Rapsberry Pi+ alternative

1

Hello,
I’m running my HA installation on a couple of Raspberry Pi+ boards.
Together with it I’m running deconz, mosquitto, influxdb, grafana and node-Red.
All these apps are running in some docker container and I’m using glusterfs to share same data between my two Pi+ boards.
Unfortunately I’m facing some issues: the system often become slow and unresponsive.
I would move to a new hardware platform which could be quiet and more powerful than a Pi.
Would you have any suggestion about this subject?
I thought to use an Intel Nuc o something “small” like that.
I’m looking for a reliable, quiet and pretty cheap platform.
Thank You for your help

M.

2

I have just migrated to an Intel NUC. After some initial issues, I found two videos on how to install ProxMox and ever since it’s been a breeze.

3

NUC is good. Not sure noise level but I expect less or similar to desktop pc

Used laptops or PC running some Linux distro would be good and low price. Laptops have added benefit of battery backup built-in.

4

It doesn’t have to be a NUC. They can be overpriced IMHO. But anything in that form factor will work the same.

5

In fact I was checking some Intel NUC models even discontinued but they look to be not so much cheap.
Is there any other enough reliable brand/model?

6

I’m hanging onto my wife’s old Thinkpad with the idea that I might move to it when/if my RPi runs out of gas. The Thinkpad was getting slow with Windows, but has an SSD hard drive and should make a smokin’ platform for Linux and HA. It also has the advantage of the battery which acts like a UPS.

7

Which raspberry Pi board are you using?

The single core Pi+ boards would struggle with deconz, mosquitto, influxdb, grafana and node-Red, but the newer multi-core Pi2 and Pi3 boards are far faster.

I’m looking for a reliable, quiet and pretty cheap platform.

There are faster SBC’s that are higher spec than the Pi3, the Asus Tinkerboard for example, just check that the software you want to run is compatble however.

One if the best things about the Pi boards is that everything works with them, but some of the less well known SBC’s tend to be lacking on software support.

8

I split those apps in one Pi3+ and one P3,
Despite this they are not stable: a moment they are pretty usable and a second later you cannot login because you have to wait minutes until the ssh prompt appears.
dokcker and glusterfs with the micro sd card sunk the cpu and/or the memory.

9

I am looking to migrate from my RPi3+. It seems that the NUC’s come with window 10 which I don’t need, Im looking for a cheeper, similar footprint size to the NUC. Will probably run Promox once I migrate and definitely will be using a SSD.

10

Once you get, ubuntu will overwrite (or as I prefer to call it, upgrade) windows 10.

There are zillions of examples of small PCs on aliexpress. Just search for mini PC. eg https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Fanless-i7-4500U-Mini-PC-Windows-8GB-RAM-120GB-SSD-Dual-Gigabit-Ethernet-WiFi-6-RS232/32948079455.html?spm=2114.search0104.3.8.39e57343N994iN&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_2_10065_10068_10547_319_10059_10884_317_10548_10887_10696_321_322_10084_453_10083_454_10103_10618_10307_537_536_10902,searchweb201603_6,ppcSwitch_0&algo_expid=509f1f8e-777f-4b19-9e57-3a0be0ee1a6e-1&algo_pvid=509f1f8e-777f-4b19-9e57-3a0be0ee1a6e

Remember that unless you are doing a whole lot of image processing you won’t need humungous amounts of RAM or the latest CPU with scores of cores.

1 Like
11

Thats a good price, thanks for the link. Need to decide on CPU, RAM and SSD now, I know the minimum is going to be better than the Pi so will work out the best value for money.

12

Stupid question, but hoping someone can point me in right direction.

My “old” raspberry pi had address of 192.168.150.42
I own a NUC and setting up Proxmox, and trying to keep 192.168.150.42 as VM (so I avoid resetting all MQTT clients, etc).

Should I setup Proxmox host at 192.168.150.10, and then configure VM as network static of 192.168.150.42?

I think this is preferred – correct?

~Bryan