Turning the Raspberry Pi 4 into a Mini Server | Hacker News Reader

Turning the Raspberry Pi 4 into a Mini Server

n-o-d-e.net

A lot of skepticism in this thread. I've got a pi4 4GB running Ubuntu server, acting as a SMB file server, Plex media server, Mopidy music server, Spotify Connect endpoint, video recorder for my two outdoor IP cameras, and a Minecraft server for my kids, all running simultaneously. And it's not breaking a sweat, not even getting close to full memory or CPU utilization.

I do use a USB nvme SSD enclosure for storage to be fair, and it's only stable when using a powered USB hub.

I've had encrypted USB storage on a Pi 2, as a Git server for over 5 years, used by several users for large projects, when the commit size was large there were some CPU bottleneck(it's Pi2 after all), but never had any reliability issues although I had daily backup to another USB storage on the same device and a remote-backup pushed from the device. I might have rebooted it 3-4 times over past 5 years just for cleaning.

As long as there is proper storage (Reliable SD card for boot/root [I prefer Toshiba], USB storage for other files) and Power supply (Official RPi power supply) Raspberry Pi's have been the most reliable computing platform to me.

With current generation Pi's, it's much more easier to even boot from SSD, have better filesystem like btrfs, zswap, ArchLinux ARM etc.[1].

[1]https://abishekmuthian.com/getting-smoother-desktop-experien...

I believe you can boot from USB now, even on the Pi 4. No way I'd rely on an SD card for the OS if this was to be used over a long period. I saw too many of those fail or become corrupted over time, even when minimizing writes.

I saw a Youtube video on bios beta that allowed booting from a usb drive or a usb connected hard drive.

Is that bios out of beta now?

What Toshiba SD cards do you use? I bought 256GB ones and they all had too much latency to be usable.

I've bought Toshiba cards from 16GB to 128GB over past several years and I agree that their latency is low when compared to Samsung or other brands; But Toshiba cards has never failed but every other brand has(corrupted/becoming write protected etc.) especially on RPi.

But since almost every SBC support booting from SSD (Even if they don't, we can have /boot on SD and /root on SSD), so low SD card latency is not an issue to me. In fact I'm digging up old 4GB cards for /boot to repurpose larger capacity SD cards from SBCs for other purposes(Chromebook, Camera etc.).

As for specific model, there were many different model names, I usually choose the middle tier for performance:price.

People used to serve high-traffic Web and FTP sites off a Pentium Pro. Being able to run a home server off a Pi ought to surprise no one.

I find the pi4 is pretty close to being fast enough to be my daily driver. Not quite, but it's pretty close. I suspect the pi5 will meet my needs. Being able to just mount a ~$100 computer on the back of my monitor and do my work on it will be pretty mind blowing.

Some of the "toy" pi laptops like the CrowPi2 (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elecrow/crowpi2-steam-e...) are getting really close to being usable as a daily driver for me. I'd love something like that with a combination a breadboard for hacking, an SSD drive, a battery and a dock instead of the built-in toys.

You may wish to look into refurbished tiny-form-factor PCs for this purpose. With a relatively powerful x86 CPU it's possible to live this dream today!

Oh yeah definitely, I've looked into that as well. And there are some small x86 based maker boards like the Udoo as well. How cheap cpu power and computers in general are getting is more what I'm amazed at.

Take a look at the Chuwi Larkbox!

The Minecraft server part sounds really impressive to me. Are you running PaperMC? I remember last when I tried on my RPI 3b it was way too slow.

I have been running a Minecraft server on a Raspberry Pi 4 for my friends and I for a while so I may be able to provide some input. PaperMC is the only way I could get the Pi to run Minecraft while having an acceptable player experience.

I have to keep the world files on an external SSD though as the SD card is simply to slow and becomes a bottle neck. I also had to change some of Minecrafts settings as well to reduce CPU strain (disable spawn chunks, reduce render distance, etc). I also overclocked the Pi's CPU to 2 Gigahertz. It actually works out really nicely and I recommend you give it a try if you are interested. You are going to want to use a 64bit os like Ubuntu though in order to avoid a 32bit OS' max memory process allocation limit of 2 gigs, Minecraft is very ram hungry.

I'm running my rpi 4 as a kubernetes controller on Ubuntu. It also has wireguard hooked up with 8 dedicated server nodes. The SD card class A2 has been enough for disk performance, no SSD needed.

