I recently bought a domain from Porkbun (thanks to all of the comments on this post!) and I want to self-host some services myself. I currently have a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ and I’m not quite sure if it can handle these things:

  • A matrix homeserver
  • A lemmy instance
  • A website with static HTML pages
  • Privacy-respecting frontends (Piped, Redlib etc.)

I am thinking about getting a maxed-out Raspberry Pi 5 with a whole 8 Gigabytes of RAM. Is it worth it? I need a machine that is quiet, doesn’t draw that much power and is overall pretty good for the money.

Edit: I bought this Mini PC instead of the Raspberry Pi 5. Thanks to all the comments!!

  • TheProtector0034@feddit.nlEnglish
    3·
    7 months ago

    In my humble opinion the Pi 5 is very expensive for what you get. You just don’t buy the board, you also buy the fan (cooling), case, power supply and SSD + connection adapter. For more or less the same price you can get a refurbished Intel NUC with a i3, 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD. Or you can look for N100 at AliExpress. You will get the full blown experience and reliability + x86. And if you want to use Plex then you can make use of QuickSync for hardware encoding. I don’t understand why people bother with the Pi if they don’t need the GPIO. The extra power consumption of a NUC compared to the Pi 5 is minimal, in my case just 70 cents a month. Do yourself a big pleasure and get a NUC. The Pi is not the all in one cheap solution anymore it used to be. And x86 so no goofy community maintained as is ports to arm.

    And you can upgrade a NUC with more RAM up to 32 GB if you pick a model which supports that amount.

  • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    3·
    7 months ago

    A Pi 5 8GB is very expensive once you buy the power supply, case, cooling, adapters, etc… And you’re stuck with ARM64 stuff which doesn’t support some things.

    Personally in your shoes I would spend $80 or so on a USFF PC with an 8th or 9th gen Intel CPU off ebay.

  • Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzBEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
    NAS Network-Attached Storage
    NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers
    NVMe Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
    PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express
    PSU Power Supply Unit
    Plex Brand of media server package
    PoE Power over Ethernet
    RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC
    SBC Single-Board Computer
    SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
    nginx Popular HTTP server

    [Thread #615 for this sub, first seen 19th Mar 2024, 23:15] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

  • BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    7 months ago

    If you don’t need the I/O pins, look into a mini PC. In the US, used can easily get you something under $100 US. New would probably be around $100-$150.

    If you get a low CPU, they idle around what the PI would be doing.

    A PC would give you faster, more durable storage, inside of a case. And maybe memory upgradability, if you need it eventually.

    A PC would be bigger, but some are not much bigger, especially if you add any USB dongles or external storage to the PI.

    The YouTube channel “Hardware Haven” has a bunch of random old “junk” computers he’s worked on.

    • towerful@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago

      I agree.
      Pis are great for tinkering, GPIO things, or ultra low power.
      Plenty of older hardware out there that is as powerful (or more so), more reliable (ie, not an sd card), and more maintainable (ie can swap CPU/ram/disks/fans/psu).
      But, power consumption is always a concern. At $0.30/kwh, 10 watts is $27 per year.
      So, if a pi draws 5w and an SFF draw 25w, thats $55 per year. Any price benefit of a larger/older PC is negligiable after a year or 2, so reliability probably wont come into it.

      • BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        The last video from “hardware haven” I saw (not the last released, just the last I saw) found:

        Fuzzy memory on details: a 5th or 6th gen Intel idled at 7 watts vs an ultra efficient at 5 watts. He calculated out that it would take 2-4 years, depending on your electricity, to pay for the cost difference of a new ultra low power machine. CPUs and even graphic cards have gotten much better at idling very low.

        • towerful@programming.devEnglish
          0·
          7 months ago

          5th and 6th gen are pretty ancient.
          An i3-12100 motherboard bundle is about £160, will idle with dual NVMes about 20w, and will absolutely slay a similar 5th or 6th gen low power build.

