Looking for low power devices for selfhosting

Submitted ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨pathief@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

Hi friends. I’m a completely newbie in self-hosting, though I’ve been managing (virtual) linux servers at work for a couple of years. I’m completely ignorant on the hardware choices out there, hopefully you can point me to the right direction.

Here are my requisites:

Low power consumption, I plan to have it connected 24/7 and I’m kinda reluctant on how much it will impact the electricity bill
Ethernet port, preferably gigabit but whatever
Graphical performance is not important as I don’t plan to connect it to any display. As long as I can ssh into it, I’m good.

Services I plan on installing, for starters:

casaOS
pi-hole, or equivalent
Home Assistant
Paperless-ngx (nice to have)

I live in europe and my budget is around 80 euros or so. Thanks in advance!

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Comments

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jecht360@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨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.

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- guitarsarereal@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨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.
  
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  - TheHolm@aussie.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    could you please elaborate? what is SFF hardware?
    
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- BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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- Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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UnPassive@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Try a used laptop. Cheap, power efficient, built in UPS, small. Can be quite powerful too.

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- BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Dammit, I have a few of those, you’re killing my excuse to buy a new toy!
  
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  - kernelle@0d.gs ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Let me help you with that: what if you need more power? or what if you need something smaller due to size constraints or maybe what if the old battery can’t handle 24/7?. Pick one!
    
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- ares35@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  absolutely this.
  
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BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
As a point of reference regarding power consumption:

I’ve been running a desktop non-stop for the last ten years (built as a gaming rig) as a file/media server, so it’s probably the worst thing you can run this way, power-wise. Has an 800 watt power supply, running windows.

I’ve done the math many times, costs me about $1/day in power at mostly idle.

Just presenting a worst-case example as a guideline.

I’ve recently spun up a Raspberry Pi for PiHole, DHCP, DNS, Joplin and Bitwarden. It’s maximum power draw is TWO WATTS. Haha

Currently running a watt meter on the desktop, should have some decent actual numbers from it soon, but can’t imagine idle is any less than 50 watts.

So there’s two extremes. Don’t be me (looks like you aren’t!)

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- scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah same. I have several machines that whirrr all the time. The power cost and usage is fairly negligible. The real costs in the house are appliances. OP will save more energy by getting a more power efficient fridge or dishwasher than worry about a computer being on in the closet
  
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- dogma11@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Throwing in my own data, I have a small server rack at home that runs a brocade icx4630 switch and dell r720, idles around 250w. My desktop setup, monitors, amp, computer itself etc idles around 200w.
  
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  - BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Oof. Maybe my power is worse than I thought!
    
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  - rambos@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Adding my data as well:
    
    My server is diy desktop pc - mbo MSI Z270-A PRO with celeron G3930 and 16GB RAM, 3x SSD on 550W PSU, idles at 23W. After adding another 3.5" HDD consuption went up to 34W. 34W in Ctoatia is around 34€ a year.
    
    Some SFF PCs are at 10-15W. SBCs like rpi should be below 10 W, but dont think you can get anything new for 80€
    
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- Crispy_Mate@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Pi Zero could be underpowered but the bigger pi’s sound like a perfect match. I would recommend looking into a used pi 3 or 4, because the pi 5 is new and always out of stock (at least in europe) so you pay around 150$.
  
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  - SeeJayEmm@lemmy.procrastinati.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Libre Computer “Le Potatoe” is a inexpensive solid performing SBC.
    
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PieMePlenty@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Look into a NUC on ebay. I was able to snag a new 11th Gen i3 for 200 eur. Power draw is about 7w with a headless Debian. Running a media server, nextcloud, pihole, an art stack and I’m planning to add home assistant and a zigbee bridge which I now run on a pi.

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- BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Wow, 7w. And has real horsepower unlike RPi.
  
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  - PieMePlenty@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Im really impressed with the thing. Cpu idles at 30C as well. Very similar to rpi4 with 5 times the performance.
    
