Hi, I am looking for a SBC to self host stuff on. I would like it to be somewhat open hardware (manufacturer provides schematics and drivers are open source). Which is why I initially wanted to buy a banana-pi router but after reading a post in this /c/ I found that mainline linux support is fairly rare in these arm/riscv SBCs.
So I was hoping someone more knowledgeable would help me find some options. Here are my “wants”:
- Low power drain
- Open source hardware and software
- Mainline linux support
- 2 ethernet ports, at least 1Gb
- at least 2GB RAM - could do with 1GB I suppose
- a reasonable way to connect 2 SSDs and 2 HDDs - ie. 4 sata ports or one pcie port (not through USB)
- EU seller. Not required but I hate dealing with import taxes and I like guarantees
- Finally I need it to have “wake on power”, so that it can start automatically after power outage
The more I search the internet, the more it seems that this mythical computer does not exist but maybe someone knows more than me. Thanks for your replies.
Edit: I’m likely going to settle with the Visionfive 2 since it has official ubuntu support and I won’t have to rely on some hacky linux image provided by the manufacturer. It has 2 LAN ports and an M.2 NVME which I’m gonna split into 4 SATAs. Also 8GB RAM is plenty for the lightweight stuff I want to host, maybe even Nextcloud won’t be that painful.
Final note: I’m actually not sure how much is the Visionfive 2 open-source but it seems better than intel and AMD stuff so I’m willing to compromise since I actually want to buy something that exists. But anyone reading this in the future beware that I don’t know whether it’s really open source to the last logic gate. (likely not)
I use an Odroid H2 which is an amd64 SBC with two Ethernet ports, two DIMM slots but only two onboard SATA ports. There’s a PCIE slot though.
The new version H3 has a slightly more powerful CPU but is otherwise the same. https://www.odroid.nl/H3-Plus
Thanks for your reply. Honestly what I’m asking for does not really exist. You have to pick from features, open source and plug-and-play-ness. Usually you can get 2 of the 3 but it’s hard to get all three. So although I wouldn’t buy this PC, it’s a pretty good recommendation for stumbling on this post in the future.
Yes, the Odroid H series SBC probably come closest to OP’s requirements. Schematics are available on their website. They are also really low power with even the older H2 idling below 4 W.
