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Comment by colordrops | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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...

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

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?

SSK Aluminum M.2 NVME SSD Enclosure Adapter

Samsung (MZ-V7E1T0BW) 970 EVO SSD 1TB

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...

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