I’m new to this stuff so go easy on me.

So I want to get into selfhosting, and I’ve decided to get a Raspberry Pi 5. I plan to attach drives to it, from about 500GB-1TB. I’m on a budget, preferably under $100.

I want to host these things:

  • A personal lemmy instance
  • A samba server, to store files and backups
  • A mail server
  • A few other light docker containers

I was wondering whether I should get an SSD or an HDD for these. Lemmy would probably like an SSD because it uses Postgres, but an HDD would be better for storage since I get more GB per dollar.

What should I go with?

  • PieMePlenty@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    23 days ago

    Raspberry pi is power limited. HDD creates a power spike on boot as well so you may have power issues. When i used a rpi for a media server, i had to use a 25W supply. Even 20W wasnt enough and i had voltage throttling issues. 1TB HDD probably wont draw that much power but SSD is never an issue. If you dont need space and are on a budget SSD is the way to go. This is all assuming USB is used for power.

    If you need large amounts of space and have a budget, use an HDD but it needs to be self powered or used with a larger device like a mini pc which has adequate internal power.

    • michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      6·
      23 days ago

      My RPi4 refused to start with a 2x2.5" hard drive, so I did some workarounds. I connected the USB 3.0 +5V pin to the GPIO and powered the RPi using a PD trigger with MINI 560 (5A DC-DC converter). In my case, a random 18W QC brick was enough.