Raspberry pi as a server?

[Burmese Python]

I know people who uses raspberry pi a lot as a server by using linux. I was curious why this is the case and why linux on raspberry pi has become a popular method to make a server?

[Daniel Wells]

the pi 4 specifically has become a very popular method for server hosting for three main reasons. 1:they added 2x usb 3 ports onto it, which means you can get read/write speeds of approx 115mb/s (if you were to use a usb hard drive). 2:with there now being an option for 4gb of ram the raspberry pi can now be used to handle much more strenuous tasks than it ever could before. 3:ubuntu has just brought out a version of Ubuntu and Ubuntu server especially for the raspberry pi (which means that if you install either of these Os's you can still interface with the pis gpio pins)

[Kon-Tiki]

I agree. On top of that the price for the Pi is really compelling even looking at alternative single board computers on the market. Furthermore the Pi does not consume as much power during operation as a fully fledged AMD or Intel based server. This is especially interesting in smaller networks (like private networks) where you want to have a NAS for instance up and running 24/7 while not wanting to spend too much money on electricity.

[Jarsky]

Even if you go back to RPi1 they were perfect for OpenElec (Kodi) for 720p DTS or 1080p passthrough for x264

I used my RPi1 as a DNS cache (dnsmasq) and secure SSH jumphost to get into my network

 

They are low power and fast to boot and silent so a good option to handle some lightweight tasks.

I use a RPi3 for my Pi.hole and Unifi controller and it works great. 

 

Why Linux? Because it was the OS that had ARM support and the first officially supported distro was built off it. 

Windows IoT only became a thing with Windows 10. 

[lal12]

On 4/17/2020 at 11:56 AM, Burmese Python said:

I know people who uses raspberry pi a lot as a server by using linux. I was curious why this is the case and why linux on raspberry pi has become a popular method to make a server?

• The PIs are very cheap
• The PIs have a low power consumption (7-13€ per year depending on usage and where you live)
• Small, even small x86 servers are many times bigger
• Linux is in general just the best OS for servers, besides it is the best when tinkering with more Low Level stuff.

[AbsoluteFool]

On 4/17/2020 at 11:56 AM, Burmese Python said:

I know people who uses raspberry pi a lot as a server by using linux. I was curious why this is the case and why linux on raspberry pi has become a popular method to make a server?

RPI is great for many things.. I have a bunch of them that act as a cluster to sort through files and name them after a specific structure. Another bunch of RPIs are doing simple analysis on media files for a bigger media server (not running on rpis), but the low power rpis actually proved to be alot better at these tasks than a huge rack server. I call that a win on the electricity side of things. lol