Hi all,

I want to spin up a small home server. Nothing crazy, maybe 4 or 8GB ram at most. 1 Docker instance running a few privacy frontends (Invidious, Redlib, Xcancel, SearxNG, etc.) and split tunneling VPN connections for each one.

Obviously, a Raspberry Pi 4 or higher is the internet’s favorite choice, but I don’t need wireless connectivity, I just need a single HDMI and 2 USB ports to get everything set up, one ethernet port, and a dream in my heart.

Has anyone use alternatives like Le Potato or Orange Pi? I’m curious what their community support is like, and if there’s a FOSS-friendly standard.

Thanks!

  • Telodzrum@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    23 days ago

    Used micro PC is often the best deal. Companies offload old SFF i5 and lower machines all the time. They’re all over eBay.

    • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      23 days ago

      I used to be of the erroneous mind set that a server had to be some big honkin’, dim the lights, piece of equipment, but that’s not necessarily true now days with modern architecture. Doesn’t take a lot to get a lot back.

      • Telodzrum@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        23 days ago

        Dude same. Back in the day I was dead set on getting older blades and a couple Dell 710 in a rack and “that’s what a real homelab is.”

        Now, I still got the rack because I think they look cool, but it’s all decommissioned workstations, a white box unRaid server, and micro/mini PCs; there’s not a single traditional server box in place.

        • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          23 days ago

          Now, I still got the rack because I think they look cool

          I recently decommissioned one of my Dell T320s, and replaced it with the Dell Optiplex 7020 SFF with the i7-4790 and maxed out to 32 gb RAM. I paid $117 USD for the Optiplex 7020 SFF which came with 8GB RAM, and I maxed it out with three more 8 GB RAM sticks for about $75 USD.

          The Dell T320 costs ~$40/month in electrical costs in my locale to run. The Dell Optiplex 7020 SFF costs $5-8/month to run. So, less than the duration of this year, I will have recouped my initial $200 investment in the Optiplex 7020 SFF just in power consumption alone, and I’ll have ‘left over’ money if I wanted to get yet another Optiplex 7020 SFF. I have 40+ containers running on the Optiplex 7020 SFF, and it hasn’t broke a sweat yet. Far more quieter than the Dell T320 and less heat funneling into the server room.

          I’m going to sell the T320 which is also maxed out at 32 GB RAM, so I’ll have more $$ to replace the other T320. Winner winner chicken dinner.

    • GreenShimada@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      23 days ago

      Yeah, I was looking earlier, and sort of didn’t know what to even look for, but then everyone here made suggestions of what to look for. I’m all over this!

  • zebidiah@lemmy.caEnglish
    14·
    22 days ago

    Unless you specifically need ultra low power draw, a minipc is always a better bang for your buck, the cheapest solution is the dusty old laptop sitting on the shelf at the back of your closet…

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    7·
    23 days ago

    I’ve owned a few devices like Orange Pi but really more as a curiosity that I never did much with. I have, however, seen discussions suggesting that when you move away from the RasPi ecosystem, support for various tooling gets more complicated because you’re in a much smaller pool of hardware and this makes them more effort to setup. I don’t know the validity of that, but it sounded plausible to me.

    Just get a Pi. Just because you don’t need wifi doesn’t mean it won’t potentially be useful down the road.

  • Professorozone@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    22 days ago

    A larger sized used motherboard or even a new cheap one often has more capability if you can deal with something that is larger…

    • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      23 days ago

      The newer Dell Optiplex micro like the 5070 come with more modern hardware, HDMI and all that. I was fortunate to get a couple for free from my BIL who works in IT and was given them as E-waste.

      • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        22 days ago

        I usually try to stay within the upper ranks of DDR3 equipment. DDR4, while a better option, is far more pricey than DDR3.

  • HiTekRedNek@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    22 days ago

    It always starts small. I started with a 15 year old pre-ryzen AMD laptop, and an old external USB 4TB hard drive. NEW the laptop was $299.

