Central to the home computing environment are the servers. Unfortunately selecting servers for home is a daunting task when we take into account space, power consumption and connectivity (not to mention price) requirements.
I run two "perpetually on and connected" servers at home. One for heavy duty processing (e.g. running BitCoin node) and other home applications. The other for low key tasks like updating dynamic DNS entry, bandwidth monitoring, hosting a Git server etc.
For my tiny server, I have been running an instance of Raspberry Pi (model B) for nearly two years now. My feedback - it's amazing! I used to use this as my heavy duty server (no, I didn't run the BitCoin node on this) before I got the second server. Pi runs a full stack of softwares, including Apache, MySQL, PHP5, Git server, SFTP, SSH....
Now, while Pi is extremely good, it soon hits its ceiling with a hard burnt 512 MB RAM and SD card for disk. The need for more muscle power becomes a need after a few months.
I evaluated converting my old laptop, buying a throwaway desktop from the flea market and running lubuntu and many other options. Unfortunately, none of them worked out because of space and connectivity challenges. Finally, I came across Dell OptiPlex 3020 micro - it's tiny and full of muscle. How tiny? well, I have tucked it inside my false ceiling ;) that tiny!
And muscle power, well it brags a full configuration, including:
- Intel® 4th generation Core™ i5 Quad Core
- Intel® H81 Chipset
- Integrated Intel® HD Graphics 4600
- Integrated ethernet card
- I TB HDD
- 4 GB RAM
- (and the list goes on)
I have re-imaged it to run Ubuntu 14.04.
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