Hi friends. I’m a 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 concerned 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
  • Kitchen Owl (nice to have)
  • Paperless-ngx (nice to have)

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

  • UnPassive@lemmy.worldEnglish
    301·
    11 months ago

    Try a used laptop. Cheap, power efficient, built in UPS, small. Can be quite powerful and some are even upgradable

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.eeEnglish
      92·
      11 months ago

      Dammit, I have a few of those, you’re killing my excuse to buy a new toy!

      • kernelle@0d.gsEnglish
        2·
        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!

  • BearOfaTime@lemm.eeEnglish
    121·
    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 Zero W for PiHole, DHCP, DNS, Tailscale, 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!)

    Edit: I wouldn’t recommend the Zero W for this, it’s underpowered. I’m already overloading it with just PiHole and Tailscale, honestly.

    • dogma11@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      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.

      • rambos@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        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€

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
      4·
      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

    • Crispy_Mate@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      11 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$.

  • PieMePlenty@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    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 arr stack and I’m planning to add home assistant and a zigbee bridge which I now run on a pi.

    If you aren’t planning to run to much on it a rpi4or5 will actually be enough and these things can draw 15 on absolute max load.

  • Dran@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    11 months ago

    A raspberry pi or orange pi could definitely run all of those things at very low power consumption.

  • m12421k@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
    3·
    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.

  • testfactor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    52·
    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.

    • pathief@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      41·
      11 months ago

      Raspberry Pi was my first choice, but apparently I can’t even back order it :/

        • guitarsarereal@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          Shout out for ODROID, their product revision cycles take too long (lmao why are they still selling a 32-bit chip that was an iffy investment back in 2013), but when they drop new stuff, it tends to be great.

        • pathief@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          That reminds me, I do own a pine64 device! It was the first thing I got on Kickstarter.

          It’s a Pine A64, with 2gb RAM. I wonder if it has enough power to run all those things. It’s a budget device from 8 years ago, probably gonna have a hard time but I’ll give it a try if I manage to find it!

          • X3I@lemmy.x3i.techEnglish
            1·
            11 months ago

            Very nice! I am running an HC4 (I think; the toaster) now since last month and so far, it’s running much better than I thought! So yes, check that one first, then see if you have to upgrade and if you do, go for aarch64 or traditional x64 but not 32 bit arm

      • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        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

    • rambos@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      In my country pi4 8GB ram with PSU 130€ and then you need SD card and/or SSD

  • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
    3·
    11 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.

  • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nlEnglish
    41·
    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.