It's mounted on a din rail with the DINr mount plate and a Poe hat, makes it very compact and it fits in my small fiber network clauset. Planning to add 2 more for hight availability.

I have a couple of RPis running Raspbian with a SMB server, and they keep on ticking without a hitch.

The only problem I ever experience was when I tried to run a RPi4 as a desktop with a 4k tv. Although everything worked out of the box, sometimes the system stopped responding.

I have a 4k monitor and it works but it's too slow with Minecraft so we run it at 1080p

What version of Minecraft do you run on the pi? Bedrock? Java? Or the RPi edition?

You can now run the current Java version, but it's still too slow to be enjoyable... I think if Mojang wanted they could fix the performance as it itermittently is completely playable for long periods:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=2791...

I use the regular one with OptiFine and some jvm tweaks, and decrease the settings for how far out you can see and graphics fidelity and it's playable, though frame rate isn't super high. It's not so slow that it's annoying though.

What cameras and monitoring software do you use?

I’ve been trying to put together a self-hosted surveillance situation to replace this Nest. So far I’ve got a super cheap PoE camera from amazon and Zoneminder. The camera leaves a lot to be desired... and I’m still figuring out Zoneminder

I use motionEye to monitor RTSP feed from two IP cameras (Generic) on RPi 3(SSD, btrfs, zswap, ArchLinux ARM - headless, passive cooling - heat sink case) the feed averages around 30fps(720p) with motion detection. I had a third logitech c720 via USB but removed it to get better frame rates for the former and make room(CPU) for a SDR setup(To receive 433Mhz from other sensors).

Note: Generic IP cameras dial home for public identification on their apps and also would never receive security updates. I had to meticulously block all open ports using firewall. If you feel that's too much of risk, then I would suggest building a camera setup with RPi camera or ESP camera yourself to be used with motionEye.

Thanks for the details! yea i picked up a generic chinese camera and did not at all like the required login to their servers... I’m not confident enough in my sysadmin skills to make sure this thing isn’t spying on me.

I’m considering spending 4x-5x the amount on better hardware..

Just to understand the need gap, how much would you be willing to pay for a RPi nano/ESP camera setup with Motion Eye which allows you to store the data in your own NAS?

$300-$500 ballpark. especially if the pi is usable for other (relatively light) home server uses and the camera network is extensible

Thanks, not sure whether a Pi Nano can handle more than a feed from 1080p/60 camera 24/7 but I'll post the need gap of self hosted IP camera setup in my problem validation platform[1] to find existing solutions and to see if others want it.

[1] https://needgap.com

interesting project! thanks for referencing it. how long have you been running it and what’s the experience been like?

Thanks, I've been running it for a year.

I have detailed, why I created it here[1]. Experience has been great, I has got me valuable insight in using language/grammar to differentiate problems vs startup ideas and issues in doing that. What I have learnt so far is that, It's easier to think what we come up with is a 'startup idea' than 'identifying a problem/need gap'.

I'll be improving it in the coming years to study more on the topic.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23939514

I've tried motioneye and zone minder and they were too complicated or CPU intensive and didn't record audio, so I ended up writing a multiprocess python script with ffmpeg to directly write out raw video data. I've got months of continuous video from two cameras on a 1 TB SSD.

I purchased ieGeek 1080p ip cams, but they were not PoE so I bought adapters. Might be easier to just get PoE cams directly.

Camera: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QW73RJS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_8L...

Adapter: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078LYW6D7/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_XP...

Here's the script:

https://github.com/erahhal/ipcam-recorder

I added the script as a systemd service that starts up on its own.

I run home assistant and the unifi controller on a 3b Pi and noticed that I have restart it once a few weeks or it starts becoming slower to respond. I don't know if it's a memory thing that eventually becomes too much or something else.

Does it cope well with on-the-fly transcodes (1, maybe 2 simultaneously) with Plex? Just in case it encounters a client that cannot direct-play a video.

I haven't tried, but I suspect it would take a hit.

I've been using mine for Plex and Deluge the previous 6-months or so. In terms of performance it's been all but flawless.

Sorry but english isn't my first language, do you mean that it was flawless or not?

"All but" means "almost" or "nearly". (Most of the time -- as usual English has exceptions and inversions for this.)

In this case I think it means "nearly".

