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what's uptime like on an Rpi? I want to start working on a home website and have an old rpi laying around. But I've read that their reliability isn't great sinc

what's uptime like on an Rpi? I want to start working on a home website and have an old rpi laying around. But I've read that their reliability isn't great since they use SD cards. Any advice?

mxuribe 6y ago
I don't have numbers, stats handy but in my couple of years experience with Rpis - both regulars and the smaller Ws - the SD cards fail well before the Rpis do.
kokx 6y ago
What I've done with my RPi 4 is attach an external SSD to it and mount it to /home and /var. This reduces writes to the SD card dramatically. Lengthening the SD card's life. I have serious uptime on it, almost a year (since I got an RPi 4 basically). It only shutdown with power failures (only one, which was entirely my own fault) and system maintenance (OS upgrades and other tinkering). I've also imaged a version of that SD card, so it would be easy to just swap out and probably get things running again without much hassle. I'm sure there are more fancy solutions with overlayfs, making the SD card read-only except for upgrades. Though I couldn't find a nice resource on it at the time.
- silicon2401 6y ago
  Interesting solution, I'll take note of this. Thanks!
ashtonkem 6y ago
Very long if you're careful to not write to the SD card too much. Mine got turned off mostly when I accidentally unplugged it from my desk.
ezconnect 6y ago
If you are not using the camera, it can run for years.
atomi 6y ago
My rPi3, running Arch, has an up time of close to 3 years on the same SD card. It runs various Docker containers including 1 for MiniFlux. It's mostly idle but when I need it, it's been reliably there for me. Maybe, I've been lucky.
magicalhippo 6y ago
My Home Assistant is running on a Raspberry Pi 3B+. It has been running on the same SD card for two years now, with a large sqlite database and with debug logging enabled for Z-Wave so a fair amount of writing to the card. It has only been down when the power has been out, and so far no issues with the card. It is however an A1 or A2 class card (I forget which), so supposedly design with applications in mind. It should also be noted that a lot of issues with the Pi is due to poor USB cables / power supplies. I had another Pi that kept crashing every few days, until I measured the USB "charger" cable I was using for it. Turns out it had a resistance of almost exactly 1 Ohm. So if the Pi drew say 1A, that would be 1V loss in the cable... After I swapped cables it has been rock solid. A key point here is that a lot of SD cards do not like losing power while being written to. Avoid that and a quality SD card should have a long life.
- silicon2401 6y ago
  very helpful input, thanks a lot!
uzakov 6y ago
Are there any particular reasons why you want to host your website on your home network on the Pi?
- silicon2401 6y ago
  Just because I already have it and it's low-powered. I prefer starting projects out with 0-cost methods, and I already have an rpi laying around somewhere
  - uzakov 6y ago
    My 2cents: Have a look at GitHub pages, you wouldn't even need to pay for electricity.
    - silicon2401 6y ago
      That is a good point. However one of my goals/constraints is that I want my home site to be able to connect to other personal devices, e.g. a NAS (another WIP project). My ideal vision is a simple site running on my network, backed up on some kind of cloud storage. Any suggestions? Though I'm a software engineer, I've worked mostly in app dev rather than infrastructure setup. This project is a way for me to learn more about the latter. The rpi is the easiest and cheapest option, but I have wondered if it wouldn't make more sense to use AWS or something like that. I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks a month, but more than that and I'd rather wait until I've learned a bit and know what my specific needs are. I've also considered an actual computer, but figure it's a waste of power when my initial work will probably just be figuring out the server config, HTML pages, etc.
      - uzakov 6y ago
        >That is a good point. However one of my goals/constraints is that I want my home site to be able to connect to other personal devices, e.g. a NAS (another WIP project). My ideal vision is a simple site running on my network, backed up on some kind of cloud storage. You could host everything on your home network but there are a couple of things you should probably know before you start: 1) Some ISP do not give you static IP, meaning its extra work 2) Security - Ideally your home network has some kind of segregation, you keep your trusted devices on one, IoT or not patchable on another for example, with firewall blocking connections from dirty network to clean one. Having externally facing website potentially having direct access to personal devices and services might be an issue from security point of view. You can sign up on AWS/Azure or any other cloud provider for free and get free credits, which might be enough for you to learn. Feel free to ask further questions if you need to
jve 6y ago
Just dont have heavy writes on sdcard. I use external hdd for it. I have a running rpi for more than half a year. No issues whatsoever. But again - I have a very stable electricity and I dont remember last time it was cut not due to planned maintenance.

