[Discuss] BLU server

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

On 1/11/25 11:04 AM, Zachary Liebl wrote:
> I am not sure what else you have running on your server, but assuming it is just simple stuff like webservers and mailservers then you would be fine condensing it onto a mini PC. They even have Raspberry Pi colocation for $9/month which is probably enough. Of course they also have standard 1U, 2U, etc hosting.

Very interesting.


The Raspberry Pi hosting is very intriguing, if only Pis were better.

I consider SD cards to be in a category similar to how I used to think 
of floppies. Terribly useful, nice to fall back on for booting, etc., 
but I don't trust *running* off an SD card. A Raspberry Pi 4 is willing 
to boot off of external devices! But even if I plug a Raspberry Pi into 
a big fat power supply the built in USB ports can't supply enough power 
for external disks or SSDs. Grrrr.

So I have a powered hub, a pair of raid 1 SSDs each in Sabrent USB 
enclosures, two power supplies (one for the Pi, one for the hub), and 
the Raspberry Pi 4, in a metal case that doubles as a heatsink.

Not a powerful machine circa 2025, but in many ways much more powerful 
than the Cray-1 super computers of my youth. Good enough for me.

I wonder if their "mini PC" colocation would allow "Please set this heap 
of stuff on a shelf, plug in power and ethernet. Oh, and replug any of 
the other connections that came apart in shipping."? Not that I would be 
in the market right now for that service, but still good to have 
strawman options around.


-kb, the Kent whose two mail servers are a "heap of stuff", but at least 
with no moving parts.


P.S. I wish Raspberry Pis were a bit more productized. I wish the 
Raspberry Pi 5's being high power meant things like more DC current 
instead of meaning too much heat to run without moving parts (fans).