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PiBox: a tiny personal server for self-hosting

• Rackedup 4y ago
• kristianpaul 4y ago
  Hope you can ship to more countries , including mine of course !
• Snuupy 4y ago
  I'm waiting excitedly for the 5 bay.
• dtx1 4y ago
  Great timing! As far as I can see, you cannot buy Raspberry Pi CM4s anywhere right now. But your Product does look good. I am not convinced of your value proposition but wish you best of luck. Getting more data away from the gigacorps is always a good thing
  • LeoPanthera 4y ago
    They come back in stock almost every week, keep an eye on https://rpilocator.com https://rpilocator.com - and maybe subscribe to their twitter if you want instant stock alerts.
    • inferiorhuman 4y ago
      I just checked and as if by magic, yep, there are some CM4s (in Germany). I've been looking to pick up a couple more Zeros though and haven't seen those in stock in months.
      • LeoPanthera 4y ago
        It's my understanding that the Zeros are very low priority for production, so you might be waiting a while for those. Since you're only allowed to buy one per order anyway they're not actually that useful for much.
    • OmahaBoy69 4y ago
      Chiming in to say that if you're using this to buy a Pi from AdaFruit make sure to register an account with two-factor auth before you get the chance to buy. They require this to deter scalpers, and they'll run out of stock before you're able to finish the process if you haven't already done so.
  • TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    What does value proposition mean? I’ve heard the term a lot but never understood it.
    • junwonapp 4y ago
      You can think of it as answering the question, "Why does the humankind need this product to exist?"
      • im_down_w_otp 4y ago
        Very few things can clear this hurdle, and even less so the sorts of things that tend to come up on HN. Very, very few industrial farming topics come up on here for example. Perhaps a more apt framework would be, "What's the reason someone is giving you money for this product?"
        • TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
          Why don’t people use the word “value” then? Why “value proposition” and not just “value”?
          • robjan 4y ago
            "value proposition" is about how you demonstrate the value.
          • im_down_w_otp 4y ago
            I assume it's because "value prop" is VC lingo which is a prompt to founders to give their customer "elevator pitch", and we're on community forum that's motivated by VC perspectives & lexicon, so those get broadly appropriated by many participants.
    • fmajid 4y ago
      Why someone would want to buy the product. Value is in the eye of the beholder, of course, and it’s not always what the maker expected.
  • erulabs 4y ago
    It can be hard to express the value proposition. For a lot of people, it's a media server with some really neat torrent related apps. For others it's a photosharing box that doesn't share photos with anyone you don't want it to. Others buy it because it's a tiny Kubernetes cluster, and they want to learn real tech skills with their hobby. But honestly, it's also a computer. It's the dream machine (1). What was the value proposition of the personal computer? What we're proposing is the personal server. Billions of folks run the client-side of the internet - but only a tiny elite class of us know how to run the server-side? If I get hyperbolic and kool-aid drunk, just know it's because I'm quite passionate about this. The blockchain folks talk a lot about "distributing the web". We're simply distributing web servers. For now though - it's a neat box to run Photostructure or a Ghost blog on :) 1. https://press.stripe.com/the-dream-machine https://press.stripe.com/the-dream-machine
    • rschachte 4y ago
      Neat gadget/site! I think people have concerns around value proposition when you sell the box for hundreds of dollars and say it's good to host a Ghost blog on. I would probably advertise something bigger because FWIW I host a blog on a $5 pi fronted by Cloudflare (free). These look really nice and clean though, wish you the best!
    • watercooler_guy 4y ago
      Off topic, but I think that stripe.com page you've linked to is the most beautifully designed modern webpage I've ever had the pleasure of scrolling. It's the 3d objects that move ever-so-slightly along with my cursor passing over them that does it for me.
    • jollyllama 4y ago
      Very cool. How are people clustering with these? Do you know how they are setting up their laptops etc. as control nodes, buying pis as control nodes, or something else? Is there out of the box capability to cluster with nodes from cloud providers?
      • erulabs 4y ago
• JustSomeNobody 4y ago
  This looks really good. I think I'll wait for the 5-Bay and see if the CM4s are easier to get by then.
