Rethinking Home Computing

I've decided to start rethinking my home computing set up. I have a lot of computers. They burn a lot of power, and they don't do a whole lot most of the time.

I started thinking about this whilst playing around with the Rasbperry Pi that recently arrived that is now sitting on top of a book shelf doing nothing more than interfacing a UPS and a Seneye Reef monitor. Setting that up was some fun - for not very long, but it was fun.

At the moment there are 4 main computers:

- My Ryzen Desktop - overpowered, has graphics that are under utilised and is a bit temperamental. It's also the first complete PC I'd built out of new, mid level parts for myself despite being in IT for over 2 decades.

- My Radio PC - a HP workstation complete with a Core i7 CPU, and a motherboard fault that only causes drama on a reboot (and is resolved by a button push). Way too much horse power for not much. 

- My work laptop. Not mine, but I use it.

- My server - a 256GB, Dual CPU monstrosity with around 60 spindle disks attached to it. This runs 30+ virtual machines, and still does bugger all. This also costs a fortune to run. The 250w+ the server takes is minor compared to the costs of running so many disks. I do however need the storage. Don't get me started on the start up times of the server.. or the media server that polls every single one of those disks as it boots.

I'm getting into astrophotography now that I've got a telescope, and the general consensus is that you need to run Windows. There's a heap of specialised software that just doesn't exist for anything else. I can live with that. I'm a "right tool for the job" kind of Linux user.

I've also got a need to put a graphics card in the server that I can pass through to a virtual machine to do some video processing work. At the moment my desktop does it - usually at the cost of the stability of the machine as it consumes 100% GPU. 

So, the path forward for now is:

- A mini PC for my desktop. Low power consumption, not a lot of CPU, a little less RAM than I'd like, but I can move more to virtual machines anyway. I've ordered a cheap Kogan Atlas Mini PC to see how that goes. It should deal with my 4k screen OK. The old small format PCs I have floating around do not. I'm hoping that I might be able to upgrade the RAM in this. It's been a long time since I've had a Celeron CPU - to me they're a bit like 3 cylinder engines. But then, it only needs to run some really basic stuff - email client, a web browser, a remote desktop client and some terminal windows. This will have Linux retrofitted into it. The SSD I will install isn't huge.This will push the need for better utilisation of network storage.

- The radio PC. I use Windows 10 for this. I could change it out to Linux. It's just that for some apps, this is easier. I'd consider replacing this with a low powered NUC/Mini PC as well. I would need to consider how I deal with the audio from the G90 as that currently uses the inbuilt sound card. Depending on the model, it may not have a separate in/out. I'd probably also need to consider a decent USB hub given the number of USB to serial interfaces. 

These two would likely cut down the power consumption of the existing machines by about 1/3. It'd also get me a chunk of desk back. 

- A photography PC. My Ryzen could be re-purposed, sans the GeForce 1050-Ti that is currently in it. The hard disks can be stripped out to reduce power consumption. Windows 10 could be installed and this machine fired up when necessary. I'll likely need to find a reasonable GPU to run in it, but nothing fancy. There is an amount of processing work that this will need to deal with when stacking RAW formatted images - hence the need for some reasonable power under it. I'd also like to fit a new card reader. My old USB Hub/card reader from circa 2004 doesn't deal with high capacity cards. This box will spend most of its time sleeping. 

- The server. I need to retro fit that GeForce 1050-Ti (if I can make it fit). It can then be passed on to a virtual machine to handle the processing that I require. Likely it'll be done in my media server so the card can also be put to work transcoding. 

I need new hard disks - I've needed them for a long time, but I'm computer component purchase adverse. Right now I have a server with 3 disk shelves full of spinning disks providing me with a substantial amount of storage. I could also replace all of them with 4 x 12TB disks and be in the same place (except in the poor house trying to pay for them).

I did recently replace a stack of 1TB disks with 3TB disks gifted to me by a colleague. The killer though is the shelves of 900GB 2.5" disks. Those shelves provide a lot of space.  The 3.5" shelf currently has a bank of 4 x 1TB disks still. Realistically, it's time to swap those out for 8TB disks. That's an expensive job. There's $1k+. 4 will give me effectively 24TB in a RAID. That would allow me to turn off an entire shelf. On the upside, it will cut the noise down and should save a considerable chunk of electricity. 

There's value in reassessing ones strategies every so often. Part of me loves having all of these reasonably powerful computers floating around. The realist in me however dislikes the never ending power bills that are over twice what most people pay. Most of my IT gear is decommissioned from elsewhere, so it's older. That usually means it's less efficient. If I wanted it, it's also likely got a beefy CPU and a stack of RAM. 

It seems worthy to consider efficient alternatives where I can - like cutting back to a lower powered, lower power consuming PC for myself, and offloading anything requiring power elsewhere. The big processing loads for me are media conversions and transcodes. The transcodes need to occur on the server anyway, and at the moment they're slow because they lack a GPU. The media conversions can be done on the server, but haven't for the same reason. It makes far more sense to move the GPU into the server to do the work. It's under-utilised in my desktop, and it's still an expensive piece of hardware. It also means that transcoding will be done at the media server level now, which is good, as it can be problematic and cause performance issues during playback. 

I'd considered virtualising my PC, then just using either the radio PC to access it. Unfortunately my tests at the reliability of this have not yielded a positive result. My preference is to use RDP as it's copy and paste friendly - something I've become accustomed to and working from a Windows machine into a Linux machine, that's the only easy way to achieve it. I can get RDP working easily enough, but the video playback has been poor, and the audio redirection isn't working at all. At best it's adequate for reading only. It has some use but it's by no means a complete solution that I need.  

The Radio PC certainly doesn't need a Core i7 with 16GB RAM workstation grade machine to run an RTL-SDR and a couple of serial interfaces talking to radios. The processor alone burns over 80w. I suspect some great efficiency (and desk space) can be gained by making a change here. 

Moving forward: I'm awaiting on the Kogan Atlas E300 to see what that's like. Assuming that suits my needs, that'll be my new PC, and I can progress on to pulling the video card from my desktop, attempt to run it with built in graphics and install Windows for the astrophotography stuff and get that GPU into the server and that all configured. I'm going to loose my bonded NIC arrangement that load balances my dual network cards, but that shouldn't matter. The bulk of the large file work shouldn't need to touch this machine. I'll at least be able to keep my main PC running Linux as is my preference. I may leave the inbuilt eMMC with Windows 10 installed lest my needs change, so I can easily restore to its original configuration.

At the moment I'm using a small form factor PC that was run up yesterday in a hope to avoid the need for a mini PC, however it doesn't have the capability to cope with the 4K screen resolution that I require. The SSD in it can be transplanted into the E300, and it should work with minor adjustment. In the interim I'll just need to put up with 1920x1080 on a 43" screen 2 feet from my face (my eyesight isn't great, but I could nearly read this without my glasses). I'm not going through the process of migrating my user profile again - it is mostly scripted (I also keep a backup on another server), but it's time consuming and requires some tweaks.

Once all that is done, I'll look at the options for the Radio PC. 

After all that, I'll need to consider the storage situation. It's not pressing as I'm not being overly frustrated by lack of capability like I am at the moment. That'll likely be a case of collecting disks when I can and leaving them in the cupboard until I've got enough to build an array. I'd be surprised if that happens in 2021.