This server project has reached a plateau. I feel like I’ve achieved all of my basic cloud needs, so I think as far as that goes, my stalwart focus will be on keeping the system up to date and secure. That means I’m ready for some new goals.
In the past, the WordPress instance that is dumbleigh.com lived on its own Raspberry Pi. Speaking of security, it struck me as a secure thing to do having that server on a completely different computer. Is that true? I think it is, but I don’t have the knowledge yet to say for sure. In the mean time, that Pi was recycled into a Home Assistant server and is happily assisting away. Why HAOS needs to be installed on bare metal for certain aspects to be easily available is beyond me, but there are ways of having it run in Docker with access to those elements just being a few extra steps away.
So, Home Assistant will be containerized, and its Raspberry Pi will be moving on. Before the parts crunch, I had three Pis. This is my last one, now, and I have to say I’ve enjoyed my first experience with the Pi and single-board-computers in general. The next step, however, will potentially require more computing power and definitely more reliability. Not that I doubted the Pi’s reliability, but the idea of running on a permanent basis from an SD card, thumb drive, or any external drive… I don’t like it.
Enter Beelink. I’ve had enough success with the SEi12 that I decided to pick up this Intel N100-based S12 Pro. It came with 16gb RAM and a 500gb SSD, both upgradeable. This computer will be the new home of dumbleigh.com, as well as my portfolio website, and another website project that I will detail later. So three websites with basically no traffic, yes the Pi could have handled that. But back to that thumb drive issue, besides reliability, I didn’t have a drive big enough to handle the media these sites are going to contain. The third site in particular will potentially hold thousands of photos, so the large drive the computer came with and the upgradeability will ensure that I don’t have to use any USB storage.
I think these two computers are aimed at different buyers, but I think the S12 offers a better value for the general user. The hard-to-find 4gb Pi is much cheaper, $55 at Microcenter (sold out). In reality, you can find 8gb Pis from shady sellers on Amazon for around $200. I paid $175 for the S12. For the price difference you get a 500gb drive, 16gb RAM, four USB 3.2 ports, full-sized HDMI ports, and it will also accept a 2.5″ SSD for a total of two internal drives. And then the processor: besides the higher clock speed and built-in cooling, it’s x86 and not ARM. Don’t mistake me, I’m a fan of ARM in general. But I’ve had issues getting software running on the Pi, albeit mostly because instructions are sometimes aimed at x86, so despite compatibility, sometimes you have to dig deeper to achieve success. Also, in the future, I or the the next owner of this S12 or the SEi12 can install Windows if desired more easily. Time will tell if the Beelink twins were a good investment, but my experience thusfarly has been positive.