I want to get into self-hosting, do you recommend the Raspberry pi 4 or 5? Are the pre-made kits on Amazon any good? Are raspberry pis a meme and i’d end up better using an old laptop?
I don’t know exactly what i want to do with it, i want to host my notes/ passwords and maybe some movies

>>105745414 (OP)
You don't want a self-hosted email
You want a file server, web server, API, license server, private VPN if you're not retarded and know opsec best practices, if not, don't do it.

>>105745471
>You don't want a self-hosted email
Why not?

>>105745414 (OP)
Yes they are a meme. Just build a small form factor pc and put a headless hypervisor (like proxmox) on it

>>105745414 (OP)
Raspberry pi 5 is ROUGHLY comparable to laptop x86 before it got AVX extensions so performance/watt is pretty abysmal compared to a used steam deck desu senpai.

>>105745561

This is accurate. They have their usecases, but aren't the move to make in 2025 for generalized selfhosting.

>>105745414 (OP)

How much space do you have? HP Proliant G9s are going for like...$200 now. It's overkill for a beginner, but if it's a hobby you end up enjoying, you'll be set for years.

A completely built out pi, for example, is going to have you in the $100+ range from the jump anyway.

>>105745510
nta but from my experience they are unreliable since emails from residential ip's often get caught in spam checks. Email is the one thing you are better off paying someone for. Unless you have some very specific usecase, like needing massive amounts of storage on an email server, you are better off just paying a subscription for it

>>105745510
Because you would need a high availability cluster for that, yes it's that type of service.

>>105745414 (OP)
Don't cheap out on the power supply. Most of the Chinese made ones are potential fire hazards.

>>105745414 (OP)
>I want to get into self-hosting
We literally have a general for this with >>>>/g/hsg/
Why not come over and have a talk fren.

>>105745414 (OP)
Get a thinclient instead. They are cheaper and stronger. Plus a ton more compatibility.

Thanks for your answers i think i’ll stick with something simple for now, and i’ll see if I want to go further I dont want to invest in a steam deck or too much place

>>105745774
>steam deck
???

>>105745797
It has AVX. Any x86 CPU with AVX will curb stomp a raspberry pi 5 to death. Even a shitty dual-core intel m3 on a surface go probably.

>>105745797
>>105745572
>performance/watt is pretty abysmal compared to a used steam deck desu senpai.

>>105745760
And what are the best low investment thinclients?

>>105745871
you dont need a steam deck for avx tho. I have never even heard of somebody mentioning it in the context of servers.
Just get a thin client with it if you need avx. Again, they are cheap and more powerful. Have more connectivity and still pull a small amount of power. My first server was one of these and if it weren't for the fact that i needed a stronger APU and more storage i would still use it to this day.

>>105745896
Please don't tell me you are the rasberri pi shizo from the last pi thread..

i still have a raspberry pi 3b+ that i haven't used for anything, and it drives me nuts everytime i just see it laying on my desk

>>105745914
I’m not i dont care about raspberry pis i asked about them because they to be the most well known but if they are a meme i’ll take a better alternative

>>105745948
>if they are a meme
They are.
Unless you need it to run on hopes and dreams (offgrid) there is no reason to use one. Had one and sold it because of how useless they are in any other scenario. Also don't forget that its ARM and not x86 so software is also limited.
Get a real computer with actual hardware and not some overpriced embedded phone. At that point you might want to look into actually using one as a server which is possible but still retarded.

>And what are the best low investment thinclients?
Whatever catches your eye on the used market. 100-200$ will get you very far. Don't just look at the specs but also on the power usage in idle and under load.
I had some thinkcentre and was happy with it.

>>105745914
The steam deck uses a specialized custom APU that's more efficient than like 90% of thin clients out there. The CPU by itself only consumes like 15 watts max and you can further efficiencymax by setting it to lower TDPs. It's only 4 CPU cores but because of AVX it's like the equivalent of 4 raspberry pi 5 clusters.

