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 its difficult to get away from an usb converter for you hdd and that seem to be the only reason for not choosing RP ? RP’s are overpriced, but you can probably find a HAT for the sata connection in the rp ecosystem.
Alternatively, you could look for usb connectors for both hdd and gpio, an old usb-hub, and choose a small orangepi 2 …ish usb-stick (with hdmi, i think) as a base. It shouldn’t cost that much, and power usage is extremely low on the first clones while still having a little power for video etc. The stick should oc be able to power down the hdd via usb.
Alternatively *2, maybe you can repurpose your laptop, let it hibernate but enable power/wakeup on a usb port, plug in the cheapest gpio unit you can find, and when the tech-illerates try the remote, the stick wakes up the laptop via usb, and your laptop plays the video ? Not sure when to let the laptop power down, but that seems doable. RP2 had a ridiculously low power usage afair, so it can be on always. Not sure what a sleeping laptop draws beside the usb power draw. Oh, and an old laptop might not be able to keep your usb port on while sleeping.
Cheap, but definitely more clunky…
The device will run 100% of the time as a torrent client and NAS so I don’t really need to solve the power-on issue, long unplanned outages are rare and I can probably bridge the short ones by going low power and waking up every hour.