I’m going to run generic server tasks (webhosting, Nextcloud, Home Assistant) but also use it as a torrent client, NAS and media center. It will sit close to the dumb TV and give it IPTV and file playback capabilities. I haven’t decided between a SBC or mini PC yet.
My requirements are:
- low idle power consumption (electricity is expensive here, I’m aiming for 5 W with the HDD spun down, able to idle without spinning the fan) so preferrably ARM
- reliability (I’m worried about SD cards in particular, maybe booting from NVMe/mSATA is better)
- connecting my 8TB SATA HDD
- Bluetooth+WiFi+100Mb/s Ethernet
- no dedicated GPU or NPU needed
- 1x FullHD video output (HDMI or even VGA, the TV is ancient)
- GPIO for IR receiver (IPTV should be accessible to tech-illiterate parents)
- budget of 100 € for the whole setup
- available in the Czech Republic (preferring local retailers or used market to Amazon or Aliexpress)
Raspberry Pi 4/5 seems compelling but the HDD needs a separate 12V source and USB adapter, making the setup a little unwieldy, plus people say RPi is overpriced. Mini PCs boot from reliable storage but lack GPIO so they need a USB infraport, and many don’t have SATA or wireless either so that adds more adapters. Or should I repurpose my old laptop, which would run at 10 W and need an adapter for IR but have wireless (and kind of a UPS) built in?
I think that there might be other SBCs (RPi competitors) suited for my use case but I haven’t been able to find a better deal than a used 60 € Raspberry Pi 4B/5 (+10 € fan box + 20 € high-endurance SD card + 2 € microHDMI adapter + I already have the power adapter) from the official site. Given that the 4B and 5 with 4GB RAM cost almost the same, I wonder if the power upgrade is worth it given that the 5’s idle power draw is higher, there is no A/V jack (I can solder though) and I only have the 3A power supply, requiring an extra 20 € to use its full CPU power.
I think some of the modern mini-PCs with Intel N95 or N100 cpus can do that level of power draw. Alternative, use a mobile phone compatibel with and installed with Ubuntu Touch or postmarketOS, so you can run a linux file server on the phone. USB might be a bit of a faff, but usb-C will prevail I think.
USB-C definitely can handle a 768p monitor plus playing video from disk and 100Mbit Ethernet, it’s just that most phones under my 100 € budget (cut short by the dongle) don’t even have 2.0 OTG capabilities because they’re basic ones for seniors. The only hope to get a discount on the good ones are those with a semi-busted screen but I’m not relying on that to install Linux.
Yeah, as long as you get a phone that supports usb-c 3.0 or higher, you can get one of those powered hubs that charges your phone and has a gigabit Ethernet port.
Not for the budget. I have some spare phones but no USB-C ones and there is no way this all works over microUSB, even with MHL.