Low-Powered Rack-Mounted Server

Continuing the discussion from Review - The Home Assistant "Blue":

I myself would like to have a low-powered server that runs at idle. Even though I’m an AMD fanatic, aren’t there low-powered servers that can run Home Assistant? I want the ability to expand with a quad Gigabit port PCIe card, so I can have Home Assistant talk to different networks, or maybe make use of extra USB ports for future expandability, especially if I want to have more serial connections for devices that use RS232. It’s not like I’m going to buy it right away, but it’s nice to have it be modular.

IPMI is great, but it’s not a must-have as Home Assistant will stay on all the time. If I were to run Home Assistant that is connected to UPS, I want to keep IPMI disabled to save power in case the electricity goes out.

As for my experience with Linux, I am handy with installing Home Assistant Core on top of Debian with Python 3’s virtual environment (venv). Home Assistant (OS) is great; however I want to have the flexibility of configuring my network how I want it.

So aren’t there any low-powered servers (does not matter if it’s 1U, 2U, or 4U)? I am a fan of AMD (x86), but I can go with Intel (x86) or ARM.

You could just get an embedded Ryzen mobo with a PCI slot, put a 4-port NIC in it, and put it all in a little 1U rack mount chassis. Probably need an L-connector for the PCI.

1 Like

Thanks. I think at 1U, only SuperMicro can fit in a single 1U chassis. I will have to look for one with an embedded Ryzen motherboard, but I’m not sure what’s the power consumption going to be like.

I’m not sure but I think SuperMicro’s embedded ones are Epyc, which is prolly way overkill, unless you want to run your Home Assistant in a VM and do more things on the server? Jay built two of them for Proxmox and has videos.

Well in any case, Epyc is not for me. I will look for embedded Ryzen motherboards, however I am concerned regarding the I/O shield not fitting into a 1U chassis.

I honestly do not know if AMD has a solution that markets for those who want a low-powered server. Because as far as I know, AMD only supports desktops for Ryzen CPUs and servers for EPYC CPUs. Of course, a CPU is just a CPU and nothing else.

Oh, and I really don’t want to deal with USB passthrough for VMs.

Anyway, thanks.

Please check my existing post about my low-energy rack:

This is using a SuperMicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F motherboard with a Quad-core Intel Atom 2.2 GHz CPU. This motherboard already has 4 ethernet ports out of the box + dedicated management port for IPMI.

The entire rack uses a little over 50 Watts, but that’s also for a switch and firewall, so I would guess the server alone uses about 15-20 Watts.

I’m running a number of Docker containers, including Home Assistant, and it still uses less than 1% CPU when idle.

1 Like