What USB nvme enclosure are you using? And what SSD?

Not an ad, but I saw this USB portable NVME drive today, seems like an easier (and probably pricier) solution: https://shop.westerndigital.com/products/portable-drives/san...

SSK Aluminum M.2 NVME SSD Enclosure Adapter

Samsung (MZ-V7E1T0BW) 970 EVO SSD 1TB

Unless you specifically need the 8GB RAM (where Rpi 4 is the only contender in this range as of right now AFAIK), IMO for server use-cases it'd be better to consider either Odroid C4 or Rock Pi 4 - both offer better storage interfaces than USB/microSD natively. Also easier to run vanilla Debian/Ubuntu (or Armbian, which is very close to vanilla but can be easily built custom for either board preconfigured with necessary kernel modules/dtbs/boot loader/drivers/firmware for each board).

I don't know if things have improved but traditionally every other alternative SBC had better hardware but was stuck in one image provided by the vendor that was never updated and buggy. Has the situation improved, i.e. can you just run apt upgrade on an Odroid C4? Can you run Arch on it?

The Armbian project has been a pretty good platform for various boards. The support will be different from board to board, but personally had a great experience with it on an Orange Pi Zero.

https://www.armbian.com/

I haven’t dug very far yet but it seems to be doing okay on the nanopi boards so far.

I've run into that exact situation too.

The Pi is the only SBC with an excellent OS ecosystem.

There are official Ubuntu server releases available for the RPi2-4. Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions are available.

I have many pis, but when it comes to making a mini server, wouldn't it be worth it to spring for a low end intel machine, or used mini-pcs?

They already come with things like power supplies, RTC+battery, on-off switches, sata and/or m.2, expandable memory, etc.

Maybe, depends on what your priorities are!

Personally I use ARM SBCs to get physically separate hosts for things like Consul/Vault/Nomad servers, k8s control plane, some monitoring instances, workers for loads that don't need blazing single-thread performance, etc. This way I can run something close to "best practices" HA redundant clusters while staying low on purchase and electricity costs, and my whole setup can fit in a suitcase if I need to move.

Some of the things you mention (m.2, RTC, switches) are things that are either included or cheap and easy add-ons to the boards I mentioned.

Another nice upside is the low power means it's easier to power them via PoE, so you don't need a power supply in the first place.

I also try to go as far as I can in the direction of libre/open software/firmware/hardware, which means I try to minimize the reliance on Intel and AMD CPUs.

I’m using my old Anker charging station to power most of my SBCs.

I think the “it depends” also depends on what you think the next ten years holds for ARM vs x64. Getting some more hours in dealing with ARM ‘servers‘ might be a decent way to hedge your bets.

AKA the scooter computer:

https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-scooter-computer/

Can it idle at 1W? I'll be running the server all the time, so every watt counts.

Idle for the 4 is around 3W, peak 7W.

I have a nanopc T4 with a rockchip and 4Gb that’s been moldering away on a shelf for a year and a half. Finally getting it up and working. Armbian isn’t so bad.

Full sized hdmi port, USB-C with DisplayPort, gigE, and connectors for two WiFi antennae, and an M.2 4x slot on the backside of the board that would be great for an nVME card. It also has two screw holes and a power header for mounting a heat sink.

> better storage interfaces than USB/microSD natively.

For this micro-server form factor, with a tiny little board in a tiny little case, what is a better storage form factor than a little portable SSD connected via USB 3?

(I wouldn't be wild about using a microSD card for a server that relied much on storage)

A direct m.2 or sata slot so you don't have to deal with USB annoyances.

Since the Pi people finally got USB boot finished for the Pi 4, I'm not sure what USB annoyances are left to worry about? That's really why I asked the question. A USB 3 SSD seems about as trouble-free as a storage device can possibly be.

A M.2 SSD is more trouble free.

I recently built a desktop computer. It uses a 6x6 inch mini-ITX motherboard. The motherboard has a CPU and 2 sticks of RAM in it, raising the height to about 2 inches. The SSD goes inside the motherboard in the M.2 slot. Aside from this 6x6x2" unit, the only other things are:

- the gigantic graphics card - not necessary on these type of computers - the power supply unit - standard USB unit for these - and the CPU cooler which is a big hunk of metal sticking out and raising the total height to about 6 inches - again not necessary, maybe a tiny passive heatsink

M.2 is faster and lets you put a tiny SSD (literally just a PCB with flash chips on it) inside the thing instead of having a large external USB SSD with a cable to connect. So in the end you have a super compact computer that is basically just one PCB with another PCB inside it and maybe a tiny heatsink.

