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.

  • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    23·
    2 years 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.

  • Faceman🇦🇺@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    17·
    2 years 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
        41·
        2 years 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.

  • DaseinPickle@leminal.spaceEnglish
    181·
    2 years 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
      6·
      2 years ago

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

        • LifeBandit666@feddit.ukEnglish
          11·
          2 years 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
        5·
        2 years 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.

        • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.comEnglish
          5·
          2 years ago

          Just bought one a month ago. RPi5 was $80 (8gb ram, $60 for 4gb), case with fan was $5 and USB-C PD supply was $10.

          Lowest n100 I see is $150. Still, they do look more beefy and probably worth it for some.

          • lemmyingly@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            A case for $5 is a good find unless you found literally the cheapest thing you could find. For a half decent case I’d expect $10-20, and more if you want something fancy.

            What are you doing for storage?

      • Atemu@lemmy.mlEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        You probably could. Though I don’t see the point in powering a home server over PoE.

        A random SBC in the closet? WAP? Sure. Not a home server though.

    • AlexPewMaster@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      I’ve never heard of Intel N100 before, what’s that? Just so you know, a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 Gigabytes of RAM costs ~90€ in my country (Germany). I wouldn’t really count that as overpriced. Could you show me some machine examples with Intel N100?

  • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.meEnglish
    12·
    2 years ago

    I’m running my Matrix and Lemmy on a VM smaller than that, so it should be fine. Just don’t run it off an SD card as the others have said, because that’s going to be a database heavy workload which means loads of writes to storage.

    • lemonuri@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      Another option would be to install an im server that is low on resources and not eating your sdcard. I think xmpp would work a lot better on a pi. Prosody, ejabberd or snikket should work nicely.

  • BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    92·
    2 years 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
      61·
      2 years 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
        21·
        2 years 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.

  • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
    3·
    2 years ago

    You will need an NVMe adapter and a bigger SSD to store the Matrix database and it will put a lot of stress on the system if you join bigger rooms.

    Otherwise it should be fine, although I personally would recommend skipping Matrix all together and rather install an lightweight XMPP server (and if you really need it a Matrix gateway for that).

  • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.alEnglish
    2·
    2 years 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
      2·
      2 years 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.

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        5·
        2 years ago

        General rule: if you have “important data” don’t go cheap. Get a real computer. Have backups. Test them.

      • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.alEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        Yeah. You can pretty much mitigate all of your concerns with an SSD. But I’ve never run anything public facing. So make sure you confirm that there’s people running said services on Pis before you pull the trigger.

  • Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzBEnglish
    11·
    2 years ago

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

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    NVMe Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
    PSU Power Supply Unit
    PoE Power over Ethernet
    SBC Single-Board Computer
    SSD Solid State Drive mass storage

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

  • thantik@lemmy.worldEnglish
    22·
    2 years ago

    I bought a CN62 Chromebox, and put MrChromebox’s Bios on it – I did the rounds comparing it with a Pi 4 and it was 2.5x faster, and could easily saturate my gigabit connection. It came with 16gb of storage, and 2gb of ram; but using ACTUAL DRAM slots. I could upgrade it to 16gb if I needed to down the line.

    The whole thing, cost me like $45 shipped; power supply, storage, everything needed…and it’s an X86 instruction set - so I can use whatever version of Linux I want, without any crazy Raspberry Pi specific patches/builds.