Good day, friends. Since catching the self-hosting bug, I’ve set up a couple of Proxmox home servers with a bunch of services I enjoy.

Now I’d like to set up a server and local network on my sailboat so I can self-host servarr, pihole, and other services while traveling. The tricky part is that everything on the boat is 12V and I would rather not use an inverter, if possible. Also, it needs to be ultra-low power so I can leave it on at all times and not to deplete my batteries too much.

Criteria:

  • ultra-low power
  • Small form factor
  • runs on 12V
  • 10 TB of storage plus ability to make full local backup
  • Capable of hosting servarr, audiobookshelf, freshrss, etc. via docker
  • HDMI output
  • Full local mirror/backup of the entire file system, including the media library.
  • We will have two laptops and two Android phones to access the server, so the server doesn’t need to run a desktop environment.

I’ll have a mobile wifi router and a cellular signal booster (or maybe Starlink eventually) for internet access. Since internet bandwidth will be limited and expensive while traveling, I don’t want to have to re-download a massive media llibrary if the storage media fail. Thus, I want the media library to be mirrored or fully backed up or synced locally.

What hardware and Linux distro would you use in this situation?

  • poVoqEnglish
    12•6 months ago

    Get a PicoPSU for automotive use (there are two varieties, one that needs stable 12v and another that can run directly off a battery with varying voltage).

    • @sailingbytheleeOPEnglish
      4•6 months ago

      I think you’ve hit on the key difference between home and boat use: the variable voltage. My battery varies between about 13.3V and about 11.2V depending on its charge state. I’ll look into these.

      • poVoqEnglish
        -1•6 months ago

        When you are actively charging the batteries off a solar panel for example, it will be even higher, up to 17V 14.5V or so I think. The automotive PicoPSUs only cost a little more and will smooth it out up to 24V I think… there are even some models that go up to 48V.

        Edit: why the down-votes? Is this incorrect?

        • @jake_jake_jake_English
          4•6 months ago

          i didn’t downvote but 17v on a 12v battery maybe seems a bit high. I’m more used to about 7-14% over (maybe up to 14v on a 12v batt) when charged/floating but i don’t use solar anywhere currently, and i usually work on 48v systems. i normally expect to see about 54v on a fully charged battery string (13.5v per battery x4) with the rectifiers running.

          i also second the opinion of running an automotive PSU for this situation.

          edit: i looked it up since i was curious, some “12v” solar panels can output between 16-20v, but it’s recommended that you would use a charge controller, especially if you have lead-acid batteries