• kornhole 4y ago
  Great job! HW preconfigured for less technical users is a great need. The auto backup and tunneling solution fill the gaps still existing in other solutions. I don't know how you managed to wrangle the RPI supply. I will recommend this to one of my friends.
• vorpalhex 4y ago
  I am excited for the 5-bay. Perfect little zfs backup machine.
• chazeon 4y ago
  Recently Raspberry Pi got so expensive. I'd rather buy second-hand Thin Desktops off ebays. I ordered Lenovo ThinkCentre m720q in spring and they serve me well. $300 with x86. I can add however much RAM or hard drive I'd like (32G RAM + 2*1T SSD).
  • erulabs 4y ago
    Our platform started as a "Bring your own computer!" - and AMD64 was much more popular then than ARM64 (for our users). Unfortunately, just saying "bring your own computer" is a technical barrier for lots of people (even sysadmins who just don't feel like doing work at home) - which is why we built a sort of "all-in-one" box
    • chazeon 4y ago
      I see, kubesail right? Interesting. I’ll look into that.
    • em-bee 4y ago
      i certainly appreciate that a suitable hardware model is available for sale, but i would want to be able to run the system on my own hardware too. booting from USB and running install is not to much work. the problem for me would be to spend the time to find a suitable device to run this on. if i happen to have one, great, but if not i'd probably rather buy yours than so my own research. personally, what i am looking for is a portable version of this, that runs on a battery so i can use it tethered through my phone, or even with its own sim card. for home use i would prefer the ability to put at least two regular 2.5" disks because those SSDs are still expensive at large sizes
  • jahewson 4y ago
    This is because of the chip shortage. It’s really a shame.
    • jayknight 4y ago
      https://rpilocator.com/ https://rpilocator.com/ will show you where rpis are for sale, I was able to get one from adafruit a few days ago by following their Twitter account because when they come available they go fast
• daenz 4y ago
  I built a Pi server not too long ago, and had it host my personal knowledge wiki for things that I needed to remember. I was very proud of it. Eventually though, I realized that having a screen and a keyboard is critical for how I was using it. I may not always have a machine on the network that can SSH into the Pi server. So I eventually settled on using an old laptop instead. Much more performant, and if the network goes down, I can still access the information easily.
• rektide 4y ago
  I wish Kubernetes was mentioned somewhere. Presumably a company KubeSail builds this atop Kubernetes? Yes no maybe so?
  • Kaze404 4y ago
    What does Kubernetes accomplish in a self-hosting environment?
    • rektide 4y ago
      Being a ultra-normal extremely well-documented extremely robust ultra-popular platform folks can expect to have some familarity with and/or grow into? What were your thoughts if any here, or couldnt you find any reasons?
      • braingenious 4y ago
        You’ve described your opinion of Kubernetes. What does it actually accomplish in this use case? For example, a toaster accomplishes toast in a way that a deep fryer can’t, even though they are both very useful kitchen devices.
        • rektide 4y ago
          When you read things online, they'll actually be semi useful to what you have at home, if you use this. Thats the 101. Unlike literally every other random assemblage of jazz you might possibly stumble into- which will be neither a toaster nor an air-frier, but some weirdo alien device a couple handful of earthlings have seen- you'll have a hope of getting better with this broadly known system. Otherwise, it's a: "Great! You went with Xin! It has flaky documentation, no one uses it on prod, but look at all the great boxes it says it can tick! And it's so much simpler!" There's many many good pieces about, sure. But for real, there are zero assemblages, zero meta-solutions that let individual computing problem/answers slot in, as compared to Kubernetes. There's nothing remotely as meta-versatile. That's the use case, that which defines it against everything else: it's meta architecture that works to define how we'd get answers to any architecture problem. It's a viable answer to every system setup, unlike everything else which has narrowed, winnowed concerns. You try to brush off, saying, it's my opinion here. That's a small slight, but generally, there's just nothing remotely of interest to the public anywhere near as broadly capable, that serves anywhere near a wide of range of concerns, that is anywhere near as flexible. (Counter-example me!) There's a variety of other piecemeal ideas out there- Hashicorp has a constellation of ideas that are all pretty good & which one can assemble. Doubter's gonna doubt, but the core premise of kubernetes- an all-purpose malleable api-server that records shit, operators that make the shit real, is an intelligble solid consistent base that underpins so much more, unifies & makes sense of computing so much better, so profoundly generally, across such a broader range of big & small computing, than anything else has remotely neared, that it is obvious & clear to those who try this better/general/pro-social/well-adopted paradigm of systems to be a repeatable, knowable, clear, enunciated & learnable way, that there's really no other platform appliance is worthy of mentionable compare.
