Pretty much what the title says, I was wondering, since I want to invest on self hosting applications and my raspberry pi 3 b+ can barely function. I don’t have enormous expectations, just docker containers, nextcloud, pihosted, jellyfin… Any further suggestions (regarding the hardware) will be much appreciated.

  • Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzB
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    1 year ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
    NAS Network-Attached Storage
    NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers
    Plex Brand of media server package
    SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage
    SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
    nginx Popular HTTP server

    6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 14 acronyms.

    [Thread #7 for this sub, first seen 19th Jul 2023, 12:40] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

  • nezbyte@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    You may get more bang for your buck by getting a comparable mini PC rather than a NUC. Some ThinkCentre Tiny machines are listed on eBay for less than $100 USD. HP and other manufacturers sell their own versions as well.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      ThinkCentre Tiny machine

      Or dell optiplex for a bargain.

      Got myself a Dell 8gen 8GB 256GB SSD for 40€… Got a 6 core (8500?, It came with a “Pentium Gold” bi core) for 60€ and a 4TB HD for 70€… For example. I think it will handle a lot before needing an upgrade. It’s a smallish tower though, but sff versions exist too.

      It’s as crazy how cheap those PCs are and how expensive Raspberries has become :-/

      • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        It’s as crazy how cheap those PCs are and how expensive Raspberries has become :-/

        On the former, it’s because these are mostly models sold en masse after company upgrades. Often marked as “refurbished” although I suspect it’s just basic checks. Regarding the Pi, seems to be supply issues; they should at least start being sold at retail price again this year from what I hear, not that it’s necessarily worth it.

  • cynar@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I hit the limit of my Raspberry Pi 4. It would periodically crash itself by overheating (Heatsink was hot to the touch) I now use a NUC. It runs excellently, and handles my home automation setup fine. Unless I start doing something extreme, I can see myself overloading it.

    One of the less mentioned things with self hosting is running costs. A Pi is extremely cheap to run. A NUC is a bit more, but still well below a full blown PC. Servers can actually pull a significant load, even when idle.

    • OptimisticPrime@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Thanks for mentioning running costs, I was curious about that. How much more do you think the NUC is costing you compared to a Pi?

      • Cenzorrll@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Not op, but a nuc idles around 5 watts, and at load can use up to 100 watts depending on specs. A raspberry pi4 idles somewhere around 3.5 watts and at load is still under 10 watts.

      • cynar@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        From memory, I think it worked out 50-80% more power draw, on average. I might be wrong on that however, I’ve yet to do a will watt measurement with like for like loads. My testing was closer to both idling.

        The NUC can draw more power, but has far more advanced power saving features too. I ended up budgeting using 20W.

  • Giddy@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    I am running almost everything in my home on a NUC (Celeron J3455 1.5GHz with 8GB RAM) and it doesn’t break a sweat.

    Running invidious, nextcloud, kavita, airsonic, n8n, audiobookshelf, freshrss, calibre-web, vaultwarden, nginx proxy manager

  • Morethanevil@lmy.mymte.de
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    1 year ago

    A nuc is far more better than a Raspberry Pi. A Pi sure can do some things, but once you start, you will want more 🌞

  • gobbling871@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    They provide the best balance for efficiency. Not too powerful enough to be a workhorse and not to weak to run multiple simple applications/services. NUCs are great in that they come with hardware video acceleration tech that’s highly optimized for media transcoding.

  • BarbecueCowboy@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Very similar, but usually dramatically cheaper… Look into the Lenovo Tiny line of PCs, you can get a used model with a surprising amount of power for a lot less than you’d see in a comparable NUC and in my experience, they’re usually hardier machines.

    • radau@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      If you’re buying and want it cheap this is 100% the way to go. I got an M900 to go with my NUC and it only cost $60 for one with an i7 vs $200 for a similar NUC

    • Alvaro@social.graves.cl
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      1 year ago

      @BarbecueCowboy@kbin.social In general I think old, small computer laptops are going to be a better long-term solution for self-hosting than a raspberry pi.

      Sure, it is hard to compete in terms of size, but you will soon find yourself looking for bigger specs anyways

      • BarbecueCowboy@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I think you may have responded to the wrong person.

        The Lenovo tiny line isn’t related to Raspberry Pi/etc and I didn’t mention a Raspberry Pi. I have a server running on an M900 tiny with an i7-6700 in it and 32gb of RAM. That is the high spec config from Lenovo, but there are room for upgrades if you were willing to buy parts separately, however the value proposition starts to fall apart rapidly when buying non-standard parts and compatibility is kind of a coin flip. Even the lowest spec ones should almost always outpace a Pi though (usually by a healthy amount) while still being very small compared to a typical computer. Solid chance the tiny will also be cheaper than a Pi. Compared to laptops, they’ll usually also easily outpace those too in terms of performance in terms of money spent, but that’s obviously a lot more variable.

  • haych@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Totally. My setup is on a NUC8i5BEH.

    Handles 4K Plex like a dream, all the *arrs, multiple website services. I have about 50 or so containers and it doesn’t get close to full CPU usage.

  • NekuSoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de
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    1 year ago

    If you need something that packs more power than a Pi while still being somewhat energy efficient and small form factor then yes, the NUCs are generally pretty good.

    Personally I’m running a NUC from 2018 with a 8th gen i3 that’s pulling double duty as both a server running about ~10 docker containers, and as a media center.

    The server part still runs flawlessly, though the media center part is getting a bit slow when opening websites on it.

    As others have already said, one drawback is that there’s only space for one drive, so at least a NAS or external USB storage is recommended for backups.

    • waitmarks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      depends on how many services you plan on running, i think the i3 would be sufficient for what you listed, the i5 would give you room to grow.

      the i7’s usually aren’t worth it for servers since they are just a clock speed increase.

    • Qazwsxedcrfv000@lemmy.unknownsys.com
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      1 year ago

      Check for the exact core configuration and cache size via Intel Ark first. More often than not i5 and i7 can have the same core configuration and cache size but difference base and boost frequencies.

    • Skyline@lemmy.cafe
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      In general, I’d say it’s good enough. i5 might have more cores if you need them, but then i7 only gets you slightly higher frequency, which may not be worth the price.

  • Radium@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Definitely! I’ve used them for years and they are super convenient. Especially in small space living. I have a small server setup in a closet that is a direct attached raid array with an m1 Mac and an Intel nuc on top.

    In general I prefer the max because it can do a lot with very minimal heat generation but using a Mac mini as a server has a few downsides that you won’t run into with a nuc. Things like arm vs x86, no way to run the OS headless, cost, etc…

  • eyecreate@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I have a 2015 NUC I use as my server with next cloud, immich, jellyfin, gitlab and more. Mostly, I wish I put more ram in and could have two internal drives, but otherwise I love the form factor.

  • milkjug@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m running all my microservices on a couple of repurposed NUC5i5RYKs, running Ubuntu Server 22.04 (I know I know) and Docker. They’ve been absolutely rock steady thus far, though not quite as overkill as I like all my computers to be. But I got them in 2015 and they’ve held up more than admirably.