    A year later, I have a ruckus/brocade managed switch, a Lenovo M700 Tiny running home assistant and Jellyfin, while my main media/file server is a Xeon E3-1275v3 with 2 SSDs, and 6 8TiB SAS3 enterprise hard drives in a ZFS pool. And a Pi5 running adguard home as my DNS server.

    And I’ve already used 60% of it. 🤣🤣

    • GreenShimada@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      22 days ago

      Great advice. I found an old laptop and I’m putting it through the paces now, and I’m really surprised at how easy all of this is. Setting up my own Invidious instance took minutes. Immich is where I’ll need to plateau out, I expect. My partner will immediately fill up the laptop by dumping her phone onto it, so that will need to wait for a long-term solution. That being said, a Lenovo mini whatever seems like a solid standard.

  • pro_user@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    24 days ago

    Have a look at DietPi. That is a single-board-computer optimized Linux distribution that, in contradiction to what the name might suggest, runs on (almost) all of the SBC’s out there. It has stripped away all the things you don’t need and only installs and loads what is needed to run the software you choose, resulting in a very lightweight but powerful operating system for these kinds of devices. It has its own software catalog with a broad selection of optimized software, but you can of course install anything you want. Ive been running this on a Raxda Rock4 without any problems, and would definitely suggest this even on a Raspberry over the regular Pi image.

    • SavinDWhales@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      22 days ago

      +1 on dietpi

      Have it running on a HP t630 I got for <20€, as “the wifi stick is no longer detected”.

      …right.

      Also got a Wyse 5070 for about 50€ with 8gb ram. The HP is pulling a little less Watts, so it’s the pihole/unbound server for now

  • zergtoshi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    23 days ago

    As others mentioned used SFF PCs, here’s my recommendation based on my own experience.

    I bought several used Dell Wyse 5070. The 5070 was announced in May 2018 and used as thin client.
    They’re tiny, silent (no fan) and you can fit a NVMe SSD via adapter (PCIe A/E key -> M key) in the WiFi card slot next to a SATA SSD. I picked the ones with Intel Celeron J4105 (Quad Core) with 1.5GHz, up to 2.5GHz burst and put 32 GB RAM in one of them (that was before prices went nuts).
    Beware, only if you pick the right dual ranked RAM modules (e.g. Patriot PSD416G26662S), you can have a max. of 2x16 GB. To start your journey, 4 or 8 GB might just be enough and don’t cost an arm and a leg.
    Now I have a PVE (Proxmox Virtual Environment) running with several virtual servers and lxc, one 5070 hosts a PBS (Proxmox Backup Server) and both devices are far from their limit. In case of hardware failure I have spare 5070s.
    Each 5070 cost around $65 and runs at around 8 watts at average. Dunno about current prices though.

    It fits my needs and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
    Maybe it fits your needs as well?

  • Treczoks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    23 days ago

    There are companies dealing with used and refurbished hardware. There are loads of PCs around that are not bloated enough for Win11, but still make good home servers. Depending on specs and prices, buy more than one for extra RAM, a second SSD, and spare parts.

    • blargh513@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      23 days ago

      An old laptop from about 13 years ago barely breaks a sweat running proxmox and a handful of containers and two vms.

      Waste not want not. Plus it comes with a keyboard, touchpad and monitor. Plus, built in ups. You might need to add a USB Ethernet dongle but you don’t have to.

      I bet just about anyone you know has their old laptop in a drawer somewhere. They’d probably give it to you.

  • opavader@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    23 days ago

    radxa has very good sbc’s at the most economical pricing and great software support. only thing is they get sold out pretty quickly. something like X4 or rock 5B will be best for your needs. dragon q6a is also extremely efficient but they get sold out almost immediately after stock comes.

    they sell through https://arace.tech/ so subscribe to them if for back in stock alerts

  • solrize@lemmy.mlEnglish
    31·
    23 days ago

    Scrounge an old laptop, maybe super cheap if the screen isn’t completely working. Plug in a monitor to deal with screen problems.

    • GreenShimada@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      23 days ago

      Yeah, that’s my fallback idea. I would sort of prefer the ease of a single board option I can just shove behind the router, but this might be easier.