• benwerd 4y ago
  "Finally, a NAS that lets you use a standard operating system that you're used to, like Ubuntu or Raspberry Pi OS." So this isn't really for non-technical users. But still very cool!
  • stevage 4y ago
    I know a few pretty non-technical people who use Ubuntu as their daily desktop. Kind of puts me to shame really.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• vineyardmike 4y ago
  Congrats to KubeSail team! I tried the software product a while ago and it wasn’t quite what I was looking for, but it was pretty cool. I could totally see myself recommending it to people (admittedly it’s somewhat niche so the opportunity hasn’t come up). The hardware is a little pricy for someone who is pretty competent with electronics, but seems great for people who want someone all in one. That said, it looks so well done that if CM4s become easier to get I might still purchase one. Their goal of “personal server” is something I eagerly wish was mainstream, and I always try out products that try to actualize it if the price is right. I had a small issue getting it set up on a random pi I had lying around, and erulabs/others were super helpful in discord! They have extensive docs for getting set up with your own hardware, which was great. The reason i stopped using the product was two fold: k8 seems like too much for personal use- writing my own KubeSail templates was just too verbose. The other issue is that I wasn’t a fan of their cloud hosting and cloud gateway solution - it works well enough but a personal server that needs a cloud server just wasn’t what I wanted. If I needed to rely on an outside server (you do unless you wanna open ports) I’d rather vpn to the box with eg. Tailscale than rely on the gateway. Which may be more secure too(?). Getting a web gui for a self hosted cluster was really nice, and the templates they put together really lowers the entry bar to start self hosting. I’m really impressed with the selections they chose, since a huge chunk of them I saw and went “ooh I should try that out”. Kudos to the team for putting it together. A feature suggestion: some sort of identity/auth integration which can help with household stuff (eg a hosted app that KubeSail injects your identity into). Could be useful for families and SMB clients. Ps. I had a good time reading through their non-documentation blog posts too.
  • rubatuga 4y ago
    For those who want to host their own servers and aren’t afraid to manage their own networking, we provide a tunnel service called Hoppy Network. It allows you to self host anything from mail servers to web servers, by assigning you a static IP address over a WireGuard tunnel. We forward all packets, including IPv6 and ICMP. We have great uptime (>99.9%) and great IP address reputation. https://hoppy.network https://hoppy.network
    • 4y ago
• omarhaneef 4y ago
  Sorry if this is newbie question but do I have to keep this at home or is there someone who will let me plug into their power and bandwidth for peanuts?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • Bluecobra 4y ago
    You might be able to find a local colo provider willing to host your box, though probably not for peanuts. A long time ago I worked for a MSP that hosted a client’s G4 Mac Mini in their colo cabinet on shelf space that would otherwise be wasted.
• yuuta 4y ago
  With the same or even cheaper price, you can get a much more powerful and enterprise grade refurbished rack server on eBay.
  • disposedtrolley 4y ago
    Yes, but you'll also need space for a rack and contend with noise, heat, and electricity usage. Don't get me wrong -- I love my Dell R730xd but it's definitely a commitment.
    • davidzweig 4y ago
      Fujitsu TX100 s3, TX120 s3, Dell ML110, HP microserver series are little towers, quietish (you can change out the fans to make them practically silent).
  • rasz 4y ago
    or a much faster quad core laptop
• init0 4y ago
  Remeber FreedomBox?
  • cycomanic 4y ago
    I was thinking the same thing. They are still around. The hardware is less polished, but cost only 69 euros (including the A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 board) and their software is very sleek.
