I dusted off my RPI4 and started tinkering with self-hosting things and it’s sparked a fire. Suddenly I have 7 docker containers running and I need more RAM, more space and I want something reliable with room to grow. I like small form factors but it doesn’t need to be RPI small. Any recs for your favorite hardware under $500?

  • zikk_transport2@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Intel NUC. Myself I prefer Proxmox as the first layer (so I can do stuff remotelly), and Alpine Linux VM as a second layer.

    This been rock stable for me for the past 1 year or so.

  • SteelCorrelation@lemmy.oneEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Definitely a NUC or similar mini PC from the likes of Geekom, Beelink, or Minisforum. My whole homelab was mini PCs until I consolidated to a NUC 12 Pro as I build up my rack. Slap Proxmox on the machine, build some VMs and LXCs, and have at it.

  • mazkarth@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I use a Dell Micro with Ubuntu for docker containers mounted to a wall with a Synology NAS 4 bay for storage. I used to have a small form factor with a 12bay SAS array attached but the power consumption was ridiculous.

  • OrangeCorvus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I have a couple of Intel NUCs and they are great, one is the first generation NUC with the Celeron and runs Home Assistant without problems.

    At the moment I am eyeing the new N100 CPUs they are pretty powerful compared to the previous generation. Asrock and Asus are bringing out motherboards with the CPU soldered and they are also fanless. The Asrock is nicer because you don’t need a real PSU for it and it has an extra SATA port. They are not yet available.

    https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/N100DC-ITX/index.asp https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-n100i-d-d4/

  • Fermiverse@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    I just built a Server using J5040 board. With 16gb ram (yes it works) a 500gb m.2 as system , 2x4tb ironwolf, all in the node 304 fractal case for 550 euro.

    Will run proxmox as first layer.

  • eosph@lemmy.remotelab.ukEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    At the moment hardware is just expensive. I ended up with a NUC with 32gb of ram in order to future proof myself while I wait for hardware to become cheaper. Other than another stick of ram I can’t see me needing to update any time soon.

  • rylo@infosec.pubEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    You can get some decent enterprise hardware for fairly cheap on places like amazon. I got a dell R710 for around $800 a couple of years back. The equipment tends to be a little scuffed up and older in terms of hardware, but they still offer plently of performance IMO. The one I have has a 6 drive RAID with 1.5TB disks, dual 6-core processors, and 128GB of ram. Only downside I would say is they tend to use quite a bit of power (around 207W from what I’ve measured).

  • terribleplan@lemmy.nrd.liEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I have some (refurbished) HP mini PCs that are pretty decent, you can probably find similar things well within that range. You could also consider an off-lease/used server in that price range, but will have to do some hunting to find something you like. Also, servers can be a bit loud and power hungry (the efficiency of the compute is lower than e.g. a mini PC or a Pi, but it will have way more compute. Servers with something like dual hex core CPUs and 64+ GB of RAM are not uncommon).

    I run both mini PCs and server hardware, using the server hardware mainly for storage or services that need quite high availability (auth, reverse proxy, password vault) and the mini PCs for most everything else (minecraft servers, wiki, jellyfin, etc)