I currently have a server, a Dell T310 with an SSD in it and 12Gig of ram (weird config, I know I messed up but it works fine so I can’t be bothered to change that for now), with all my dockers running in it.
It runs mostly fine, with Debian 11, a VPN so that I can block public ssh and allow it only on the VPN network, an nginx proxy to have services like a forgejo and a music library (ampache).
However it can’t run a Minecraft server with more than a single person on it without stuttering ; so I was considering changing it maybe next year, after more than 3 years of services, for something beefier but also consuming less W/h (current consumption is 80W), and since I already have a Mac for work I was wondering how suitable a Mac Mini M1/M2 would be for a homelab?
Does anyone have such a configuration and how does it work for you? Any hurdle that you should be aware of?
The problem with Mac hardware is that it’s ARM and vertically integrated with everything Apple. Not all hardware is supported by Linux because Apple won’t write any linux drivers and everything is reverse engineered. You’re better off buying something non-Apple which linux properly supports.
If power consumption is an issue for you get, a R9 7950X consumes as much and at times less power than an M1/M2 (I think even M3). Check out GamerNexus’s charts. IINM AMD in W/Ghz performs better than Intel across the board.
No idea where you are, but you can get a small factor PC from one of the vendors that preload linux, or configure a small form factor PC of your liking for cheap and put linux on it. You’ll get more out of your money for the same or better performance with about the same energy consumption (or a bit more).
Somebody I know who happens to live in Hungary got himself this cheap beauty. They deliver all over Europe, but if you live elsewhere on this planet, there probably is something similar like this out there.
Anti Commercial-AI license
There are plenty of Linux containers available for ARM in part because a lot of developers want to run Linux containers within macOS on Apple Silicon.
That has had the effect improving the experience of running Linux directly on ARM servers.
That may be, but buying a Mac Mini is like buying a device made from the ground up for Windows, where any other operating system has to reverse engineer 100% of the things to work well, or you have to emulate another OS on it (which comes with its own pitfalls), and it’s 200+€ more expensive than its nearest equivalent.
Every single company I’ve worked at which introduced Apple Silicon to its developers has had headaches with compatibility. The worst I’ve seen was it taking a developer a month to get up and running because the specific component we used didn’t have a build for the specific ARM architecture. Multipass, UTM, podman, docker desktop, all didn’t work until colima and forcing the VM to emulate x86 + forcing docker in the VM to use the x86 image worked. There was a persistent problem with disk IO since it used 9p or whatever. Installing dependencies from scratch meant waiting 30 minutes on the M2.
Why pay a premium for less compatibility and worse specs? Just get yourself something that works, which is cheaper, maybe even supports a company that invests in Linux and its ecosystem, and be able to ask an existing developer community instead of asking the subsection of linux users that run your specific app on however you’re running linux on Appe hardware.
Anti Commercial-AI license
I didn’t pay a premium, I got a great deal.
The reverse engineering work was already complete, and all the containers I needed for ARM were available.
These have great performance per watt.
That’s great if it’s your experience.
I’m just saying me and others have consistently had different experiences, and OP can get a better experience at half the price, with the same (or better) energy consumption, all while supporting the Linux ecosystem directly.
Anti Commercial-AI license
I’ve donated to marcan to work on Asahi Linux, which gets upstreamed. That’s direct.
What has better performance per watt than M1 at a better price?
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/power_performance.html
Other efficiency benchmarks place Apple Silicon and AMD chips ahead of Intel chips:
https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cpu_performance_per_watt
That may be, but buying a Mac Mini is like buying a device made from the ground up for Windows, where any other operating system has to reverse engineer 100% of the things to work well, or you have to emulate another OS on it (which comes with its own pitfalls), and it’s 200+€ more expensive than its nearest equivalent.
Every single company I’ve worked at which introduced Apple Silicon to its developers has had headaches with compatibility. The worst I’ve seen was it taking a developer a month to get up and running because the specific component we used didn’t have a build for the specific ARM architecture. Multipass, UTM, podman, docker desktop, all didn’t work until colima and forcing the VM to emulate x86 + forcing docker in the VM to use the x86 image worked. There was a persistent problem with disk IO since it used 9p or whatever. Installing dependencies from scratch meant waiting 30 minutes on the M2.
Why pay a premium for less compatibility and worse specs? Just get yourself something that works, which is cheaper, maybe even supports a company that invests in Linux and its ecosystem, and be able to ask an existing developer community instead of asking the subsection of linux users that run your specific app on however you’re running linux on Appe hardware.
What benchmark do you have that says a R9 7950X “consumes as much and at times less power than an M1/M2”??? I mean, a) of course that’s a crazy comparison because the M1/M2 is an entry-level laptop chip and the 7950x is AMD’s flagship high performance desktop chip and b) the M1/M2’s power consumption at full load is ~20W and the 7950x idles at 20-30W.
A reasonable comparable is one of AMD’s monolithic laptop chips like the 7840U or (if you’re willing to consume more power) 7840HS.
Some actual useful charts: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M3-SoC-analyzed-Increased-performance-and-improved-efficiency.766789.0.html https://www.techspot.com/review/2499-apple-m2/