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<p>Rather than poo-pooing the use of SBCs outright, I think it's
worth being more nuanced about it. I've been using an Odroid C1
and an Odroid HC2 as borg servers for many years now. The
(important) context is that I'm backing up two home desktops, a
laptop, and several small home servers.</p>
<p>The HC2 runs off an EMMC, has GB ethernet and a fast SATA
interface with a very nicely integrated mount for a 3.5" drive.
It's also my media server (but I'm not a video hoarder). I've
never perceived any memory/speed limitation. I do nightlies to the
primary 3.5" drive and I have an additional identical drive on an
external USB3-SATA bridge to which I rsync daily. I prefer this
non-raid duplication 'cause it's dead simple.</p>
<p>The OC1 has GB ethernet but the 2.5" disk is attached via USB2,
hence slow. It's located out in the yard, buried, as a
catastrophic backup as I live in a high-fire area. I do backups to
it once a week, mostly copying stuff from the HC2. They're slow,
but that's OK. As a bonus, I can take the USB drive truly off-site
for "long-term" storage and replace it. I also ship backups once a
clear to cloud storage but am weary about the costs and the time
it takes to retrieve something (I don't have GB fiber to the home
by a long shot). I do find value for decade-long archiving,
though.<br>
</p>
<p>What I like about this set-up is that (a) it uses little
electricity, (b) the components are all cheap so you can afford a
spare or else get one next-day, (c) there's nothing complicated in
any of the set-up. Would I use this in a commercial setting: no.
It all depends on the context...</p>
<p>Thorsten</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/23/19 2:22 AM, Thomas Waldmann
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:81694ba8-b1eb-9b25-43fd-1ef052dc1abd@waldmann-edv.de">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Would the new raspberry pi 4 with 4gb ram and separate nic at gigabit
speed be enough for an smb to use borg backup on prem on a Pi 4 to send
data off-site to a receiving server with borg installed?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
I don't personally have a rpi4, but I used its predecessors.
I usually advise against using rpi (or similar SBCs) for borg. Even for
the rpi4, these potential issues remain:
- RAM is not expandable, so no matter how much they have, it means game
over for the case you'ld need more (now or some day in the future).
- no ECC RAM
- SD cards sometimes are crappy and the rpi OS is often stored on SD.
- The rpi4 is faster than its predecessors, but still not on the level
of PC or server hardware, neither when looking at speed nor when looking
at reliability.
So whether that is good enough for you depends a lot on how much data
you have and how that will grow in future. Also on how important /
valuable your data is.
</pre>
</blockquote>
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