Low Power Server OPNSense/Home Assistant(/Nextcloud)

[lukas@homelab]

I am currently researching potential hardware for a Router/Home Assistant Server.

The STH article on the R86S-N got me thinking about the topic.

https://www.servethehome.com/this-gowin-r86s-pro-is-an-everything-revolution-with-25gbe-and-2-5gbe/

My current homelab (I left out anything thats not related to this topic)

- UniFi Security Gateway as the Router
- UniFi LR 6 Access Point
- 16 Port Gigabit Switch
- 5 Port 10 GbE Switch vom MikroTik
- Homematic CCU3 (basically a Raspberry Pi 3 equipped with the radio hardware for Homematic Smart Home things)
- Philips Hue Bridge (I thing second gen)
- Server #1 with bare metal TrueNAS Scale (embedded Intel Pentium D1502)
- Server #2 with Proxmox (AMD Ryzen 5600 + Nvidia Geforce GTX 1660)
- Server #3 Raspberry Pi 4 bare metal Home Asisstant

My long term goal is to reduce power consumption, complexity and number of devices.

Let's ignore Server #1 and #2 for now, this is a whole other topic, but my current plan is to replace them with a single server.
Note that both do not run 24/7 and I don't plan to, I do not need most of the stuff running there all the time.

Back to topic - My idea is to build a Server with Proxmox running at least OPNSense and Home Assistant.
This machine would run 24/7 because it makes sense for the things I want to run there, routing and smart home stuff should work always.
If the machine has enough power I would like to run Nextcloud - but it is not important.

This brings me back to the R86S-N.
I was really hyped at first, at first glance it should be able to run OPNSense and Home Assistant side by side.

It would allow me to

- remove the 10GbE MikroTik Switch completely because I only have two devices with 10GbE
- replace both smart home bridges (homematic and philips) by connecting a zigbee stick and a homematic stick
- directly connect my WiFi Access Point therefore allowing me to shutdown my big 16 port switch over night without disabling wifi

I think that this would in total reduce my power consumption, reduce complexity and be a fun project to do.

Now comes the but - I am worried that the box does not have enough power for this endavour, mainly routing between 10GbE clients.

I am now wondering if there is maybe an alternative that would check these boxes and has a little bit more horse power without blowing up the power draw.
And maaaaybe there's event an option with ECC memory support

Thanks for your input !

 

[lukas@homelab]

I saw the new MinisForum BD770i Motherboard earlier, but I think that would be too powerful for my purpose.

 

[SnJ9MX]

Some of the 1L (tiny mini micro) Lenovo PCs have a PCIe slot. You could get one of those and stick a 10G card in. I think the first gen that had the PCIe port was Intel 8th gen. The newer stuff is of course faster. I don't know what CPU the R86S-N has in it but I'm guessing something comparable to a 8-9th gen Intel i5.

Do note that your GTX 1660 has a base power consumption of somewhere in the 20-30W range. If that's for transcoding, look into intel with quicksync. You could get a 12-13th gen Intel and use it for your base always on machine and transcode with it. Any computer physically small (normal desktop size or smaller) without a dGPU made in the last 3 or so years should idle around 10W. Quicksync transcoding takes a couple W.

 

[lukas@homelab]

The R86S-N has an Alder Lake N305 in it, I think it is quite fast but of course 10GbE is a beast on its own.

For the bigger server I will have to look at the 1660 at some point. But this for another time.

The machine I have in mind would just be a router and running home assistant because that is something I need 24/7.
I need things like Plex only sometimes on some days - so its not worth it in my mind to build a low power server that can do everything and stays on 24/7.

 

[lukas@homelab]

I found an AM4 ITX Barebone made by ASRock.

The ASRock DeskMeet X300

ASRock DeskMeet X300 Series

Supports AMD AM4 Socket Ryzen™ 2000, 3000, 4000 G-Series, 5000 and 5000 G-Series Desktop Processors, up to 65W<br />Supports MAX Height ≦ 54mm CPU Cooler<br />Supports 4 x DDR4-3200MHz DIMMs, up to 128GB<br />1 x PCIe 3.0 x16<br />Graphics Output Options：DisplayPort, HDMI & D-Sub<br />2 x SATA3...

www.asrock.com

According to some users this system has a remarkably low idle consumption with some users claming 10 to 15 W with an AMD Ryzen 5600.

With this I could re-use my existing Ryzen 5600G.
This should make a fine Router/Home Asssistant/Nextcloud machine.

In addition I could limit the power draw of the chip to 35W.

 

[mbosma]

The R86S-N looks promising, but I share your concern about its performance, especially with 10GbE routing.

Virtualised won't work, bare metal maybe.
I tried running pfsense virtualised on N100 but struggled a bit with 1Gb NAT, let alone 10Gb.

The R86S-N might have an advantage over my tests when you do pci-e passtrough on the Connect-X4.