So umbrel app store is a bad take on the personal server set up?

Its really practical though.

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Well, try separating your Bitcoin node and your home server node... Umbrel can do both quite well, but I'd also recommend against mixing the - i.e. run two Umbrels 😉

Fully agree. I've been running an Umbrel for 2 years, but also running many of the applications and services that Umbrel now offers for a decade or more on a separate server. I like to keep certain apps and services separate from one another for security purposes.

This is probably a good idea. You would just need to be running two Pi, but what would the actual security risk of this be? (Compromised nodes i guess, but the harm is limited, right?)

Why use Raspberry Pi when an enterprise grade tiny form factor used unit (Lenovo, HP, Dell) from eBay is 3-5x more powerful and more reliable , for about the same cost or often less.

My favorite are circa 2015-2018 thinkpads.

At current price gouged and supply chain fuckery prices, yes, this is the better solution. Hopefully Raspberry Pi 5 launches with supply chain issues fixed. Though, no one knows when that will be.

Agreed and it's a good idea to use older stable desktop system. RPi4 has benefit of being really small (also it needs somewhat less power). I haven't seen other mini PC that would be this small.

Any model you’d recommend?

Definitely go with T, P or W series. T450, T460 are probably the sweet spot. Also the slim versions (T450s etc).

If space or weight is an issue, X series is ok too : X250, X260.

Digit after the letter indicates screen size: 2 means 12 inch, 4 is 14 “ and 5 is 15”.

Stay away from E, L or Yoga thinkpads. Those are consumer grade.

For micro/tiny form factor, anything is fine. Dell, HP and Lenovo all are great bargains and quite reliable ime.

Thanks for the detailed response!

What do you think about an old Ubiquiti NVR? Believe it’s a wyse/dell thin client type model. I can SSH in but trying to figure out how to wipe their firmware and start fresh. Imagine the specs are better than a pi by far.

T450p etc are good too. They are the more bulky and higher spec versions.

Power consumption must be signicantly higher than the SBCs though?

It’s really practical, sure, but they have many applications that are resource dependent and/or is far too security compromising to really recommend past your first/initial node, learning about how these systems work.