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.

  • glitching@lemmy.ml
    3·
    4 days ago
    • don’t need GPIO or IR; there’s a buncha android bluetooth remotes around that you can repurpose via input-remapper
    • don’t need SATA for 3.5 drives, there are USB-to-SATA adapters in the sub$20 range

    so that allows you to go for a board from a discarded laptop. you need skylake or newer for purposes of video decoding and power efficiency and a board that can run without battery and display (e.g., most thinkpads can, some consumer models can’t).

    a search in my local marketplace nets 20+ of those in the sub$40 range (busted screens, keyboards, etc.), you get all the connectivity, way more storage options than rpi, included power brick, and you don’t hafta dick around with arm packages.

    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      4 days ago

      I already have two USB adapters for SATA, they just require Molex connectors so I need an entire ATX PSU right now to power the drive. They will be enough to get the setup going before I measure how much power I actually need and solder an appropriate 12V and 5V supply to the cable.

      I have an old laptop that is used as an HTPC but not much anymore. It runs Lubuntu alright but it needs an upgrade to an SSD. I think I’ll shell out a little extra for 512 GB rather than some 64-128 GB the Linux+software install needs, so I can cache media there and reduce the HDD utilization. A hack will be required to bypass the lack of “power on AC” in the BIOS, probably removing the lid magnets and wiring the power switch to an Arduino or something to facilitate a restart after a power outage (long unplanned outages are rare though so I might get away without that right now). The idle power usage will be some 10 W but I can live with that.

      I wonder if there is an advanced BitTorrent client that can import my extensive qBittorrent library and respond to supply/demand while minimizing the HDD’s duty cycle… for example refusing to spin it up just to seed public or overseeded torrents, and only spinning it up to copy the contents to SSD for files that are on demand, or write completed downloads from SSD to HDD.