          Anyway…
          A Pi 4 will idle around 3 to 4 watts, and run 6 watts when the CPU is pegged. A Pi 3 is 2w idle and 3.6w pegged. (https://www.ecoenergygeek.com/raspberry-pi-power-consumption/)

          Here is a low power 6th gen intel build.
          https://mattgadient.com/building-a-low-power-pc-on-skylake-10-watts-idle/
          Idle draw is 10w. Total pegged draw is 50w.
          They mention an i7-6700t has lower TDP (35w), so that power draw under load would be probably 25-30w.
          Which is still 2x higher at idle, and 5x higher under load than a raspberry pi.
          Chances are the i7 would run closer to idle when tasked with work that would be stressing the pi, considering it is twice the clock speed and twice the thread count. So, maybe 2x more draw on average (6w vs 15w)?

          As for costs, im seeing i7-6700t selling used for £60, new DDR4 is probably another £40, and a new cheap motherboard is £60. A quick ebay search shows refurbbed " i5 6th gens" (no model number) with 8gb of ram and 256gb ssd going for £140 (16gb of ram is £5 more, but for the sake of comparison).

          I can buy a 8gb pi4 starter kit for £104 (psu, case, sd card, hdmi cable & pi4 8gb).
          Which is cheaper than a refurbished i5 6th gen, and is lower power.

          If i was running virtualisation, i would absolutely pay more for something i can eventually stuff 64gb (or more) ram into, as well as multigig/10gb networking.
          But for running some home services in a docker compose stack? A pi4 is going to be cheaper in the short and long term.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.socialEnglish
            2·
            7 months ago

            As for costs, im seeing i7-6700t selling used for £60, new DDR4 is probably another £40, and a new cheap motherboard is £60. A quick ebay search shows refurbbed " i5 6th gens" (no model number) with 8gb of ram and 256gb ssd going for £140 (16gb of ram is £5 more, but for the sake of comparison).

            When people suggest these, they’re recommending old Optiplex micro PCs (such as the 3040 micro) not building a new machine from scratch. These can be purchased for $100 or less in the US as businesses use them and then dump them all when they upgrade.

  • DaseinPickle@leminal.spaceEnglish
    1·
    7 months ago

    Why not get an Intel N100? It’s about the same price and much better performance. Raspberry Pis is kind of overpriced these days.

    • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.comEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      Just looked them up, and found products 2x my Pi 5. Maybe there are sales out there?

        • LifeBandit666@feddit.ukEnglish
          0·
          7 months ago

          I got a Dell Optiplex for £68 on eBay to replace my pi4b Home Assistant.

          It’s running Home Assistant plus a Windows machine Arr stack with Plex and transcoding, a music server, a NAS storage and Adguard at the moment and I still have ram to spare.

      • lemmyingly@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        RPi5, plus a PSU, plus a storage device, plus any extra cooling, plus a case ends up about the same as an N100 without anything extra. For the extra $10 or so, the N100 ends up being the better buy.

  • Faceman🇦🇺@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    I replaced 4x Pi4 4gb with a single N95 mini PC with 16gb ram and wont look back.

    Only PI left in my home is just running a 24/7 USBIP bridge.

    the only reason to use a pi is if you need GPIO pins for custom devices.

      • Faceman🇦🇺@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        Yip, I have a Linux VM running on one of my boxes in the garage that is plugged into a video matrix so I can bring it up on any screen in the house, I use the pi to connect Keyboard/Mouse/controllers etc to that when I’m using it.

  • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.alEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    As someone that has only recently started selfhosting stuff, I can’t offer much advice. But having bought an RPi5, which runs most of my things, I’ll tell you this finding from my research. They’re awesome, but the SD cards don’t last long, so ideally you want to minimise the writes. I’m not sure a Matrix server allows you to do that. Though it absolutely can handle all of the above.

    • AlexPewMaster@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      but the SD cards don’t last long

      This is what scares me the most. Ideally, I want a whole SSD to store data. I really don’t want to lose any important data. I plan on hosting public services (like the services I’ve mentioned above) under my domain, so having a reliable drive would be really helpful.