I have an 8gb Raspberry Pi 4 that has been a workhorse for years. I keep it for my not intense but essential networking purposes, NetBoot.xyz, Homepage, etc., because I can run it over PoE (edit: Power over Ethernet), so it is always on as long as my network is up.
It is growing long in the tooth, and I find myself wanting to replace it with something a bit more capable. Looking at the 8gb Pi 5 at $80 plus another $30 for a PoE hat, I wonder if there is something out there that would be a better value for running PoE? Can you convert a micro pc over to PoE? Does anyone have any recommendations for computers that run off PoE or can be converted to PoE?
What’s PoE?
Path of Exile.
Power over Ethernet. Sorry, read it over three time for spelling, didn’t catch that I never gave the acronym meaning.
I can’t believe someone downvoted you for asking about the acronym.
I get frustrated when the title, body, and comments all use an acronym, but I can’t figure it out from context. Even more frustrating is when the linked article also doesn’t explain it.
I think googling poe or poe computing will give you it
power over Ethernet
Power over Ethernet. it essentially combines the power plug with the ethernet cable. super helpful for stuff like network cameras where the nearest wall socket is 50 feet away.
Level1Techs just posted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW4WyuGKsho
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
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I actually didn’t know the Pi can do PoE; that gives me some ideas!
You need a hat for it.
Ugh now even my Pi needs clothes??!? Ridiculous.
Yeah. Imagine, before you can get going with your project you even have to ‘boot it up’. A real deal breaker.
I have a cluster of four running all off a single switch, incredibly convenient.
MINISFORUM S100-N100 launching later this year as efficient mini-PC with Power over Ethernet support
I bought an N100 mini PC (not POE) as my new server a couple months ago. I really like it. That processor is great for power efficiency.
Personally I am a fan of the soquartz blades
But I doubt one of those is more powerful than a pi. I run a cluster of them with k3s and distributed nvme storage, but that may not be useful for your particular needs.
I have three Raspberry Pi 4 4gb and 1 Pi 4 8gb at my disposal, and I still have moments where the thing I need to do will hiccup, or be slower than usual. The Pi 5 has been said to be two times as fast, which is plenty for me. just with the price all in of over $100, curious if anyone else has a better option/opinion
What things do you do that hiccup?
It honestly reallt depends whether your task is hindered by storage speed (sd card), io speed (lan + usb ports), single core speed or lack of threads/cache. It would be good to find out what the limiting resource is, to understand the best upgrade path.
Webpage loads are slow, especially images, netboot is a bit slow. I’m sure it’s i/o bottleneck and that everything is running in docker containers. I could probably optimize things a bit better, I just don’t have that kind of time for these projects, and getting an old dell micro would be faster than what I have. but they don’t run on PoE+ that I know of.
I think pi 5 might be pretty good for you.
If I am not mistaken, they improved the io A LOT in the pi 5.
Also, you might be able to use the old HAT, at least it worked with pi3 poe hats on pi4.
… they don’t run on PoE+…
They do not; the power requirement is too high. You’re not going to find a computer with a “desktop class” CPU that can be powered via PoE.
Laptop class CPUs can though. AMD Ryzen chips are useful all the way down to 15w. There is a post in this thread of a mini-PC with one and PoE. Real happy that exists.
Got that link? I just looked and don’t see anything in this post linking to a computer with a desktop class processor that will run on PoE.
Thisin! Links to a few min overview of a Ryzen based PoE mini-pc.
https://lemmy.world/comment/7886685
Level1Techs just posted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW4WyuGKsho
I would be interested in this as well. The Pi certainly works and I am running one POE. But the Pi can be very limiting.
If you are converting something, be aware PoE has a power budget of 15w and PoE+ has 30w. Though PoE++ can do 100w, I have not seen many switches with that.
Unable to delete so editing instead. Leaving Lemmy.world due to privacy concerns.
PoE++ Type 4 goes up to 100w, its Type 3 that goes to 60w. Why the hell they didnt just call it PoE+++ I’ll never understand
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