Looking to build a single (very low power) server - worth holding out for Pi4 or consider something else?

elsmandino · Oct 26th 2022

Hi there.

This is my current set up:

* Odroid HC2 (with 14TB HDD) - running Openmediavault and mainly used for backups, streaming media and recording TV from TVHeadend (via a Sat-IP box).

* Raspberry Pi3B+ (with USB SSD attached, and Zigbee dongle) - running HomeAssistant

* Raspberry Pi1B+ - running PiHole

I have been looking to upgrade and put all of the above into a single server - however, given the way that energy prices are at the moment, I need to be even more careful as to what I buy as the device will need to be on 24/7 and thus needs a very low idle wattage.

What are my options?

Ideally, I would like 8GB RAM to give me a bit of headroom.

My first choice was a Raspberry Pi4, but not only are these still not available (and won't be for quite some time, yet) but I cannot help but wonder whether there might be something that might do the job just as well. Is there something, with a comparable energy consumption, that might be worth looking at?

My only real requirements (other than the 8GB RAM) is that I need to be able to connect the 3.5" harddrive and an SSD, plus I need at least one USB for plugging in the Zigbee dongle.

I have noted that the Odroid H3/H3+ seem like that might be quite good, what do you think?

olduser · Oct 26th 2022

If you're capturing video, a RPI won't cut it. If you can offload to an outboard maybe, but that's dedicate hardware you didn't list.

FWIW, if you simply want a JBOD on a network, they all seem too powerful to me. I can't help to wonder if there isn't some smaller, less sophisticated software distro for running ONLY a RAID/JBOD. I know there's a lot of MINIX kernels out there but, I haven't seen one for NAS things.

ryecoaaron · Oct 26th 2022

Quote from olduser

If you're capturing video, a RPI won't cut it. If you can offload to an outboard maybe, but that's dedicate hardware you didn't list.

An Odroid HC2 is being used now. An RPi4 is faster than the HC2.

Quote from olduser

I can't help to wonder if there isn't some smaller, less sophisticated software distro for running ONLY a RAID/JBOD. I know there's a lot of MINIX kernels out there but, I haven't seen one for NAS things.

There is no reason to not use Linux. OMV only adds overhead to the system when you are using the web interface and if you have monitoring enabled. If you disable monitoring (I do), an OMV install on a minimal Debian install is very lightweight. If you need a simpler web interface, buy a QNAP (which is Linux too).

ryecoaaron · Oct 26th 2022

Quote from elsmandino

the Odroid H3/H3+ seem like that might be quite good, what do you think?

It probably idles at more power than both your old RPis put together. Going to one more powerful system is going to hard to keep it using less energy than all three of your systems combined. If the old RPis are working, I would keep using them until the RPi OS doesn't support them. Maybe replace the HC2 with an RPi4 (or any newer 64 bit arm board with a Debian 11 image available) if you can find one.

elsmandino · Oct 27th 2022

Thanks guys - really helpful.

This page (about half way down)

ODROID-H3 / H3+ — ameriDroid

suggests that the board has an idle wattage of just 1.9w, which does seem oddly low for an x86 system.

So ultimately, the advice is to try and stick with ARM if I really want a capable server with low power consumption?

If I really want 8GB, does that only leave the RPi4?

The Odroid HC4 would have been perfect if only it had more than its 4GB RAM.

ryecoaaron · Oct 27th 2022

Quote from elsmandino

suggests that the board has an idle wattage of just 1.9w, which does seem oddly low for an x86 system.

That does seem possible for these new Intel SoC systems but with two 2.5GBe network ports, it seems very low. If that is true, then it would make a great board and disregard what I said : )

olduser · Oct 27th 2022

Quote from elsmandino

does that only leave the RPi4?

Since the RPi price has changed, most likely for years/forever, I'd buy the H3. Honestly, I'd buy the H3 anyways.

The fact that the H3 has SPDIF which uses ALC1200 is interesting for me since I intend to capture LaserDisc audio, which the ALC1200 works fine. *_If_* they would of spent an extra $1 (at most) and picked the ALC1220, the H3 could be doubled for a decoder/deck for headphones and also since the 1220 has DSD... possibly a outboard vinyl capture device (hardware DSD support is nice none the less). However, it lists the SPDIF as "out" but, I thought all SPDIF was bidirectional :-/

EDIT: I'm definitely wrong about SPDIF being bidirectional, it's not. So I guess the "out" on the H3 is just that

GaoGao · Nov 4th 2022

I run it on the Odroid HC4 in RAID1 (Mirroring), running fine with two open issues I am still trying to understand: For some unknow reasons sometime I cannot restart it and I have to reflash the firmware (Petitboot). Issue with Photoprism, sometime the web page is not accessible: I have about hundred thousand photos, maybe a resource issue.

Inexpensive hardware, very low power consumption.

neail · Jun 18th 2023

Hi, it's not too late I hope,

I would suggest you to look for odroid H3+, which has 2 dedicated sata ports and 2 RAM slots allowing upto 32 gb dual channel.. at only 10w of processing power, that can be boosted upto 18w.

2, 3.5 HDDs and one NVME (pcie) ssd, 2x 2.5gb ethernet.

With 2, 3.5 HDDs that might go upto 60w, please be mindful of that, especially if you are using data centre drives.

Along with that would ask you to consider any NVME powerd Dell optiplexes. Those are cheap and efficient around 35w at full load. Any model after 3020 should support NVME, still please research a little before buying. And RAM slots are also available, upto 64GB I believe.

I Would suggest using the odroid as dedicated OMV server, as the integrated graphics in it may actively help you without any further passthrough configaration, plus which I personally find more needed is physical access to the HDDs by OMV to read the SMART values which is not possible while running OMV as a VM.

And 2.5G X2 ethernet, no bargain here.

Next the optiplex with Proxmox is more than capable of running all your HA and pi hole needs.

Hope it helps, I am personally going to have these systems, retiring my current NAS (i5-2400 90w) and using this as a Rsync server for backup of the OMV in the odroid.

Bonus-

There are 3 varients of optiplexes 30xx, 50xx, 70xx, the higher number is a better south bridge and I/O with USB 3 and proprietary corporate features, go for 30xx that is enough, considering you shall be hosting a hypervisor. Those are way cheaper, personally never had any issues with 30 series myself.

If you have any old pc adding a HBA card like perc310 and flashing it to Non raid mode and using it to build it in a Software RAID arrey or just anything that could support your OMV server with redundancy. Because hard drives fail and with odroid I wouldn't suggest running any RAID as that would introduce unnecessary complications and time and power uses, ((If you are using 2x 2.5 ethernet to any workstation then ........that's a different segment.... however in that case you have to choose between performance and efficiency, running RAID (0) will not allow your drives to spindown, all your drives will be operational at any moment of use.))

Just go with barebone drives preferably data centre ones as those are way cheaper than NAS drives, 2x 10 TB might last you the lifetime (from the POV of capacity), and now bigger drives are coming and not running RAID you are not bound to matching the drive capacities. If you have older dives just put them with the HBA and use those as a LVM for the redundancy server. If your drives are too old then a raid 5/6 might be a better option against LVM as LMV has no disk failure support.

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