Comment on ZimaBlade - A low-profile Intel Celeron board for server applications and more (Crowdfunding)
Cobrachicken@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Interesting, but somewhat overpriced and half assed. You can get a used tiny or micro business unit, complete with psp and case for that price. With more bang under the hood than this, and not a raspi-style cables-everywhere spaghetti solution like this.
qaz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What would you recommend? Where can one find those businesses units?
poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Search for “refurbished thin client” or something like that. The popular ones are usually from HP.
Cobrachicken@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Maybe this provides a good starter read: https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimicro-home-lab-revolution/
There are more in detail later articles, also dealing withore modern units, and the prices are from 2020, where lockdown and other factors spiked a big demand.
I’m more into beginner’s server units, and I’ve sourced a Supermicro X10 based 1u server for EUR 75 including shipping on one ebay night.
Patience is the key, and probably best set yourself an upper limit price wise.
qaz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Thanks, but I’m using a refurbished Lenovo Tiny Thinkcentre as server for selfhosting already. I was just hoping to find a more energy efficient ARM SBC board like previously mentioned.
Cobrachicken@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Ah sry, I misread your post. I’ve done the math on the energy consumption of the small fleet of ARM SBCs I used to have for server things, and came up with a surprisingly high number, up to 80W with all peripherals. This, plus the cable mess (although I tried to minimalize that by putting them in gutted rack router cases and such) made me consolidate all services into two X10 based servers. One is backup/playground and usually off, one is the prod unit. They idle around 20-30W and are tucked away in a rack.
So, for my use case one x86 unit with Proxmox is more energy efficient than going the ARM way. Added comfort gain is standard cases, cabling, PSP and IPMI.
On the negative side, one has to watch out not getting totally sucked into the homelabbing rabbit hole ;-)
Cobrachicken@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Globally, as others have already mentioned, ebay would be your best bet.
Here’s a recent post with some more useful links and ressources: https://lemmy.world/post/4724459