Hello folks,
I've been using NodeRed deployed on DigitalOcean server for years, pretty happy.
It is now time to improve the performance of the unit, but DO alternatives to the basic ones are too expensive...so i thought to migrate to a mini home server.
Any cheap suggestion, little, inexpensive, with 8gb ram and SSD compatibile ?
It will run NR under Docker, because is the way I am used to do.
Many thanks !
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I run NR successfully on an 2nd hand laptop which I bought for $100
Setup
- Laptop 8GB, 250GB SSD (I prefer laptop because of battery in case of power outage)
- Ubuntu Linux, with Docker
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I recently refresh my home hardware with Intel n100.
I use to run several docker image on top of OpenMediaVault (serving as NAS).
I have several instances on different hardware, but my main instance runs on an Orange Pi 5 with 16GB ram and NVME drive (runs proxmox with a couple of VMs and linux containers), idle at ±3 watt, load ±9 watt.
It is a little beast, based on an rockchip 3588, twice as fast as a raspberry.
The native NVME support was the USP for me.
What aspect of performance do you need to improve?
What are you running that needs 8GB? Assuming that you are running a headless linux system then that is a lot of memory.
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@Colin , 8gb is certainly overkill for NR alone, I will install Nginx proxy, Authentik, PostgreSQL, maybe Grafana , Influxdb, a local instance of ChatGPT linked to OpenAi api, everything in Docker
Maybe I can stand with 4gb
OK, as others have suggested, an old laptop may well be a good choice. That is what I have done. I have a Lenovo x201 which runs node red, influxdb, grafana, Jellyfin, and several Rails based sites with no problems. The keyboard is a bit dodgy but that does not matter as most of the maintenance is via ssh. It cost me nothing several years ago, the hard drive was dead. I plugged in an SSD, upgraded the RAM to 4GB and installed Ubuntu and it has worked well ever since.
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It's a bit sad that nobody is recommending Raspberry Pies any more*, but if I was buying a small server to run 24/7 I would be looking at second hand mini PCs. An SBC plus power supply, case, SSD and fan is too just expensive.
An old laptop comes with it's own UPS - assuming the batteries are not dead - but that does not justify for me the extra space they occupy or the higher power consumption.
There is always the suspicion that laptops have been designed for a short life, the batteries and power jack are frequently too fragile.
* Possible exception: Pi Zero 2 & uSD for small setups.
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Echo on the too bad no one recommends PI's. I have six of various flavors and while I don't think i push them all that hard, they run pretty flawless. They don't take much electricity or much space, they self update, recover gracefully if the power goes out, and have pretty much proven to be bulletproof. Several have run for years back to when they first came out and still tick on, running 24/7 since day 1.
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@gerry PI's are interesting.
I guess if a Model 4 B with 8gb is a good choice.
What about storage ?
Are they limited to SD card or they can manage SSD's / NVMe's natively ?
Do you rely on SD ?
Many thanks !
I'm not at all sure you need 8GB.
My main Node-red server is a Pi 4 with 4GB and a 120GB SSD. It does not have an SD card.
As well as many Node-red flows it also runs MySQL, PiHole, Mosquitto & Zerotier.
I have no idea if it offers better performance than a Digital Ocean server.
You can only use an SSD on a Pi 4 via USB3, which means that SATA is probably a better match than M.2. For best performance you need to make sure you get the right adapter too.
If I was buying another Pi I'd probably go for a Pi5 with the official adapter board and M.2 SSD.
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With all respect to @jbudd , I'm a believer in buy all you can when get one so I always go for max RAM. However I agree if I needed one today I'd get the Pi5 and max it out.
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At the end I’ve ordered Pi5 with 8gb.
In the next days I’ll be migrating from good old Digital Ocean tiny vps to this new little home server.
I have already tested a static public IP service provider with success , and this will cost me roughly the same per month as DO , but with much better hardware and storage capabilities
Thanks to everyone
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Do you need a static IP? Before I switched to my current ISP (who provide fixed ip out of the box) I had my domain registered with Cloudflare and used a node red flow to update the dns details if my IP changed. Now I still use Cloudflare but just don't need to run the flow.
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If it's going to be accessible from the internet, take care to secure your Node-red installation.
Don't use port forwarding!
@Colin, I'm using a 4g sim with NAT and with a rolling public (and shared) IP address.
So I don't think I have other choices ... or do I ?
I have tested the service and for 6,5 € per month they gave me public fixed IP and 1000 Gb of VPN data traffic (my router's SIM card has "only" 300Gb of traffic per month, so plenty enough to not overcome the maximum traffic allowed).
I am planning to have the VPN client installed on server and not router, so only the mini-server traffic will be tunneled into VPN / static IP provider.
@jbudd I use a reverse proxy (NGINX) and I think I'll add extra measure such as OAuth2.
But any suggestion are much appreciated ... I am a network newbie 
It depends how often it changes I think. If the system is normally on 24/7 and the ip only changes if you power down then you should be ok with a system such as I had. If it changes routinely though then you are probably right.
Be careful using a VPN, read this FAQ post, which I think explains the issues that can arise.
Rather than a VPN with NGINX or similar I use Cloudflare Zero Trust (which is free). Also see Tutorial - Secure your home automation with Tailscale which is another good alternative.
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Most VPNs do not work if the server is using mobile broadband (carrier grade NAT).
There's more to it than just the IP changing frequently, though it can and does!
A service such as Zerotier or Tailscale (?) does work though.
I can access my Pi by it's virtual Zerotier IP address 192.168.192.11 even though it's not a valid public address. No domain names or static public IPs are involved.
That's not just a VPN, but is a static public IP provider with encrypted VPN tunnelling, made specifically to work with natted sim cards.
I have already tested and it works flawlessly!
Thanks I'll read carefully!
I use a Fritz!Box 7590 modem. It has build in VPN and a helper for installing the client on windows and iOS.
