Nostr Web Client

This is a good value for a home self-sovereign LN node.

* CPU much faster than RPi.

* 8GB: you should add another 8GB (DDR4 SODIMM 2400 or faster) or replace to max out at 32GB RAM.

* That's a 1TB SATA HD. You could add a nvme 2280 SSD to gain storage redundancy for your critical LN database. SSD's are at an all time low price now. I recommend TLC drives without HMB like Samsung 970 Evo Plus, Teamgroup MP34, or Crucial P2. 2TB is very affordable these days.

* You could also replace the spinning hard drive. Elimination of moving parts improves reliability. For 2.5" SATA I recommend the 2TB Crucial MX500 that's been below $120 recently.

* Most of the cost is your new drives. These drives will outlive the machine. If the machine dies you can simply move the drives into another machine. Linux won't care about the underlying hardware. It should work with zero or minimal reconfiguration.

I've been testing a similar model here. The screen and keyboard are of lower quality and music sounds bad from these speakers. These economy business laptops make excellent servers when you're able to buy them cheap enough which often is possible when fleets of corporate machines are liquidated.

There is risk in buying used. You want to immediately stress test the device including CPU, RAM, and disk after you receive it so you know if it needs to be returned. You want to flash the firmware to get security updates. That however has risk of bricking which would become a complicated discussion with the seller.

Note: Several other models are suitable as dual internal SSD home servers. I don't often post about them though because quantities for sale are not high. In this case the seller seems to have many for sale and the price is good.

Please follow and zap if you want more self-sovereign LN advice like this. I could be convinced to write a guide of what to do after you receive a used Thinkpad. I've lost money buying and testing non-refundable duds so you don't have to.

https://mobile.twitter.com/i/communities/1563029300911058944

Please also follow my Twitter community where small tips are written more frequently.

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Discussion

btctotoro 2y ago

Thanks for sharing hoky crap thats a good deal!

Warren Togami 2y ago

This is the best value on the market by far.

Dual internal disks for RAID-1 storage redundancy should be the minimum for LN node safety.

People didn't recommend that in the past because it cost too much. But these powerful machines are cheap and new SSD's are now at an all time low price.

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Warren Togami 2y ago

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RPi was always a terrible idea for LN nodes. They are toy quality hardware. If you're lucky you get one that is reliable. For a lot of people it had not been reliable.

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See here for an example of *much* better value. Especially now with the recession many dead companies are liquidating fleets of powerful used hardware. Much much faster and more reliable than RPi.

You want dual redundant disks to protect the critical LN database. With SSD's at an all time low price now it's affordable to do this properly. You need to pick particular hardware capable of using TWO INTERNAL DISKS. External USB is far less reliable.

https://twitter.com/i/communities/1563029300911058944

Here is a community containing advice on this topic.

Naruto 2y ago

Can you link to a good stress test?

Warren Togami 2y ago

It's built into the Thinkpad firmware.

Naruto 2y ago

Oh. Nice

Warren Togami 2y ago

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Warren Togami 2y ago

Dual redundant 2TB TLC SSD's. This is stupid cheap for RAID-1 of this capacity and quality. Become self-sovereign with your LN node with data retention safety and tons of storage to run additional apps.

Below is a cheap yet powerful machine where you can use these two disks internally. Why were people buying RPi!?!?

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Warren Togami 2y ago

Note: I've not tested the TeamGroup MP34 myself yet. The specs and reviews make it sound good enough.

TeamGroup MP34 sounds good on paper with the very common controller and TLC NAND. For nvme you want DRAM, not HMB (Host Memory Buffer). The reviews described it as not making any compromises and it is seemingly fine except they offer a shorter 3-year warranty than Samsung's 5-year.

I normally would buy the Samsung 970 Evo Plus that's $139.99 for 2TB. The Samsung is a known level of reliability. I'm not too worried about trying the MP34 for my next node.

Peter Todd 2y ago

So long as you buy two different SSD brands, use a filesystem like btrfs that'll catch errors, and actually monitor the machine, you can probably get away with pretty much any cheap off brand SSDs.

…and even if you are buying expensive name brand SSDs, getting two different brands is still good advice.

Warren Togami 2y ago

Exactly. I recommend two different bus technologies and brands so the disks aren't likely to fail simultaneously.

These are not the cheapest off brand SSD's. These models are TLC instead of QLC, and DRAM not HMB. They're supposed to survive power loss without write buffer loss.

Warren Togami 2y ago

The review I read said it had a 3 year warranty. I feel cheated.

Warren Togami 2y ago

Here is the eBay listing for this particular machine.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/234693288653

signal_and_rage 2y ago

so we buy this and then what?

Warren Togami 2y ago

I only have the energy to point at hardware that would be reliable. If you don't know how to use Linux then demand help from the appliance OS brands. They should be focusing on PC hardware instead of RPi.

Spencer 2y ago

Perhaps dumb question, but would this machine also be good for running a btc node in parallel?

1F52B 2y ago

Yes, I think most people would strongly recommend always running a Lightning node with a Bitcoin full node alongside — otherwise you’re having to trust someone else’s node to spot a peer force closing a channel or broadcasting stale state, which could lose you money if your Lightning node doesn’t react in time.

This is also why the drives recommended above are 2TB, most of that is for the Bitcoin node. Lightning nodes don’t use much storage at all.

(1TB would work too but 2 is very future-proof, gives years and years of available space)

1F52B 2y ago

Also, using a laptop gives you a uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for free

Warren Togami 2y ago

SD are far too easy to wear out and RPi (?) is not a reliable platform. There's far more powerful, 1000x more reliable and cost effective options these days for a home node. If you want reliability you want to get rid of RPi, SD cards, and external attached storage. If you want safety for an LN node you absolutely need two disks. Past advice on this was dangerous because this approach used to be too expensive. Not anymore.

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🇩𝔢𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔱 🇼𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪 2y ago

Saw this posted by #[3]

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