what's uptime like on an Rpi? I want to start working on a home website and have an old rpi laying around. But I've read that their reliability isn't great since they use SD cards. Any advice?

mxuribe 6y ago

I don't have numbers, stats handy but in my couple of years experience with Rpis - both regulars and the smaller Ws - the SD cards fail well before the Rpis do.

kokx 6y ago

What I've done with my RPi 4 is attach an external SSD to it and mount it to /home and /var. This reduces writes to the SD card dramatically. Lengthening the SD card's life. I have serious uptime on it, almost a year (since I got an RPi 4 basically). It only shutdown with power failures (only one, which was entirely my own fault) and system maintenance (OS upgrades and other tinkering). I've also imaged a version of that SD card, so it would be easy to just swap out and probably get things running again without much hassle. I'm sure there are more fancy solutions with overlayfs, making the SD card read-only except for upgrades. Though I couldn't find a nice resource on it at the time.

silicon2401 6y ago
Interesting solution, I'll take note of this. Thanks!

ashtonkem 6y ago

Very long if you're careful to not write to the SD card too much. Mine got turned off mostly when I accidentally unplugged it from my desk.

ezconnect 6y ago

If you are not using the camera, it can run for years.

atomi 6y ago

My rPi3, running Arch, has an up time of close to 3 years on the same SD card. It runs various Docker containers including 1 for MiniFlux. It's mostly idle but when I need it, it's been reliably there for me. Maybe, I've been lucky.

magicalhippo 6y ago

My Home Assistant is running on a Raspberry Pi 3B+. It has been running on the same SD card for two years now, with a large sqlite database and with debug logging enabled for Z-Wave so a fair amount of writing to the card. It has only been down when the power has been out, and so far no issues with the card. It is however an A1 or A2 class card (I forget which), so supposedly design with applications in mind. It should also be noted that a lot of issues with the Pi is due to poor USB cables / power supplies. I had another Pi that kept crashing every few days, until I measured the USB "charger" cable I was using for it. Turns out it had a resistance of almost exactly 1 Ohm. So if the Pi drew say 1A, that would be 1V loss in the cable... After I swapped cables it has been rock solid. A key point here is that a lot of SD cards do not like losing power while being written to. Avoid that and a quality SD card should have a long life.

silicon2401 6y ago
very helpful input, thanks a lot!

uzakov 6y ago

Are there any particular reasons why you want to host your website on your home network on the Pi?

silicon2401 6y ago
Just because I already have it and it's low-powered. I prefer starting projects out with 0-cost methods, and I already have an rpi laying around somewhere
- uzakov 6y ago
  My 2cents: Have a look at GitHub pages, you wouldn't even need to pay for electricity.
  - silicon2401 6y ago
    That is a good point. However one of my goals/constraints is that I want my home site to be able to connect to other personal devices, e.g. a NAS (another WIP project). My ideal vision is a simple site running on my network, backed up on some kind of cloud storage. Any suggestions? Though I'm a software engineer, I've worked mostly in app dev rather than infrastructure setup. This project is a way for me to learn more about the latter. The rpi is the easiest and cheapest option, but I have wondered if it wouldn't make more sense to use AWS or something like that. I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks a month, but more than that and I'd rather wait until I've learned a bit and know what my specific needs are. I've also considered an actual computer, but figure it's a waste of power when my initial work will probably just be figuring out the server config, HTML pages, etc.
    - uzakov 6y ago
      >That is a good point. However one of my goals/constraints is that I want my home site to be able to connect to other personal devices, e.g. a NAS (another WIP project). My ideal vision is a simple site running on my network, backed up on some kind of cloud storage. You could host everything on your home network but there are a couple of things you should probably know before you start: 1) Some ISP do not give you static IP, meaning its extra work 2) Security - Ideally your home network has some kind of segregation, you keep your trusted devices on one, IoT or not patchable on another for example, with firewall blocking connections from dirty network to clean one. Having externally facing website potentially having direct access to personal devices and services might be an issue from security point of view. You can sign up on AWS/Azure or any other cloud provider for free and get free credits, which might be enough for you to learn. Feel free to ask further questions if you need to

jve 6y ago

Just dont have heavy writes on sdcard. I use external hdd for it. I have a running rpi for more than half a year. No issues whatsoever. But again - I have a very stable electricity and I dont remember last time it was cut not due to planned maintenance.