Must fight temptation to buy an overpriced raspberry pi
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I can self host what I want on a pi zero. But, I do have some 30 years of experience so can probably do things some won't understand / bother with.
Bro please. I understand you can host very small stuff on less powerful Pis. I used to host some stuff on a Raspberry Pi model b myself. Stop tooting your own horn. You couldn't however host all the stuff I use or even most home labbers use on a Pi zero with modern software. I doubt it could run Jellyfin, an *arr stack, ollama, nextcloud, etc all at the same time. Probably you would also have to drop using containers which would be less secure and easy to deploy.
What's the performance per watt of a Pi Zero anyway? I am sure it's low power draw but I doubt it's actually efficient.
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I'm sure silicon valley are stepping on each other, vying to get their hands on these super cheap laptops for their 24/7 AI training.
No Silicon Valley are the ones throwing these things away because it costs them too much money to deal with old unreliable PCs.
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If you have the lid closed, you're looking at 3 to 15 watts to have a laptop running in the background doing some basic server shit.
Maybe a little more under high load, but those are going to be intermittent and not constant.
I'm just saying it's not that much more electricity usage, and the recycling more than offsets the CO2.
Not quite. Unless the system has pretty advanced power management and is using very recent technology with high density, it's unlikely that an x64 chipset will use less power than a comparably powered arm64 chipset. Not just the processor, but the smaller board is actually a power saver and allows it to generate less heat meaning both less power wasted and dissipated as heat as well as less power needed for fans to properly dissipate the heat. I've never seen a laptop use 3W at idle when considering the whole device, maybe just the CPU, but not if you include the rest of the components like RAM and disks and power supply. And especially true in a laptop that is old enough that it's being recycled. Heck, the power supply and charger alone might be using 3W at idle with full battery.
With a raspberry pi 4, the typical power usage for the 2GB RAM model is 5W under load for the whole device and about half that for idle. Add a couple of watts for the extra memory and wider bus on the 8GB model and other things can add to that, but that's mostly accurate. The pi 5 is a little more and the 3 is a little less. Of course, the efficiency of the laptop at full load might end up being better than a comparable number of raspberry pis it would take to do the same amount if work, but comparing a single pi or any other reputable arm-based, single board computer to a single laptop at idle is always going to be that way.
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
Only if you're running it at full load all the time and comparing that to a comparable number of raspberry pis it would take to do the same amount of work. Also, only if you live in a cold climate and the heat generated is not a concern and power is supplied by a renewable source so power isn't a concern.
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I guess I am pretty far from saturating my WiFi in any way, the removal of cables with little to no impact on connectivity was far more of a priority for me. I have never noticed a WiFi related outage or performance loss.
My WiFi routers have historically struggled a bit, I've got a decent one now, but even it is slow to manage the DHCP lists for fixed assignments by MAC address.
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Should see an old 6th gen i5 mini PC on a power monitor. It's basically nothing!
Yeah, they've reversed that trend for sure.
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Your energy is clearly a lot cheaper than mine then.
Well, the idea scales, if your energy is 0.33 Euro per kWh take the watts x 3 and that's your annual running cost.
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I used to think so too, but my pi-hole just died the other week after four years of uptime. Couldn't work it out, finally pulled the SD card out to reinstall the OS and found my laptop wouldn't recognise it.
Made me glad I don't run my mailserver on a Pi anymore!
I join you, I used to change SD card and USB disk every 1-2 year. I bought a nas 3 year ago didn't need to change disk yet.
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Probably for as long as raspberry pis have been around. There have been plenty of scares with phone chargers exploding, and that's what a raspberry pi is powered from. Laptop chargers haven't had many issues in the past decade or so.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I have heard less about phone chargers failing catastrophically. They also handle much less power (except the fancy ones), and I haven't seen a hot phone charger adapter yet, but plenty laptop chargers of which some were just very warm, and some so hot just on its outsides that it was uncomfortable to hold it in hand.
this is why I'm more worried about laptop chargers
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Bro please. I understand you can host very small stuff on less powerful Pis. I used to host some stuff on a Raspberry Pi model b myself. Stop tooting your own horn. You couldn't however host all the stuff I use or even most home labbers use on a Pi zero with modern software. I doubt it could run Jellyfin, an *arr stack, ollama, nextcloud, etc all at the same time. Probably you would also have to drop using containers which would be less secure and easy to deploy.
What's the performance per watt of a Pi Zero anyway? I am sure it's low power draw but I doubt it's actually efficient.
See here's the thing. Why would anyone want to host ALL the stuff on one pi? That is not what they were designed for. Ollama on a pi? Are you out of your mind? I'd run the biggest model I can on a modern gpu not some crappy old computer or pi....Right tool, right job. And why is dropping containers "less secure"? Do you mean "less cool"? Less easy to deploy? But you're not deploying it, you're installing it. You sound like a complete newb which is fine, but just take a step back from things and get some more experience. A pi is a tool for a purpose, not the end all. Using an old laptop is not going to save the world and arguing that it's just better than a pi (or similar alternative) is just dumb. Use a laptop for all I care, I'm not the boss of you.
