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?

  • @PretzillaEnglish
    0•5 months ago

    I run a NUC and a few other network things off a 125W elcheapo $20 bestek(?) inverter off the house battery.

    Sure it gets converted twice but actual watts wasted are minimal in a low power scheme, and the juice is cleaner in the end.

    And consider DIYing a big house battery. The cells are cheap now. I built a 1200Ah LFP bank just because it fit nicely in the compartment. Then throw some solar at it.

    And for backup, just get a large spinning external and plug it in occasionally to sync a copy. Put it back in the Tupperware for cold storage.

    Ed: why the downvote?