceleration is supported on Raspberry Pi hardware, it is recommended that Jellyfin NOT be hosted on Raspberry Pis or other SBCs. Many hardware acceleration features are not supported and will fallback to software. In addition, they are generally too slow to provide a good experience when transcoding is needed. Please consider getting a more powerful system to host Jellyfin.
OrangePi is pretty nice. Built in 8gb eMMC module is a huge performance boost. Only $60 with case and PSU.
Yeah I have an orangepi5 running pihole and a suite of home assistant related docker containers and it’s been working flawlessly. Even has an m.2 slot
Edit: actually read the OP lol. For Jellyfin I think I’d opt for something a bit more powerful than an SBC.
Orange Pi is pretty hit and miss in my experience. I had a number of them a few years ago that either had horrible reliability or problems with their WiFi.
On the other hand my Orange Pi Zero Plus 2 made a great retro emulation machine, I’ve had zero issues with that model.
Do due diligence per model if you’re buying one, some aren’t great.
Second hand thin clients (like the dell wyse already mentioned) are often cheap and easy to use https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/
Just look for a NUC with an Intel N100 with passive cooling.
Hardly the same price range and since most passive cooled N100 rigs come off AliExpress you’ve got to take the lottery of import duty.