>"In our tests, the gaming handheld consumes a maximum of 27 watts when running on a fully charged battery. If you use low quality settings when gaming, reduce the screen brightness and limit the frame rate to 40 to 50 FPS, 15 to 20 watts is a realistic consumption value. This makes the Steam Deck the most energy-efficient device among the gaming handhelds in our comparison chart."

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Steam-Deck-1-TB-OLED-review-Minimalist-performance-maximum-gaming-fun.802764.0.html

Or roughly speaking 1 raspberry pi 5 = 1 x86 CPU core running at 2-3 GHz with AVX.

This is completely ignoring that a pot of software is poorly multi-threaded lol.

>>105746024
And what the fuck are you going to do with it? Plug in one hard drive and call it a day? I mean come on. If all this exotic hardware would be this good half of the autists on /hsg/ would be using it. Yet, you see no one use smart fridge controllers or gaming consoles for their NAS.
If power usage is so important then at least get some nuc or something.

>>105745414 (OP)
>do you recommend the Raspberry pi 4 or 5?
no, odroid h4 or a tiny x86 pc instead
avoid all this arm non-sense

>>105746047
hmmmm maybe closer to 3GHz and also factoring in SMT but yeah raspberry pi 5 is outdated AS FUCK in 2025.

>>105745414 (OP)
get any old laptop

much better than this crap

>>105746056
Like I said it's s specialized custom APU designed for efficiency. You can replace the SSD so while it's not as cheap as a portable HDD at least it helps things move around quickly since a gen 3 NVME is comparable to a DDR1 ramdrive.

Shame valve didn't make this thing have a gen 4 NVME slot, that would have made it on par with a DDR2 ramdrive...

>>105745510
for inbox (no send) it's relatively easy to self host email on the INTERNET but you must buy(rent) a www domain
if you want to send email it gets anal because the big players (often hotmail) will likely reject your email, it's doable but is it worth it? I'd say no.

again inbox only is easy

Thanks a lot! l’ll look for an used thinclient

>>105746117
I know what you can do with this thing as i own one. I have also seen people gut the thing and turn it into a nuc.
But it has basically 0 I/O and you can just use a laptop with its screen turned off at that point. If vavle were to make a SFF pc based on its hardware then absolutely. But its in no way able to be used as a server right now and even if gutted it still has no I/O and i don't know a single usecase where you would need that much CPU power with 0 storage space.

>>105746133
Good call. You wont regret it.

>>105746163
I dunno man, a 1TB NVME seems like it would suffice for a lot of things server-wise. You also have that shit ass micro sd slot but going from 3-4 GB/s to like 100MB/s is a huge downgrade no doubt.

>>105746214
And what sort of data are you working on that needs a CPU of the steam decks caliber? Its retarded. There is a ton of wasted potential with the steam deck but that is no reason to cope and imagine fictional scenarios where you could use it as a server. Im not hating at the idea, i would pay 400-500$ for a SSF like pc based on the steam decks APU but right now its useless.

>>105746260
Maybe but the efficiency aspect is pretty alluring to me. Everyone tends to go for a raspberry pi 5 because they think they'll save millions in electricity while the steam deck goes under the radar as a huge threat to an ARM takeover in general.

>>105746303
Get a NUC or some SFF pc. Yes saving 5-15$ a month sounds alluring but in the grand scheme of things is nothing to the utility it provides regardless of steamdeck/sff/nuc.
If i were you i would investigate AMD based NUCs. Amd is already the leader in efficient high power systems so that would be a good platform to explore.

>>105746344
>regardless of steamdeck/sff/nuc
well assuming you are actually able to use it. Depends on usecase but most servers use a lot of hard drives or pcie cards..

>/g/hsg

>>105746359
You only need the spinning rust if you're a stubborn boomer who refuses to adopt AV1. Not that a steam deck would be good for anything more than 720p AV1 encoding and maybe 1080p is you drop down to H265 efficiency levels. 2Mbps AV1 is already overkill for like 80% of movies out there.