  • ptman 4y ago
    And all the other alternatives. This is a crowded space.
    • Diris 4y ago
      Please do list alternatives! Beside FreedomBox and PiBox, I don't know of anything in the same space.
      • southerntofu 4y ago
        This previous comment of mine names a few: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31679164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31679164 (there's a lot more)
        • Diris 4y ago
          I was talking about hardware, but thanks.
• vajenetehais 4y ago
  Do you plan to sell only the SATA extension?
• darthrupert 4y ago
  Hmm, that was such an instant buy, I literally read the site for a minute and clicked buy. Perhaps a mistake, but looks like a very good platform for home thingies, one that I’ve been looking for some time. Incidental question: how reliable are consumer SSD drives for backup drive use? How much am I setting up myself for failure if I skip raid and just have the one?
• aborsy 4y ago
  A problem with small form factor NAS boxes is that, you have to use SSDs or 2.5” HDDs that have limited storage capacity (~ 2 TB). The SSDs limit bulk storage and increase the price. From pricing perspective, a two bay synology NAS is $300. You can add a lot of good cheap NAS storage.
  • vladvasiliu 4y ago
    > 2.5” HDDs that have limited storage capacity (~ 2 TB) Bonus points for those usually being SMR, which is atrocious if you want to run ZFS and need to resilver the pool. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/western-digitals-smr-disks-arent-great-but-theyre-not-garbage/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/western-digitals-smr...
    • aborsy 4y ago
      Exactly. I searched a lot for a small form factor ZFS backup server. The vast majority of mini PCs don’t expose a PCIe or eSATA expansion slot. You can connect HDDs with USB, but USB connection is not preferred with ZFS. The mini PCs can contain dual SSD, but, as noted, the storage is limited and the price is high. The closest options I found are: RockPro64, Odroid HC4, AsRock Deskmini X300, ZimaBoard, RPI CM4, each having own problems. One may build one from an mITX motherboard, but frankly that may also cost about a TrueNAS mini (which is quite large). Synology boxes are nice, but I want ZFS! If someone knows a small low power system for a ZFS backup server (like a passively cooled SBC or PC with sata port that can be used to connect HDDs placed outside box due to size limitation, or at least something that is portable), including a DIY build, I would love to take a look.
      • vladvasiliu 4y ago
        What I've found as a good compromise is "small-form-factor" pcs, like the HP *desk SFF. They usually come with mostly full-size components, so they're quiet, take regular DIMMs, etc. I have an EliteDesk 800 g2 SFF which can take, OOB, three 3.5" drives and one 2.5". If you chuck the optical drive, there's space for a second 2.5". If you're not afraid to take a dremel to it, the original 2.5" can be modified to house a 3.5" and you could probably stack one or two more 3.5" under one of the existing cages. You'll also probably want to stick some fans in there somehow with all the drives, but there's space enough. It doesn't have enough SATA ports, but you can find half-height PCIe controllers. --- If you don't want to hack on a case, the most compelling I've found is using one of those MBs with integrated intel CPU. Some of them should be powerful enough for ZFS and can take PCIe cards. You can put all this inside a Fractal Design Node or something similar.
• tallanvor 4y ago
  It's been impossible to reliably identify a person's location based on their IP address for years, so why do companies insist on trying? Tell me where you ship to and what the costs are. If you're going to make me jump through hoops to figure this out, well, your product is probably not good enough that I'll bother to do so!
  • egorfine 4y ago
    Agreed. I have opened and I am met with "We can't ship to %MY_COUNTRY% yet, but we are expanding quickly". I also wonder why some sites claim they can't ship into here. Virtually all of the post services of the world do ship into this country for years and years yet some sites specifically exclude it.
    • Boltgolt 4y ago
      The costs of shipping? Import taxes or tariffs? High rates of DOA or returns?
      • xdrosenheim 4y ago
        Cost of shipping: Tell the customer it will be expensive. Import: That is paid by the reciever? I have to pay import for things from abroad. Returns: Most companies tell you to arrange shipping yourself.
      • egorfine 4y ago
        Perhaps high rates of DOA might explain, yes.
