Specing out a home service proxmox server

Hey

I have been thinking about doing some service concentration on my home network. I am running some services on my homelab that I would like to have running 24x7, like my speedtest-server, ubiquiti controller and maybe nginx-proxy manager for access over the internet using ddns.

I am also intending to move my home assistant installation with an USB-A Zigbee controller as a vm based on this guide:

I already tested this without the USB-zigbee controller and it did work. Currently, the Homeassistant is running on homeassistant os running on an old pc (i5-3570k+4gb ram).

Since my intention is to be running this system on 24x7, I would like to focus on a setup that draws a limited amount of power but I would prefer to move to newer hardware.

I have been thinking of a couple of options:

  1. going X99 from aliexpress (CPU+cheapass mb for 50e)
    Maybe with something like this
    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006677991863.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.5.736fQV5cQV5cOj&algo_pvid=cd8424f4-4add-488f-a38b-5264af39876f&algo_exp_id=cd8424f4-4add-488f-a38b-5264af39876f-2&pdp_npi=4%40dis!EUR!89.66!37.48!!!664.12!277.62!%40211b804117377119899974216e4386!12000037991654860!sea!FI!6217002779!ABX&curPageLogUid=QX8WNXCq90EG&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch|query_from%3A

  2. Going Am4 from ebay
    ASRock Rack B450D4U-V1LQ5 - AMD B450 - DDR4 Ram - mATX Mainboard Sockel AM4 BTO | eBay
    I have been trending towards this option but I am not really 100% sure if it makes sense for me because I would have prefered to get 3rd gen ryzen as the cpu since I can get those new for around 75-85e new. But based on asrock racks website, I am not at all sure if those CPU’s actually would work with the motherboard linked above since it does look like the oem has not released any bios updates to the mb as far as I can tell. Based on the oem, it should have some soft of onboard flash-utility but that is kinda useless without the fresher bios version…

For me, 2nd Gen ryzen are harder to get here. And the most bottom of the barrel motherboards for am4 with 4 dimm slots are at least 75e new. And I would prefer not to spend a fortune on this system. However, if I can save some power with more money, that might be doable.

I do already have existing PSU’s and cases, but I am probably going to grab a couple of new drives for this system as the boot drives. And also new ram since I do not have any spare ddr4 laying around since all of it is deployed to already running am4 systems.

Also, I have been running proxmox on my homelab for a couple of years so I should be able to figure out the solutions described above?

Any thoughts on this matter? Or things that I have not really

In my experience, x99 is not a low power system. I have a E5-2630L v4 (10c/20t), 4x64GB sticks of ECC, an Asus Sabertooth x99 motherboard, and an Arc A380. The system idles at ~80W in Linux, ~100W in Windows before adding any significant amount of storage devices. I have a parallel setup that consumes half as much power despite using two systems (a ryzen mini pc and an off the shelf nas). So of the two, I’d lean towards the Ryzen setup.

But if this is a low power, always-on system for those three services you listed, I’m not sure that’s not complete overkill vs. something like a N100 or N305. Odroid H4 Plus or Ultra would be the suggestions I’d make, in that case – the Ultra (N305) was pulling ~14W running itself, a fan, and a sata SSD when I put the kill-a-watt to it. That was when running it using a ~300W flexATX PSU, I’m sure a laptop brick like the ones they offer would do even better.

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HomeAssistant can run on really low-end hardware (the project used to sell the HomAss “Blue,” a odroid n2+ board with the OS preinstalled, then moved to the “Yellow,” which is a rpi cm4 / cm5 baseboard). I’ve successfully ran ubiquiti controllers on a rpi 4b with 2gb of RAM before (for a a segregated guest network). I now prefer to flash openwrt on ubiquiti hardware and not run the controller, but that’s a different story.

Nginx-proxy manager isn’t hard to run either. By the way, USB pass-through in proxmox is a thing (you can pass the USB zigbee controller to the VM).

That leaves the final part of your service: speedtest-server. What do you mean by this? Is this the official speedtest server? I spoke with folks working at ISPs that were taking care of implementing Ookla servers (and maintaining them) and it wasn’t easy work dealing with ookla. They require few cores and big frequency and IPC, gigabit is the minimum, but they always suggested mellanox or intel cards that go beyond 10G. And to remain listed on the speedtest website, they need to ensure their users get a good results in the speedtest (if on average most people don’t get more than 25 Mbps, then you’ll be delisted because your service isn’t good enough).

If this is just hosting iperf3 for local speed test or librespeed for remote speed testing, then the requirements are a bit lower (not because you can get away with slower hardware, you still need the same hardware, but because you aren’t nagged by ookla to investigate the performance problems).

Now the next question is what speeds are you speed testing at? Is it over the internet? What’s your internet connection contracted at (100M / 500M / 1G / 2G - is it synchronous or half upload or 10 times slower upload)? If you’re doing local speedtest with iperf, then what’s the max speed you’re testing (2.5G / 10G / 25G)?

Once you can answer these for yourself, you can move on to seeing what hardware you need. If you only need gigabit or 2.5G ethernet, then like Molly mentioned, the Odroid h4 ultra with the i3 n305 will be an incremental upgrade, slightly outperform the i5 3570k, but at a way lower wattage for the whole box. So you should still be able to run all your services presented here on that small little thing and be left with some performance to spare.

Even if 2nd hand is going to be cheaper (although the price is hard to beat on this thing - around $300 for the kit with case and charger + whatever you’d spend on RAM anyway, which you can get used), your power usage will matter if you run it 24/7, i.e. the odroid with its lower power draw will pay for itself in a year or two, while the ryzen 3rd gen (and especially the x99 platform) will cost you more money to run. Given that you priced it in euros, I believe your energy prices will be pretty expensive (I used to live in Europe).

If you have other things you’re running, you should add them here, but if they all run fine on the 3570k, then they’ll run just as well or slightly better on the n305 and save on the power bill.

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Nope, only intended for lan-only usage :sweat_smile:. Probably openspeedtest in a docker container or something simular.

Currently around 450mbps for internet, and gigabit for lan currently.

@Molly and @ThatGuyB Yeah, looks like I need to look into x86-64 SBC’s, since those probably would work pretty well

And this does depend on the day for me, but yeah some days it is very expensive. And some days it is free :sweat_smile:
But generally over 0,15e/kwh

i can tell you for the x99 with E5-2666V3 with 64GB ECC ram, 1tb Nvme 3rdgen and a GT730 draws 1500W per day with 30% load. Have proxmox with various vm and lxc on them but I dont mind as I have solar with 7KW.

Look also for second hand SFF or Tiny Pc in ebay as another option. I have also a couple of tiny that I run from time to time 24/7 and they are cheaper to run.

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