Here is the thing, I have 4 RPi’s of different generations (all the way from Zero W to 4B 4GB) that I use to host services at home for personal use.

Lately, I have realized I am running out of RAM to host more services, not to mention not enough switch ports to connect to.

Now I know the obvious solution is to get a more powerful setup (maybe a thin client) but electricity isn’t cheap and I am not particularly in the best shape financially speaking to shell out $300+ on a decent client to host my services.

Any suggestions?

  • maryjayjay@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    I upgraded my Plex and *arr server (i3 nuc) with a beelink 12i N100 based mini pc and could not be happier. $167 with 512gb nvme and 16gb RAM. It pulls 6W peak power

    • JackSkellington@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      Hi! Could you please indicate how you manage the system on the beelink? Base OS, how you deal with storage , containers or VMs?

      Thanks in advance!!!

      • maryjayjay@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        Base os is Ubuntu, Plex Media server is installed via apt from Plex repo, *arr services (lidarr, sonarr, radarr, bazaar, sabnzbd) all run on containers which I manage in a docker compose file. Media storage is an external, 4 bay SATA enclosure attached via USB. 4 six terrabyte disk drives in raid 6 on lvm/md, plus a 4tb SSD which is stand alone storage, formatted as btrfs.

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        Hardware transcoding is highly efficient. The downside is sometimes it introduces artifacting in low resolution live TV.

      • maryjayjay@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        With hardware support enabled it can live transcode four 1080p streams, which my old NUC (5th Gen i3) could also do. The GPU on the NUC could not handle 4k, so it would fall back to using the CPU which would not keep up with a live stream.

        The N100 can transcode one 4k HDR with Atmos 7.1 audio and stream in real time. It was just a test, there was a bit of a stutter as it settled in, but I think that might be due to the drive enclosure being connected via USB, so it was storage bandwidth rather than CPU/GPU. The USB ports on the computer are 3.2 gen 2, but the enclosure is only 3.0 at 5Gb/s.

      • skittlebrau@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        It’s a 6W TDP CPU, but not 6W for power consumption.

        At full tilt it’ll be about 25-30W, but typically it’s around 10W for me.

      • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        With Intel QSV enabled it should be able to transcode like 4-6 1080p streams IIRC. Quicksync is very impressive hardware acceleration.

    • admin@lemmy.mohammadodeh.comOPEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      Where do people find equipment this cheap? Ya’ll are mind blowing with your ability to score things for such low prices.

      Any links?

        • CraigeryTheKid@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          9 months ago

          I’ve been doing computer stuff for a long time and now I have a really dumb question… what’s the benefit of 2x NICs?

          In case you don’t have a 2.5gb switch and you daisy chain to a NAS or something?

          • sploosh@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            9 months ago

            You can use it as a firewall/router or a VPN gateway and even slap a wireless NIC or two on there and make it a combo router/AP, which can simultaneously play and transcode video as a Plex/Jellyfin server with zero hit to networking performance.