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jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I have an Intel NUC I got on eBay for £50. It’s running 30 containers, 10W draw

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MSgtRedFox@infosec.pub ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Lenovo m900 tiny. Low cost and power.

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- CalicoJack@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  They’re also surprisingly easy to upgrade for their size. Swapped RAM, CPU, and hard drive in about 15 minutes total on one of mine.
  
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- Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Think centre tiny gang rise up :-) !
  
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- tristan@aussie.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I second Lenovo tiny. I have 3 x m920q with a gigabit switch and total power draw is about 53w
  
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Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A raspberry pi or orange pi could definitely run all of those things at very low power consumption.

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Bitswap@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Any Intel NUC(the small 4x4 ones) 8th gen or forward will fit the bill.

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PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A used Android pixel phone. You can root it and install Pideploy and run PiHole through it.

I have an old Pixel 3a doing exactly this. The other services I don’t quite know if they have an Android implementation.

Doesn’t suit your every use case, but I figured I’d share.

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- seatwiggy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  termux-root has a docker package. That still doesn’t cover everything but a lot of popular services have docker images
  
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  - PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ooo learn something new every day. I’m going to have to try this out later. Thanks!
    
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testfactor@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Not to state the obvious one, but there’s always the Raspberry Pi.

The supply has gotten better on those, so you can probably pick one up in your price range, and the power draw is super minimal.

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- rambos@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  In my country pi4 8GB ram with PSU 130€ and then you need SD card and/or SSD
  
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- pathief@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Raspberry Pi was my first choice, but apparently I can’t even back order it :/
  
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  - AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If it’s been a while since you checked, it’s worth checking again. RPi has been becoming more available over the last month or two, and I was able to get one of the new RPi 5!
    
    Someone put together a great locator tool
    
    rpilocator.com
    
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  - x3i@lemmy.x3i.tech ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Alternatively, there are also some options from pine64.com, maybe scroll through there! Same for odroid.nl
    
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Cyber@feddit.uk ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Have a look at the ServeTheHome site and channel on youtube … he’s done a load of good reviews of AliExpress devices and some tiny/mini/micro devices (think thinclients)

He covers power consumption and some interesting points (like which recent multi-Gb NICs are supported by pfSense / Proxmox / etc)

Just watching those should at least help you decide what you need.

I was going to build my own virt server and I ended up with a low power, silent, passively cooled box to run all my VMs in… for much cheap.

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aku@anakmanis.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
@pathief I think what you are looking for is intel n100 since it only uses like 6-watt TDP, but before jumping to that, you should look at Heaven video. If you only want to run for a year or two, maybe the older CPU is much better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PisIPpbMkTc
I hope you found what you are looking for.
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m12421k@iusearchlinux.fyi ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A cheap android box + armbianOs is also an option if you’re looking for low power. I have a 7watt one that’s running 24/7 for the last few years.

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Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Mini (or equivalent)? You can get them for pretty cheap on eBay.

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unsaid0415@szmer.info ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
docs.google.com/…/1LHvT2fRp7I6Hf18LcSzsNnjp10VI-o…

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Presi300@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My whole “homelab” is made of either things I literally found in the trash, hand-me downs and 2nd part stuff I got for extremely cheap. It’s no speed deamon, but it’s got 8cores, 16GB ram and gigabit… What I’m trying to say is, that is most likely also an option for you and there is no reason to buy the latest and greatest of hardware for running simple things like pi-hole. As for the electricity bill, unless you’re running something computationally intensive 24/7 or just a ton of hard drives, I wouldn’t worry about it.

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roofuskit@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A refurbished elite desk sff PC works great.

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- Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Just got one for $100 on r/hardwareswap (yes I still visit reddit, but I can’t give up hardwareswap)
  
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  - roofuskit@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You can get them on eBay and Amazon for that much.
    