As for an arr stack, I'm really disappointed with the software and don't use it and those who do have way too much time to set it up, and then make use of it!
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No Silicon Valley are the ones throwing these things away because it costs them too much money to deal with old unreliable PCs.
Damn, I should have ended the post with /s for people like you.
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
Look for refurbished elitedesk g5, it runs debian magnificantly! I splurged a bit on the memory and ssd and have a quite nice desktop (developer).
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Also, Raspberry Pi first got popular because of the size and cost. Now it's popular because it's popular. Not hating on them, I think they're cool, but they're not cheap any more. Especially with the scalping.
Getting x86_64 based systems is going to mean much less headache. Unless you truly truly need the size I wouldn't consider getting a Pi or other SBC. Just go to literally any used marketplace (Facebook, Craigslist, etc) and get anything.
but they're not cheap any more
People say this, but they really are still cheap.
The original Raspberry Pi Model B launched for £22 in 2012. The entry level Raspberry Pi 5 is £46, but adjusted for inflation that's only £32 in 2012 money. So only £10 more expensive in real terms.
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is only £14.40, which is only £10 in 2012 money. Compare this to the original Raspberry Pi Model A, which launched for £16.
People look at the headline cost of the high end RPi 5s (£115 for the 16GB model, £76 for the 8GB), but fail to recognise that there was nothing comparable to these in the Raspberry Pi lineup before, and these are not the only models in the Raspberry Pi lineup now.
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A RPi is going to be smaller, quieter, and 10x more energy efficient though...
There are probably a dozen things you can do to save energy on orders of magnitude higher than using a pi.
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There are probably a dozen things you can do to save energy on orders of magnitude higher than using a pi.
Then do them. It's still not going to decrease the energy use of your server.
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but they're not cheap any more
People say this, but they really are still cheap.
The original Raspberry Pi Model B launched for £22 in 2012. The entry level Raspberry Pi 5 is £46, but adjusted for inflation that's only £32 in 2012 money. So only £10 more expensive in real terms.
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is only £14.40, which is only £10 in 2012 money. Compare this to the original Raspberry Pi Model A, which launched for £16.
People look at the headline cost of the high end RPi 5s (£115 for the 16GB model, £76 for the 8GB), but fail to recognise that there was nothing comparable to these in the Raspberry Pi lineup before, and these are not the only models in the Raspberry Pi lineup now.
10£ more, or 50% more expensive?
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Pi’s are ARM-based, which still to this day limits the scope of their applicability.
Untrue.
Also, you should absolutely inspect a laptop before buying. Many, if not most, of old laptops will run just fine for the next few years.
Until the battery needs replacing, costing more than a pi, one key on the keyboard dies, etc.
Untrue
Which part?
Until the battery needs replacing, costing more than a pi, one key on the keyboard dies, etc.
Do you need any of that? You can remove the battery and keep it plugged, and use it as a server to which you connect over SSH, with an added benefit of having local access if you actually need it.
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
It's a good idea until you consider the fact that a Raspberry Pi will be astronomically more power efficient.
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but they're not cheap any more
People say this, but they really are still cheap.
The original Raspberry Pi Model B launched for £22 in 2012. The entry level Raspberry Pi 5 is £46, but adjusted for inflation that's only £32 in 2012 money. So only £10 more expensive in real terms.
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is only £14.40, which is only £10 in 2012 money. Compare this to the original Raspberry Pi Model A, which launched for £16.
People look at the headline cost of the high end RPi 5s (£115 for the 16GB model, £76 for the 8GB), but fail to recognise that there was nothing comparable to these in the Raspberry Pi lineup before, and these are not the only models in the Raspberry Pi lineup now.
Inflation adjustment doesn't really tell the whole story though, it's not like salaries have gone up by the same amount. Regardless, I don't like dealing with the Zero unless I specifically need something that tiny. It's just too annoying. Don't get me wrong! They're cool! I'm just saying unless I really need a Pi Zero I wouldn't wanna work with one. I'd rather work with x86_64 than Arm. Like even just getting Java working was really tricky on Zero. Much like a microcontroller has limitations for what you can run on them but they have other benefits, Zeros aren't really general purpose.
So yeah, dirt cheap used laptop for general purpose server beats out dirt cheap Pi in my book.
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This is generally not true. A small server running on an old pi when idling will have hardly any draw. It will cost literally pennies to run for the whole year.
wrote last edited by [email protected]A rasperry pi idles at about 2 watts vs a laptop that idles at about 4 watts.
At $0.30/kwh (a very high price for electricity) you would save 5 dollars per year on electricity.
This laptop trades blows with the rasperry pi and costs half the price (55$ aud vs over 200$ aud for a brand new pi 5)
Even this second hand one costs 110$ aud which is twice the cost. With that cost of electricity it would take 11 years in order to break even.
And that's only if you consider monetary cost and not environmental cost.
