Would you recommend to use a RPi 5 or a second hand Lenovo mini pc (i3 6100t, 8gb ram) or something else?

  • PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    10 days ago

    I use a retired business laptop. 16GB RAM and Linux, mapped some shares from my NAS. Low power high performance.

  • owenfromcanada@lemmy.caEnglish
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    2 months ago

    If you want something more capable that will handle more experimentation, go for the mini PC. If you know exactly what you want to host and you want to prioritize low power consumption, the pi might be a better choice.

  • undefinedTruth@lemmy.zipEnglish
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    2 months ago

    I built a home server based on an Intel N100 motherboard a while ago. I’ve put proxmox on it and run my Home Assistant installation, Nextcloud, several other stuff and even my router as an OpenWRT VM!

    I chose to go the N100 motherboard route mainly due to the flexibility it offers. But you can just buy a N100 based NUC and you get effectively the same performance and incredible low power consumption.

    I would recommend against the Pi 5. It is way underpowered in my opinion. Plus with a x86 system you just have a lot more software compatibility.

    • Laser@feddit.orgEnglish
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      1 month ago

      Similarly here. Have an Odroid with that platform, it wasn’t cheap but it came with several advantages:

      • 4 SATA ports on addition to the M2 slot
      • Intel QSV
      • 2 x 2.5 Gbit Ethernet (I only have gigabit at home though)

      Very powerful machine for the power usage, I ran a really old Athlon before though (from 2010 or so that I retrofitted with 16GB RAM) that did most stuff just fine. But I wanted some transcoding and also possibly a smaller case.

      I run everything bare metal though.

  • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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    1 month ago

    A 35W i7-7700T mini PC from 2017 will absolutely spank a modern N150 in single and multi–threaded applications, and uses very little extra power to do so.

    Mini PC is the way to go.

    • thirdBreakfast@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      1 month ago

      100% this. And Lenovos and HPs designed for the business market generally are a pleasure to work on (in the hardware sense) if you need, with good manuals and secondhand spare parts.

      • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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        1 month ago

        Oh for sure. I’ve got a handful of SFFs and mini PCs making up my little “homelab”:

        (Yes, that’s the furnace. No, it’s not hot there. Ever. I’ve checked on it many, many times.)

        I’ve also got another pair of Optiplex 9020s, an Optiplex 3040, and my old trusty HP Elite 8100 SFF w/8300 SFF mobo, i7-3770/32GB, and modded BIOS that supports booting from NVMe (via it.s M.2 PCIe card). Those are sitting in the closet just taking up space at the moment.

        eBay supplied the 7050 and the mini PCs. My sister gave me the other Optiplexen from her work office.

  • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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    2 months ago

    Whatever is cheapest. When youre first starting out basically any hardware will do, it just needs to boot Linux. As you progress and find more stuff to put on the servers, you’ll discover what you’re real hardware needs are.

    When I first started, it was a hand me down single core AMD Sempron machine (socket 754!) that I later upgraded to an Athlon64 and 4gb of DDR. I managed to bodge that poor thing into running a Minecraft 1.5.2 server.

    Personally I would stick with the i3 machine since I am assuming it’s an office PC that can be had for cheaper than a Pi 5 (which is quite inflated in price IMO). x86 still retains better software support vs ARM and they are significantly easier to attach large cheap storage to via SATA. Power cost will be greater but I doubt an office i3 pulls more than 70w wall power at full load.

    • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.auEnglish
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      1 month ago

      When youre first starting out basically any hardware will do, it just needs to boot Linux.

      Unless you already use Linux, you don’t need to start with Linux. Windows works perfectly and is significantly easier for most people as it’s what they already know.

    • Jokulhlaups@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
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      2 months ago

      Thanks for the feedback! And yes, used mini pc can be found cheaper than rpi5, also comes with a proper cooling and housing, which would be extra for rpi.

  • oneser@lemmy.zipEnglish
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    2 months ago

    I’m running a home space with jellyfin and navidrome on a Pi5. Until now it’s been perfectly fine playing local and normally streaming to a single device at a time. The online support and off the shelf peripheries for troubleshooting the pi is also great!

    I went to plug a 5TB drive into the pi the other day and it unmounted the SSD that was already plugged in. To me this is a sign that it is not build to handle more rigorous tasks (e.g. streaming to multiple devices, whilat performing a back up).

    I probably won’t be swapping the system anytime soon, but I would go for a refurbed mini PC if I could go back in time.

    • Jokulhlaups@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
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      2 months ago

      Thanks for the feedback! Had similar problems with a raspberry pi. It cannot deliver enough power to the hdd, so it kept rebooting the drive.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    1 month ago

    I just repurposed one of our older PCs for that task. Slap Ubuntu on it, install webmin, and you’re set up.

  • otacon239@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    2 months ago

    I’ve have amazing luck with both Beelink and Minisforum computers. They’re relatively cheap and excellent quality.

    I personally use the Beelink ME Mini and it’s been able to handle just fine about any server tasks I need it to, not to mention the wildly expandable storage.

    • yo_scottie_oh@lemmy.mlEnglish
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      1 month ago

      Beelink ME Mini

      Would something like this be suitable as a NAS + Jellyfin + Home Assistant box?

  • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
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    2 months ago

    The Mini PC would be a lot easier. The RPi needs things to be built for ARM, and not everything is. The RPi is also slower and isn’t repairable.

    RPis are great for many things, but generic home servers aren’t one of them, unless you really need clustering for some reason (like, a Ceph cluster).

  • chillpanzee@lemmy.mlEnglish
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    2 months ago

    I bought a generic N150 based minipc for a firewall & router (running OPNsense), and repurposed an old desktop PC as a server to host immich, paperless, nextcloud, etc… I considered both RPi and mini pc for the server, but I needed a few TB of storage and wanted redundancy. Spinny disks were a much more affordable option than SSDs, and minipcs and Rpis tend to not have much space for those drives. You can add on storage to them, but then they just become clunkier and more expensive than the old PC I already had laying around. Power consumption is probably a few watts higher on the PC than a Pi would be, but it’s not terrible.

    That’s why I went the direction I did. I’m 3 about or 4 months in, and it’s been solid so far.

  • MTZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    2 months ago

    Is it going to be a general purpose file server? A media server through jellyfin, etc.? If a media server, do you need to transcode?

    • Jokulhlaups@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
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      2 months ago

      NAT, perhaps apps like vaultwarden, nextcloud, immich, maybe grafana for sensors… I am not 100% sure as this would be the first.