Hi all brand new to this. Want to build a home server using R PI.
Obviously the standard advice is get the best you can.
But wondered what is the best model and kit options to get to build your own home server.
Brand new to all this so any advice is appreciated
Cheers
Re: Building home server, brand new to this!
Depending on the load, I would have thought a 2GB Pi4 would be more than adequate.
Principal Software Engineer at Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd.
Contrary to popular belief, humorous signatures are allowed.
I've been saying "Mucho" to my Spanish friend a lot more lately. It means a lot to him.
Contrary to popular belief, humorous signatures are allowed.
I've been saying "Mucho" to my Spanish friend a lot more lately. It means a lot to him.
Re: Building home server, brand new to this!
what type of server you have in mind?
what type of function(s) it needs to perform?
what type of function(s) it needs to perform?
"Don't come to me with 'issues' for I don't know how to deal with those
Come to me with 'problems' and I'll help you find solutions"
Some people be like:
"Help me! Am drowning! But dont you dare touch me nor come near me!"
Come to me with 'problems' and I'll help you find solutions"
Some people be like:
"Help me! Am drowning! But dont you dare touch me nor come near me!"
Re: Building home server, brand new to this!
I'm running a Pi 4 4GB as a server now, and have for several months now. Jamesh is right, 2GB should be plenty. Here's some configuration info and stats:
OS: "Dietpi" (command line interface)
Interface: Headless, only power, USB drive, and Ethernet connected. SSH in from phone or desktop computer when needed (I only do this to check for updates and CPU temp)
memory usage: 199mb typically at idle, never more than 500mb during use
CPU usage: Varies of course, but plenty low.
Cooling: Canakit clear case with fan and heatsinks (https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-4-case-clear.html)
Temps: It's in my basement which is cool and dry, almost always <45C and usually under 40C.
Network: Gigabit wired connection to an 8 port switch and Google wifi mesh routers
Server purpose: Network storage, file backups, and Emby (Plex-like service) music, movie, and TV show server via 2TB USB3 external drive
General notes
I found setting up network drive mapping/permissions for Windows PC's pretty painful but I'm not great with linux in general, so that's on me. After getting everything setup I'm very happy. I can't remember when I set this up but it was before US Winter 2019, so more than 8 months probably. I have had to go reboot the device one time ever...otherwise it's rock solid even with some abrupt power losses and bad weather. It's very dependable. Performance wise, it happily streams my DVD-quality and up to 1080p quality video files via Emby to a 4K TV and or Roku with no trouble at all. File transfer from a PC to the external drive run a very steady 32Mb/s which might be more of a disk transfer throttle than the network or Pi (PC has gen4 PCIE SSD, but the Pi has a Western Digital HDD). I also have Windows doing file history backup to this networked drive and that runs so smooth I forgot I ever set it up. There's gigabytes of backup data on the drive already and I've never noticed a lag, error message, or problem streaming a movie or TV show potentially at the same time. Overall, this thing exceeded my expectations for stability and requires essentially no maintenance at all after initial setup. I'd do it again no question...and it can probably serve up more services than I'm using and still handle it. Also, just a side note...I didn't think I could set this up to be headless or without a GUI or desktop environment...I'm just not good at command line work. But, I got through it and I'm sure the device can handle more and run more stable without all the extra overhead that comes with a desktop OS.
The only thing I'm not thrilled with but haven't fixed because it isn't a big deal, is that when you go to access the network drives (partitioned disk) or stream a file and the device has been unused for maybe an hour, there's a 2-5 second stall at first. I'm pretty sure this is due to the HDD spin-up time because the drive is going into standby and spinning down after it's idle for X minutes. I'm sure that's fixable, but it doesn't bother me enough to do something about it. Of course the funnest way to solve that is go SSD
Hope this helps. It's wordy, but I think I'm doing something like what you're curious about and wanted to give a decent full report.
Good luck!
dpm
OS: "Dietpi" (command line interface)
Interface: Headless, only power, USB drive, and Ethernet connected. SSH in from phone or desktop computer when needed (I only do this to check for updates and CPU temp)
memory usage: 199mb typically at idle, never more than 500mb during use
CPU usage: Varies of course, but plenty low.
Cooling: Canakit clear case with fan and heatsinks (https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-4-case-clear.html)
Temps: It's in my basement which is cool and dry, almost always <45C and usually under 40C.
Network: Gigabit wired connection to an 8 port switch and Google wifi mesh routers
Server purpose: Network storage, file backups, and Emby (Plex-like service) music, movie, and TV show server via 2TB USB3 external drive
General notes
I found setting up network drive mapping/permissions for Windows PC's pretty painful but I'm not great with linux in general, so that's on me. After getting everything setup I'm very happy. I can't remember when I set this up but it was before US Winter 2019, so more than 8 months probably. I have had to go reboot the device one time ever...otherwise it's rock solid even with some abrupt power losses and bad weather. It's very dependable. Performance wise, it happily streams my DVD-quality and up to 1080p quality video files via Emby to a 4K TV and or Roku with no trouble at all. File transfer from a PC to the external drive run a very steady 32Mb/s which might be more of a disk transfer throttle than the network or Pi (PC has gen4 PCIE SSD, but the Pi has a Western Digital HDD). I also have Windows doing file history backup to this networked drive and that runs so smooth I forgot I ever set it up. There's gigabytes of backup data on the drive already and I've never noticed a lag, error message, or problem streaming a movie or TV show potentially at the same time. Overall, this thing exceeded my expectations for stability and requires essentially no maintenance at all after initial setup. I'd do it again no question...and it can probably serve up more services than I'm using and still handle it. Also, just a side note...I didn't think I could set this up to be headless or without a GUI or desktop environment...I'm just not good at command line work. But, I got through it and I'm sure the device can handle more and run more stable without all the extra overhead that comes with a desktop OS.
The only thing I'm not thrilled with but haven't fixed because it isn't a big deal, is that when you go to access the network drives (partitioned disk) or stream a file and the device has been unused for maybe an hour, there's a 2-5 second stall at first. I'm pretty sure this is due to the HDD spin-up time because the drive is going into standby and spinning down after it's idle for X minutes. I'm sure that's fixable, but it doesn't bother me enough to do something about it. Of course the funnest way to solve that is go SSD
Hope this helps. It's wordy, but I think I'm doing something like what you're curious about and wanted to give a decent full report.
Good luck!
dpm