It's a slightly different paradigm, that's for sure. It feels technically neater to interface a little more directly with the storage hardware. I'm not sure how much I'd give up for that, though.

> having a large external USB SSD with a cable to connect.

The Samsung t5 and t7 SSDs I'm using with RPi 4s are about the size of a credit card (a stack of five credit cards, I guess). The tiny, very solid flirc cases for the Pis aren't much bigger, and dissipate heat beautifully. I like this solution a lot more than I anticipated I would.

You have to do special config stuff to make it work, its not a default way to do things like an SD card or m2 card is on other SBCs. Also usb cables can get disconnected sometimes.

> You have to do special config stuff to make it work

Flashing the newest firmware is about it, now.

I am waiting for AMD based "NUC", because I don't want to give money to Intel.

The reason I want a AMD based computer is to run vanilla Debian on it.

Vanilla debian does not run on Raspberry unfortunately. Currently I'm running Odroid XU4, but I need more ram and horsepower.

Maybe not exactly what you are looking for, because larger and more expensive than most systems in this context, but it comes with anything one needs, with the exception of CPU, RAM and storage.

https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMini%20A300%20Series/

I keep almost buying one but never quite get there. An updated version is around the corner and although it will support the new 4000 series APUs (when they become generally available), it's otherwise underwhelming compared to the updated Intel model.

https://liliputing.com/2020/08/asrocks-new-deskmini-pcs-supp...

Yes, love mine. Fits two NVMe drives plus two 2.5” drives in its tiny frame.

There's plenty of offerings available in pretty much the NUC form factor - maybe check out these lists (esp. if you're based in Europe):

https://geizhals.eu/?cat=sysdiv&xf=450_Nettop~6764_AMD&asuch...

https://geizhals.eu/?cat=barepc&xf=2508_AMD%7E4249_Nettop

How about https://shop.udoo.org/products/bolt.html?

You can also look at https://www.amd.com/en/products/embedded-minipc-solutions.

As another one, there's minisforum on Indiegogo. Still $500 bucks though. Pretty decent specs Ryzen5 and Vega 8 with dual ethernet ports.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-next-gen-minis-amd-ye...

Another one in here. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-new-gen-amd-ryzen-5-m...

Have you seen the Asus PN50?

https://www.asus.com/Mini-PCs/Mini-PC-PN50/

The second image on that page is hilariously wrong on scale. The USB port is about as wide as the caps lock key on the keyboard. They're supposed to be touting the small size of the unit and actually made it look bigger. Is it really that hard to just put the thing on a desk and take a real picture of it?

It has Intel Wi-Fi...

That's a shame. Looks like it's an M.2 module, so you could replace it I suppose.

Looks like Linus Tech Tips just posted an unboxing of one this morning.

There's ThinkCentre m715q and HP ProDesk 405 g4 for that.

I'm keeping an eye out for 4800u based NUC.

I did something similar pi4 500gb ssd POE and small lcd . https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/hrp8sl/i_desi...

Used Lenovo Tiny M92p/M93p units make a nicer solution for this, to me. The enclosure is already there, and no janky USB storage to deal with.

A Lenovo M92p is about 6x the price of a RPi, and the noise/form factor can't possibly be compared.

If you really want to compare a 200$ desktop with a 40$ SoC then you should aim for stuff such as those mini PC's/thin clients from Asus, which nowadays even ship with Ryzen processors.

The $40 SoC isn't $40 after you the drive, power supply, enclosure, etc. There's a parts list in the article. I don't think the 4GB bare RPi is $40 anyway, it's higher.

And a used Lenovo Tiny is easy to find for much less than $200. $100 shipped without an SSD, $140 with one.

You're exaggerating both ends.

> The $40 SoC isn't $40 after you the drive, power supply, enclosure, etc.

That's true, but we can break cost down easily. Right now there are RPi4 packs with power supply, enclosure, and both passive and active coolers for less than 15$. Storage depends on your taste, but you can buy 64GB USB pen drives or micro SD cards for less than 10$, or 1TB external HDD for less than 50$. Thus for a total less than 100$ you can have a brand new server up and running.