    • tallanvor 4y ago
      I can understand not shipping everywhere, at least initially. Most power supplies work everywhere these days, but you have to ship the proper power cable. You also have to worry about customers getting sticker shock if you're not able to explain the customs fees (let alone shipping costs).
• stevejohnson 4y ago
  [dead]
• dusted 4y ago
  Why would I pay 539 eurodollars for a pi when I could buy a reasonable consumer-grade PC for that money? or just go with an actual enterprise server, although used?
  • gambiting 4y ago
    You wouldn't, it's just a "cool" little project. The only advantage this has over a normal server that I can think of is size and power consumption.
    • loxias 4y ago
      And even the thin mini PCs have fairly low power consumption these days. I got one with dual gig ethernet for $150, x86_64, works great. Similar ones for $100 you could easily hang a few large drives off of. Install a base OS, then docker compose a few services. Or buy a half dozen and deploy k8s. Boom, "A cheap tiny personal server self hosting" (with COTS parts).
      • swinglock 4y ago
        What did you find? I'm looking for something like that. Should be good for a router.
        • loxias 4y ago
          That's what I'm using mine for! I'll make a post with the parts list and software install steps in a month or so if it would help anyone out. I bought https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GK2QSY1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GK2QSY1, and a few alternatives, and I'm going to benchmark their performance under heavy load (using a much studlier machine to generate traffic). These mini PCs are getting to be _really cheap_. Cheap enough that my home infra is moving towards a tiny mini PC ($100 or less) attached to every pair of monitors, keyboards, and the network, and a central server to do actual work.
    • pi-rat 4y ago
      Another option is to buy a used "thin client". 1/10th the price, very similar power usage, small size. Some of them got room for a drive or even a quad intel nic (via pcie)
• spockz 4y ago
  5 Bay PiBox Coming soon! - 5 Full-Size Hard Drive Bays Is the pi even powerful enough to run the workloads that require 5 drives? On my NAS the only thing that manages to saturate the drives is a direct copy. In all else the CPU and RAM is the bottleneck. If it is for redundant storage, zfs will be quite limited by the 8 gib ram.
  • vladvasiliu 4y ago
    Depending on what they do on a NAS, even ZFS might be fine with 8 GB, especially if they won't take advantage of caching (say it's for a media library or backups). Don't know if ZFS encryption can be accelerated on a PI, that may be a bottleneck. It could also be useful as a ZFS snapshot send target. That uses little RAM and doesn't need ZFS encryption (if your source dataset is already encrypted). --- edit: regarding ZFS RAM usage, the below is from my ZFS NAS, with out-of-the-box ZFS settings: > free -h total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 15Gi 8.2Gi 7.2Gi 12Mi 96Mi 7.0Gi Swap: 0B 0B 0B
    • spockz 4y ago
      Yes okay. Indeed as a simple file/snapshot server over network this should be enough. But this is meant to run all kinds of apps on it. For example plex, in many cases that will transcode the video. One could do without the cache when using SSDs I suppose.
• puzzlingcaptcha 4y ago
  A friendly reminder that BCM2711 despite being 64-bit doesn't have the optional Armv8 crypto extensions. But when all you have is a hammer...
• Lio 4y ago
  Sorry if I missed them but I couldn’t see any company details on the site. Could you say some about who “we” are in this context? i.e. where are you based, personnel, long term goals, etc. I think you have an interesting project idea here. I’d consider this as a replacement to my home NAS when it becomes available in the UK. Good luck to you.
• dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
  Your FAQ is missing the most important entry - why it's terribly expensive.
  • forty 4y ago
    My guess would be "so that they make money", which is important in some context.
    • dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
      Of course, but the Pi got so popular because of its low price (it's neither open nor particularly powerful etc.). This unusually high price tag needs some justification.
