Interesting. Seems like it might be worth it for me to look into Ansible and perhaps even Proxmox on the new SFFPC I’m building as a media center for stability/reliability.

Thanks!

So in addition to docker containers, you use separate VMs for isolation? Or are you just referring to the docker containers themselves?

I have separate docker containers for different apps too, but no virtualization beyond that.

Noob question. What kind of apps are you (or other self-hosters) running in VMs? With containerized apps, it seems like VMs would be largely unnecessary, unless you need some particular device to be virtualized? Or am I misunderstanding?

That looks amazing! Unfortunately I think I might have limited my options by using a 3.5in HDD as the primary storage for my media server :/ looks like I’ll probably have to go one size bigger in terms of form factor.

The HC2 supports a full-sized 3.5in HDD.

Oh, I’d assumed the NUCs would fit a 3.5in HDD, I guess that rules them out.

Since my home server is a media server, it’s primary drive is an 8TB HDD :)

I haven’t looked into proxmox yet, so I wouldn’t rule it out yet. OMV is nice, but I found it a little limiting. I actually really like the idea of running a full linux distro with an actual desktop (so not just headless) on it instead of just using OMV as the primary interface. I like the idea of spending more time within actual linux so I can upgrade my linux-fu.

1L PCs look cool, I suppose I won’t be able to upgrade too much, but then again I’m unlikely to need to anytime soon. The form factor looks amazing.

Might get a better price if I shop around

I want to support my existing HDDs as well as M.2s, so the Asustor is out. m-atx is interesting, I like that it’s flexible for ongoing upgrades.

Looks pretty good, but wow, that’s pricey! $650 or so on Amazon Canada.

The main concern with using a PC would be size, noise, heat, etc. If I can build something with a tiny form factor and minimal fuss, that could totally work.

Good points, thanks. I might end up getting one of those Intel NUCs instead, they look just right for the job.

Ideally I want something with a small form-factor, but more bays for additional storage might come in handy. Definitely won’t need the DVD drive though :D I also don’t want to have to pay for that W10 license since I’ll be running linux on it. I don’t have Plex pass, but good point about the Intel 8th gen CPUs.

I like the Chromebox suggestion, I hadn’t thought of that as a possibility. Something like that might be perfect, thanks.

I don’t have as much of a need for a networking machine, since I’m happy to keep my simple network setup with just the VPN bits on the home server. I might start self-hosting NextDNS too for DNS ad-blocking. The main downside of the HC2 I’m facing for media is that 32 bit CPU support is being dropped on the main apps I’m using. For your needs that Intel router does seem quite interesting.

Damn, that’s even more powerful than my gaming PC! Makes my Odroid HC2 develop a complex. Nice work!

Good point. Most containers I’ve used do seem to use Alpine as a base. Found this StackOverflow post that compared native vs container performance, and containers fair really well!

Makes sense! I have a bunch of services (plex, radarr, sonarr, gluetun, etc) on my media server on Armbian running as docker containers. The ease of management is just something else! My HC2 doesn’t seem to break a sweat running about a dozen containers, so the overhead can’t be too bad.

Out of curiosity, is there much overhead to using docker than installing via curl and bash? I’m guessing there’s some redundant layers that docker uses?

B2 is awesome. I have Duplicati set up on OpenMediaVault to backup my OS nightly to B2 (as well as a local copy to the HDD).

This is awesome, thanks! Going to install it on my Odroid HC2 running OpenMedia 6!