I'm talking about stuff you can simply add to your shopping cart and get it shipped to your doorstep in a few days with zero research. These prices were literally taken from the first search result that popped into amazon.

Better yet, this option involves zero time wasted betting on whether end-of-life hardware still has a few months left in them.

You can go cheaper, though.

Parts from Ali:

Stackable plastic frame for 4 pis + basic heatsinks ~= 5$

MicroUSB PoE injector (removes the need for PSU) ~= 3.5$

>noise

There's no way you can do much on the rPi4 without active cooling - mine gets uncomfortable hot doing some basic web scraping, never mind server duties.

> There's no way you can do much on the rPi4 without active cooling.

You'd be surprised. YMMV and of course your local climate and your usage patterns do dictate how hot your gear runs, but in my experience adding a small 1$ heat spreader does allow my RPi4 to chug along without going over 60C. Heck, even placing it on the side or placing a coin stack over the processor is enough to keep it running along without ever throttling.

Of course if you're constantly running 100% CPU loads then you start to need cooling, whether it's your laptop or desktop or even servers.

There's an oversized passive heatsink available for the RPi4 now: https://www.coolipi.com/ Ought to be adequate at full load without a fan for anything short of a tropical climate. Not inexpensive, though.

You just need the right heatsink: http://move.rupy.se/file/pi_4.jpg

This one is sold out and out of production now though and I had to trim it because it was made for the 3+

For the purpose of home server, SFF PCs are enough small to put on side of the router and almost zero noise. It a bit costs but it features decent storage, great CPU, reliable LAN. Even x6, $200 is cheap.

I bought an 8GB M92p for €50, and a compatible 4c/8t Xeon for €20 .It makes a great little server. Of course, I also have an RPi 4 for other uses.

Lenovo regularly tries to fill ThinkCenter Tiny quotas by orders at the costs for their internal reasons. That’s what he’s talking about.

Like said by other, price is much higher.

It also uses much more power, most of ivy/sandy bridge low power desktop generally idles at more or less 15W, where the RPI 4 uses less than 4 watts.

Thats not a bad option but it’s a huge dif in price, specs, size. It really depends on your needs and wants. The pi’s are very tempting because they could be incorporated in many small spaces. Somebody else mentions that an used laptop has better specs and while true it misses the point. Rpis are ubiquitous, small, interchangeable, etc And the price will most likely go down even further (in terms of specs and compared to other options). I persobally welcome them even if i dont own any yet

How do these stack up to Intel NUCs?

At 2 Gflops/watt these are better for server duty, specially with battery backup, if you care about that sort of stuff.

We've been running a Raspberry pi 3 smb/print server for a few months now. It was also our wifi access point for a little while. We have it hooked into a 7-port USB 3.0 hub for removable storage.

Raspberry pi is also ideal as a command and control server for IP gadgets running hacked firmwares such as cameras and doorknobs and ACs and stuff. It is better to run cameras on on a separate wifi channel/PHY to save bandwidth, store to local server, rsync over to off-site backup once a day. All of this can be done with Pi, ethernet cable and a cheap usb wifi interface.

This website is pretty cool, but I can't really find out what it is?

Looks like it's a magazine?

Is there any context, none of the articles have dates or an explanation about what it is/who makes it.

He makes awesome YouTube videos on various small electronics projects like this, including some more complex ones with custom PCBs and stuff. The website is more used as a reference/script for the videos, and the videos are much better if you actually want to see the projects visually.

I’m a big fan of his Casio F91W mods and his Pi Zero projects. His overall design/aesthetics are flawless too.

https://www.youtube.com/c/NODEtv

The guy has a hackeresque hardware YouTube channel and hit a home run with the design imo. N-O-D-E

If you don't care about the internal SSD drive than the Argon One case would be a nice alternative to this. It is a nice looking case which also moves all the ports to one side. While not the cheapest case it is likely less expensive than getting all the parts together for this design.

Intel NUCs for x86 K8/Docker servers. Used units are very cheap on ebay/Craigslist.

I have a RPi4 with 2GB running Home Assistant which besides connecting all the smart/iot devices also hosts

- BitWarden for password manager backend - AdGuard Home for ad blocking and local DNS server - OctoPrint for my 3D printer

I don't understand why you would bother with this when you can pick up a second-hand Thinkpad for so cheap which brings a builtin UPS and far more performance, RAM, and IO options.

