This content originally appeared on dbushell.com and was authored by dbushell.com
Spring has arrived in the UK! I can tell because the Canadian Geese are pairing off and getting territorial. A charging goose will put a spring in your step.
This also arrived:
ZimaBlade
It’s the crowd-funded ZimaBlade single board computer. I gambled on the quad-core NAS kit. Specs include: 4 core CPU, 16GB RAM, 32 GB eMMC, PCIe 2.0 x4, SATA 3.0. Hard drives are not included. The PCIe and SATA ports make it unique.
I pre-ordered the ZimaBlade for $203 USD including taxes and shipping not long before the Raspberry Pi 5 was announced.
Raspberry Pi 5
Last year I managed to get a first batch Pi 5 along with accessories:
- Pi 5 + power supply + fan case - £104
- NVMe Base - £14
- Crucial P3 Plus 500GB NVMe - £36
That’s a total of £154 GBP (~$194 USD). Similar cost to the ZimaBlade for a “usable” setup. Pi’s are expensive unless you’re prepared to tank performance with SD card boot.
I hacked the Pi 5 case to fit the NVMe underneath. I literally used a tiny hack saw through the SD card slot to make space for the ribbon cable to flow. Quite a tidy mod! An SD card still fits if needed — I used that to prepare the bootable NVMe. The PCIe is officially rated Gen 2 speeds but can run at Gen 3 — that’s faster than the ZimaBlade. Check out Jeff Geerling’s blog for a guide.
I’ll be using these alongside my current devices:
MacMini
In my last self-hosted update I was playing around with Proxmox on a 2018 MacMini. I’m using it to run containers and virtual machines for all my self-hosted services. Although Proxmox runs fine it was taking minutes to boot. An uncomfortable wait. I managed to build a custom kernel based on this project and t2linux. I didn’t actually fix things like Bluetooth — don’t need it anyway — but I did get it booting faster. Unfortunately I still have repeated issues with every Proxmox update.
Beelink
My Beelink is now a router running OPNsense. It’s incredible. No more network issues. I’ve tried a few WiFi/router combos but even the expensive ones are prone to issues. Beelink + switch + WiFi access point has been perfect. The Beelink also runs a VPN exit node using Tailscale and DNS with AdGuardHome.
New Uses
I want to rebuild the Mac Mini and see if I can fix Proxmox permanently. Or maybe just retire and sell it. That means moving all my containers and VMs onto other devices. It’ll be a slow process.
For the ZimaBlade the obvious choice is a mini NAS. I’ve installed Proxmox on it too. I’m going to try out both TrueNAS Scale and Unraid. I expect Unraid to be more suitable at this size. With only 32GB eMMC storage I’d have to run most VMs from a NAS share. It should make a great download and media server. I’d also like to try PCI passthrough with a graphics card if I can find a suitable one.
The Pi 5 has a slower CPU and only 8GB RAM but has the much faster and larger 500GB NVMe. This would be a good home for my Gitea server. The Pi doesn’t run Proxmox but everything is Docker-ised. I’ll probably house a lot of services here.
I’ve shelved my older 2014 Mac Mini. It’s basically an antique now.
That’s all for now!
This content originally appeared on dbushell.com and was authored by dbushell.com
dbushell.com | Sciencx (2024-03-25T10:00:00+00:00) Spring 2024: Self-Hosted Update. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2024/03/25/spring-2024-self-hosted-update/
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