  • dublin 4y ago
    I bought one. If you really look at what all you're getting, it's not expensive at all - in fact, I think it's something of a deal (esp. given supply chain constraints and the value added by their mainboard i/o, case, etc.) I've been CTO for nearly a dozen companies and have access to world-class PCB and mechanical prototyping facilities and staff, and even with all that, I decided that buying the PiBox was cheaper and better than rolling my own. I hope they're making enough margin on these things to keep going, as I'm really pretty impressed with the company and its people so far - I really want these guys to succeed! And as an aside to those who say the Pi is underpowered and not capable of serious work, I'll note two things: 1) You're wrong (search Cray in comments above), and 2) That was the argument against Linux 20 years ago. Like Linux then, the RPi will succeed in the end because it provides an open standard platform, and although it is not best at anything, in aggregate, it is getting better much faster than the competition.
    • erulabs 4y ago
      Just want you to know your comment made our day over here - thank you! We genuinely have made it has cheap for customers as possible. Balancing the cost versus what we need to survive and keep the doors open is quite hard, and I think we've learned why there are so few hardware startups! Re: Pi Power - it's quite amazing how many well-behaved apps you can run on an 8GB pi. Some self-hosted apps that are written in Rust and Go these days use 3mb of memory, it's amazing! There will always be that particular game server that makes power users want more, but that's life!
• MasterYoda 4y ago
  Half OT, but... I want to have a backup on another site, at an family member. Like the 3-2-1 rule, 3 copies, on 2 different medium and 1 off site. For the off site backup, I want a cheap solution and was thinking of an rasberryPi with an connected usb-hdd and then the rPi connected to a family members wifi-router that I could connect to over the internet and do my backups to. My question are: 1 - What solutions are there to make encrypted backups to a rasberryPi from windows? I don't want to encrypt all files with encrypted 7z files and transfer them (it is an mess), but just to have a solution so I can choose the unencrypted files and folders and then the software encrypts them on the fly and transfer them over to the rPi. 2 - The optimal solution would be to have the rPi usb-hdd mapped as an network drive or similar in explorer. But would that be possible with the first requirement that all files must be encrypted on the fly? 1 is more important than 2. 3 - I have read that a rPi not can handle a connected usb-hdd because it will take to much power than the rPi can deliver. Does there exist an dongle or something that you could connect one or two usb-hhd to the rPi and the dongle is connected to the powergrid and gives the usb-hdd the power they need and then the dongle is connected to the rPi but only transfer data? Or is there any other solutions? Sorry for maybe stupid questions. But I have no clues here, what to search/look for or even if it is possible. Thanks in advance for any feedback.
  • chriswep 4y ago
    i'm basically running that setup: rpi, external usb, encrypted backup. - i'd recommend attaching an external 3,5 disk that comes with its own power supply, that way you don't have to worry about power, it's cheaper and you have more storage. - For backup i am using borgbackup. it does encryption and deduplication. you can also backup several machines to the same repository if you want to. i'm using it for several use cases, it's rock solid, never had a problem. - you can safely use borgbackup over ssh if you want to do remote backup. just forward the ssh port on your friends router and use dyndns if they don't have a static ip.
  • PufPufPuf 4y ago
    I recommend using Tailscale to connect to the box securely. Your usage should fall comfortably within free tier limits. (It has 20 devices iirc.)
• ccbccccbbcccbb 4y ago
  Absolutely not to bash the offer (looks pretty nice!), but IMO the biggest obstacle towards self-hosting is not the lack of appropriate hardware, but the dreadful combo of IPv4 + symmetric NAT shoved down the throats of us mere mortals (contemptuously dubbed "consumers") by ISPs (which I really think is not their whim but a directive from above to reinforce the monopoly of the state on the world's information flow, which implies surveillance, censorship and data harvesting). Simply not being able to just run a server with ports open to the outer world on a home connection is one of the nails in the coffin of freedom.
  • erulabs 4y ago
    This is what the software side of our startup does! Checkout https://kubesail.com https://kubesail.com. The pibox is our hardware - but the software (which runs on any pc) solves the tunneling, backups, and other issues. You got the nail on the head here!
• DonnyV 4y ago
  I could buy an MSI Cubi with an i5 chip for this price. I can at least upgrade the ram later with a Cubi.
• what-imright 4y ago
  Why don’t you just buy a regular server for $500? many run silent. In fact I have a cluster of 9 servers (nodes) running in my bedroom