I don't see where it makes any sense to compare an ancient used end-of-life x86 laptop with a brand new ARM SoC in any of the relevant categories, such as price, form factor, power consumption, availability, and even support.

Just for context, you can fit about 10 raspberry pi 4s in the same volume you fit your used laptop, and for the price of an old end-of-life Thinkpad you can buy 5 or 6 RPis. Hell, you can go to any online store and buy dozens of RPis in a couple of clocks and have them delivered to your doorstep in a few days.

Meanwhile, your cheap Thinkpad is already in the tail end of its bathtub curve.

People need to stop thinking in terms of -ancient -used -end-of-life -old

..when describing hardware used for mostly trivial purposes. The mentality of just clicking up some new hardware with no consideration of e-waste has to stop.

Anecdote; my last laptop was a used T420. $80. You're lucky to get two Pi+SD card+power supply for that.

What do I care how many Raspberry Pis I can fit in the same space as a used Thinkpad which brings a display, keyboard, battery backup, and myriad high-speed IO ports beyond just USB, when we're talking about a stationary server role?

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the average HNer already has numerous retired laptops collecting dust in a corner, all more powerful and better suited to connecting high-speed storage to than any Raspberry Pi. They're already wasting space and have already been manufactured, instead of adding more e-waste piecing together Pi-based storage contraptions just turn one on and set it up for server duty already.

Every pi sold feeds starving people with lifesaving pie.

As someone who's grown tired of a flaky rpi connected to an external drive, is there a generation to shoot for in terms of low price to reasonable performance?

I was able to swing $230 total for two x230s with the base i5 and ssds last fall/winter (actually three, but the third doesn't really count (arrived damaged, seller initiated a refund then ghosted, got a full refund from ebay)). If you're really lucky, you can find a computraced one for super cheap ($85 in my case) and then coreboot it.

That said, x220s and x230s seem to have gotten more expensive since then, I haven't seen any similarly good deals lately.

Check the buyer’s guides on r/thinkpad. Typically you’re looking at T or X series, with T giving the most flexibility. T410 to T430 can be had for less than $200 and should be fine for server use. The numbering scheme is Txy0, with x the screen size (4 for 14), b the Core i generation (0 is core 2 duo).

As someone who's not a huge fan of used laptops as servers (they've already seen hard use and are not really meant for 24x7 operation either), consider the Odroid H2+ instead: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2plus/ Tiny, x86-based, and only $119 plus RAM and storage.

Yeah I’m in the same boat right now. I want an always on machine to connect a disk to that doesn’t draw too much power. I looked at NUCs but they seem far too expensive for my usecase.

I use a powered USB hub and it got rid of my flakiness problems.

I went for a ThinkPad 13. Add on the dongle for an RJ45 port (about GBP10) and you're sorted!

I use a rpi2 with a DAC hat attached on top, hooked up to amp and speakers, powered by and Ethernet connected to a time capsule nas. It all fits nicely on a shelf.

I could have used a thinkpad with a usb DAC, but it would require more space, more power cable, ... It would provide a built in ups and screen, which I don’t need.

I think rpi are OK when the whole service it provides could be read only, with no local storage / state.

Don't know about Thinkpad, but my previous Asus laptop won't boot unless the monitor is connected.

Most things I use Pi's (Raspberry and other flavors) for are headless.

Sure I could probably fool around with a logic analyzer and try to figure out some way of fooling the motherboard it has a monitor, but meh, Pi's are cheap and easy and just work.

What about power(electricity) consumption?

Architecture, form factor, access to pins, scale, power.

Don’t do it! For (your own) source code or valuables, you need ECC memory and a capacitor on the power supply for your storage device which, by the way, should not be prone to corruption when the device is vibrated a little too hard causing electrical shorts in the SD-card or USB connectors! Backups aren’t the answer either, in fact backups can trigger RAM errors (especially with encryption and compression enabled) that may only ever be occurring during backups leading to..silently corrupted backups.

I hear about ECC since 15 years now but I have yet to encounter a case where I had data corruption (on any machine ECC or not).

It's not that I don't believe, but the occurrence seems to be ultra rare.

