Comment on Looking for low power devices for selfhosting
jecht360@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Risking sounding like a broken record, I always suggest Tiny/Mini/Micro 1L form factor office PCs. Lenovo, Dell, and HP all create ultra small office PCs that make great low power servers. A Pi will use 5-9w at idle, while these PCs will use 11-13w idle. They also use more standard components such as NVME drives, 2.5" drives, and replaceable RAM. Easy to find under $100 USD used, I’m sure you can find them under 100 euro.
Good point.
The Pi Zero is 2w max… It’s downside is it draws 2w MAX. Power is power, only so much you can do in 2w. As you pointed out, the 4 and 5 can do more, because they can draw more, (or they draw more so can do more, it’s all related).
The key seems to be ability to minimize the idle power while still capable of ramping up to something useful when you need it - like the micros you’ve listed.
We buy the HP Pro/Elitedesk 1L pcs as backup servers and attach storage.
Works pretty good and they are pretty cheap with the power they can provide.
guitarsarereal@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Bonus: there is a literally endless supply of used x86 SFF hardware from large institutions, so unlike SBC’s, there’s no special, weird supply chain managed by an English educational nonprofit that could just suddenly decide to not sell to the public for years at a time.
TheHolm@aussie.zone 9 months ago
could you please elaborate? what is SFF hardware?
WaterWaiver@aussie.zone 9 months ago
SFF = Small Form Factor. It’s smaller than traditional ATX computers but can still take the same RAM, processors and disks. Motherboards and power supplies tend to be nonstandard however. Idle power consumptions are usually very good.
USFF = Ultra Small Form Factor. Typically a laptop chipset + CPU in a small box with an external power supply. Somewhat comparable with SBCs like Raspberry Pis. Very good idle power consumption, but less powerful than SFF (and/or louder due to smaller cooler) and often don’t have space for standard disks.
SBC = Single Board Computer.
guitarsarereal@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Hi, sorry I just saw this. “SFF” is short for “small form factor.” It’s just industry jargon for “a small PC.” They tend to be designed to use less power which makes them a good fit for home servers. Pretty much any line of PC sold to businesses, like Dell Optiplex or HP EliteDesk, will have small form factor variants.