My $36 home server

KuJoe · May 31, 2019

So I don't know how I missed this, but I was in the market to replace my previous home server (ODroid C1+) with something with a little more RAM and 64 bit support (thanks to mongodb) and while trying to configure my awful PINE A64 (that I got off Kickstarter) to pick up the slack I stumbled upon the Atomic Pi, a $36 x86 computer. It's not as fancy as my awesome little ODroid H2 (specs in signature), but for a home server this little guy is awesome! It has 16GB of eMMC storage that comes with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS installed by default and an SD card slot so I was able to add a 64GB card to hold all of my software. It has a single GigE network port which might not be enough for some but it's more than enough for me. It also comes with a USB 3.0 port in the event somebody wanted to turn it into a little NAS. I forgot to hook up my Kill-A-Watt meter but it advertises 4-15 watts which is significantly higher than my C1+ it's replacing but for the extra performance it's worth it. Oh, and I didn't even mention the CPU yet, it's an Intel Atom x5-Z8350 quad-core CPU. It won't be winning any awards for performance, but for a home server this is leaps and bounds better than the quad-core ARM CPU I was using before (even though my CPU utilization barely hits 5% on average). Since the CPU is passively cooled, the cores typically stay at 500Mhz until they're needed but they rarely hit the stock 1.44GHz and the CPU stays at a cool 45C even under load thanks to a 120mm "case fan" I added to it (it's worth noting that the device is installed in a utility closet with no AC and the C1+ was at 70C+ while idle).

Now on to the downsides of this little guy. First and foremost, it doesn't have a case... anywhere. The only options for cases are 3D printed ones and they're still mostly prototype quality (creators words, not mine) that require some filing and modifications to get to fit. I literally just took a cardboard box, cut out a hole for a 120mm fan, plugged the fan into the USB port, and called it a day. The second potential downside is power delivery, you can power it without any add-ons if you're comfortable running wires to things but for the rest of us who aren't electrically inclined you'll need to buy 1 of 2 add-on cards, not a huge deal with one being only $6 but kind of a bummer they didn't include a plug on the main board. A single USB 3.0 port is also kind of limiting but most people use a powered USB hub with it or are like me and just used the USB port for a mouse/keyboard dongle to configure the network and SSH, also considering the device has Bluetooth and WiFi (802.11ac) built in you can easily get away with just 1 USB port.

So what am I using this for? It currently has Observium, Ubiquiti's UniFi Controller, and Pi-Hole installed. I also use it as a jump box to the rest of my network devices since the resource utilization is so low. So yeah, it's not much but I have plenty of room to add more if needed. I've read that the Atom has QuickSync support so I could run Plex on it if I wanted a local Plex server, I could also install one of the many surveillance camera software out there for Linux to manage my IP cameras to take advantage of the QSV encoding. The only real resource limitation for me is RAM, with only 612MB available (after caching). Then again I'm running 2 databases (MySQL and mongodb) which tend to eat up as much RAM as they can.

I figured I'd post this here for other people like me who don't need an expensive, power hungry, and loud space heater for a home server (I'll keep those in a data center where they belong) or want a cheap, small, silent, power efficient device to play around with. Oh, and did I mention the CPU supports VT so you can build up you VM knowledge without breaking the bank? For those of you looking at picking up a Raspberry Pi for $35 for your next project, I highly recommend checking out this device instead if you can afford the extra space.

Lastly, I'll end on a note about the seller I purchase all of the Single Board Computers from, Ameridroid. They are hands down the best US retailer I've used to order SBCs from and they're prices also tend to be much better than Amazon and other sites. When I ordered my Atomic Pi it was out of stock due to the high demand with an estimated shipping date of May 21st, I received mine on May 20th and they included a bag of gummy bears in the box for some reason... not gonna complain about free candy with my $36 home server replacement.

https://ameridroid.com/collections/single-board-computer/products/atomic-pi

Jarsky · June 1, 2019

Nice find.

Theres also the RockPro64. It's a 6 core ARM with 4GB ram, Gigabit Ethernet, USB3.0 & USB-C as well.

It also has a PCI-E slot on it,one of the uses is that you can connect a PCI-E SATA card, and turn it into a NAS as well

Im quite happily using the RPI3b+ for the small size of my network for my Unifi Controller, Pi-Hole and my external SSH jump server.

It's very cool how useful these small low powered compute devices are becoming.

KuJoe · June 2, 2019

2 hours ago, Jarsky said:

Nice find.

Theres also the RockPro64. It's a 6 core ARM with 4GB ram, Gigabit Ethernet, USB3.0 & USB-C as well.

It also has a PCI-E slot on it,one of the uses is that you can connect a PCI-E SATA card, and turn it into a NAS as well

Im quite happily using the RPI3b+ for the small size of my network for my Unifi Controller, Pi-Hole and my external SSH jump server.

It's very cool how useful these small low powered compute devices are becoming.

I have both the PINE A64 and the PINE ROCK64 (I ordered the 1GB version but they were out of stock so Ameridroid upgraded me to the 2GB version for free). I'm not impressed with either and I'm completely done with PINE as a company. I'll stick with ODroid for any real projects but I'll keep buying Raspberry Pis just to test and compare them against ODroids (maybe one day they'll be remote close in terms of performance and features).

That is a neat little NAS case though for the RockPro64, here's my little DIY NAS (ODroid XU4 + 4x4TB RAID5):