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tagginator@utter.online [bot] ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
New Lemmy Post: Looking for low power devices for selfhosting (https://lemmy.world/post/9824096)
Tagging: #SelfHosted
(Replying in the OP of this thread (NOT THIS BOT!) will appear as a comment in the lemmy discussion.)
I am a FOSS bot. Check my README: https://github.com/db0/lemmy-tagginator/blob/main/README.md
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tagginator@utter.online [bot] ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
New Lemmy Post: Looking for low power devices for selfhosting (https://lemmy.world/post/9824096)
Tagging: #SelfHosted
(Replying in the OP of this thread (NOT THIS BOT!) will appear as a comment in the lemmy discussion.)
I am a FOSS bot. Check my README: https://github.com/db0/lemmy-tagginator/blob/main/README.md
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tagginator@utter.online [bot] ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
New Lemmy Post: Looking for low power devices for selfhosting (https://lemmy.world/post/9824096)
Tagging: #SelfHosted
(Replying in the OP of this thread (NOT THIS BOT!) will appear as a comment in the lemmy discussion.)
I am a FOSS bot. Check my README: https://github.com/db0/lemmy-tagginator/blob/main/README.md
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JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Hey fellow european!

Tinytronics.nl -> Pi4 model B 8GB: 87€ and in stock. The 4GB model is 68€. They also have orange Pi for a higher budget.

Kiwi-electronics.com -> Pi 4 model B, 4GB? 63€. They also have all the pi accessories you could want.

If you are going to use paperless for important documents, and if you want to not lose data for sure, get a 1TB cheap HDD or something and a USB3.0 adapter. SD cards will eventually fail.

Otherwise, get an old used laptop 2nd hand. I used an old HP probook G1 laptop for about a year for my server. It didn’t use much power at all.

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ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
At around 80 euros then for lowest power you should go Raspberry Pi, for most performance while still being low power an old business laptop is fine, and since you don’t need the screen you can buy one with a broken screen.

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Corgana@startrek.website ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
+1 for CasaOs! The simplest and best I’ve tried.

Lots of good suggestions here already but nobodys mentioned the Asrock A300 DeskMini. Low power consumption and you could probably find one for pretty cheap.

Obviously an old laptop you don’t use anymore is a great and affordable choice too. Comes with a built-in battery backup!

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stown@sedd.it ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I just got a mini AMD box from CWWK off Amazon and I’m quite impressed. I even got a free CPU upgrade (ordered a 5600u but received 5835u)

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Upakae@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This serves a couple services, incl. kitchenowl and paperless-ngx very fine for me.
Once, I got it for around 45€.

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Kuinox@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I just bought a cheap Intel i3 10100T that have a TDP of 35W.
There is a bios option to reduce that to 25W.
Thoses are not sold to end users and must be purchased through craiglist or equivalent.

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- Nickall01@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  TDP is not related to power consumption, it’s related to dissipation.
  
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  - Kuinox@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The thermal dissipation is directly linked to the amount of power consumed.
    
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- Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  TDP is like the maximum so not very reliable when figuring out general power consumption. Stuff hooked up to the internet and not used very often, but always on, needs a low base consumption.
  
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tagginator@utter.online [bot] ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
New Lemmy Post: Looking for low power devices for selfhosting (https://lemmy.world/post/9824096)
Tagging: #SelfHosted
(Replying in the OP of this thread (NOT THIS BOT!) will appear as a comment in the lemmy discussion.)
I am a FOSS bot. Check my README: https://github.com/db0/lemmy-tagginator/blob/main/README.md
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Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨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

DNS Domain Name Service/System

PiHole Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole)

RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC

SBC Single-Board Computer

[Thread #367 for this sub, first seen 21st Dec 2023, 14:45] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

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Fewer Letters	More Letters
DNS	Domain Name Service/System
PiHole	Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole)
RPi	Raspberry Pi brand of SBC
SBC	Single-Board Computer