The Sun was in a relative quiet period for most of those 15 years. Intel removed ECC from the consumer products to keep businesses from buying them --they didn't count on an entire generation of Computer Scientists being wiped out in the dot-com crash and the replacements getting lucky while not knowing any better. All of the great masters (cough) know better, such as the architects of AWS (it is 100% ECC), Microsoft, Apple and other environments that were less affected by the loss of key personnel to the Crash. But keep down votin' --love it!

There are good reasons not to use a raspberry pi as a server. But lack of ecc ram is not one of them.

Really? They discovered quarks at my university (I wrote the kernel mode code to handle the data bursts from our Cyclotron on sub-MIPS processors) and I have four decades of systems experience. So, what are your qualifications? Hmm?

cosmic/solar radiation (stray particles), voltage regulation and thermal conditions are the main causes of RAM errors. downvotes are popularity contest on Hacker “News”

Is this missing an /s at the end? All of this is true, but come on, 99% of regular people don't need any of this stuff. And pretty much no one actually needs ECC memory outside of professional setting.

I tell yah there is nothing sadder than some poor CPA who has lost all of his client files and some of his baby's pictures when the Fusion Drive in his iMac failed (what a horrible piece of technology) only to discover that their backups are all bad because whenever the program kicked-in, it caused a failure mode on their cheap-azz third-party RAM DIMM that was otherwise unnoticed due to lack of ECC support. So when you say "pretty much no one" are you missing an /s at the end?

Let's combine two facts - virtually no consumer desktop, laptop, phone or tablet ships with ECC memory, yet somehow, nearly everyone is successfully using their computing devices for both pleasure and work, including backups. Yes, failures happen, but they are so incredibly rare that recommending people at home to buy ECC ram is in the same league as recommending getting a double PSU or a UPS for home use to prevent data loss in my mind. Technically correct, but in practice you're reducing the chances of losing your data from 0.0001% to 0.0001% or something equally negligible. There are actual, real, impact steps that anyone can take to improve their data safety - ECC memory is not one of them.

I don’t know where to find such data to support your “facts”. Perhaps Geek Genius Bar?

0.0001%? Did you just pull that out of your ass?

Well, instead of trying to find data to support what I said, try to find data to support what you did maybe? My assertion is simple - virtually no consumer computing devices come with ECC ram, therefore it follows that ECC ram is not necessary to use, play with and work with computers every day. If your assertion is the opposite of that, then I'm willing to see data proving it. And of course 0.0001% was pulled out of my ass.

An ARM based server almost sounds like an oxymoron.

Heh, the fastest HPC cluster on the top 500 list is arm.

Amusingly #2, #3, and #4 aren't x86-64 either. Number 5 is, but mainly because the xeons are handling I/O for the real heavy lifting on the matrix-2000 accelerators. The first pure x86-64 cluster is #8.

So the performance story is changing quickly, and arm is just getting started.

Japan Captures TOP500 Crown with Arm-Powered Supercomputer

https://top500.org/news/japan-captures-top500-crown-arm-powe... (June 2020)

> The new top system, Fugaku, turned in a High Performance Linpack (HPL) result of 415.5 petaflops, besting the now second-place Summit system by a factor of 2.8x.

> Fugaku is powered by Fujitsu’s 48-core A64FX SoC, becoming the first number one system on the list to be powered by ARM processors. In single or further reduced precision, which are often used in machine learning and AI applications, Fugaku’s peak performance is over 1,000 petaflops (1 exaflops).

> The new system is installed at RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS) in Kobe, Japan.

Why so? Even cloud giants are moving in that direction[1].

When next generation Mac Mini with Apple Silicon comes out, data centers using that would be running Apple Server packages on that.

In fact I've been running my production applications on ARM servers for ~a year and it has resulted in greater capital efficiency.

I've been using Pi 2 with USB storage as a publicly hosted git server for over 5 years used by multiple users.

[1]https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/

I got a Raspberry Pi 4 and naively thought that because it was ARM it used little power and didn't need fans. In a few weeks the board melted and now won't turn on. Was only running a few programs.

I just got a Pi 4 and for a year now I've known it gets very very hot. I ordered this heatsink case for it

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VWM4J4L/ref=ppx_yo_dt...

Should solve the problem. :)

How did the cpu throttling not kick-in and prevent this from happening? Mine gets hot and gets slow. It does not melt.

For a home server, ARM is very nice as it has a better power to watt ratio than x86. So less heat to dissipate in your bedroom/home office.

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