Rock solid hardware for using Debian 24/7

[sovking]

Which is the hardware platform with the most rock-solid hardware for operating Debian with some domotics service running headless 24/7 ?

 

I have no speclia requirements: dual-core & 1GiB RAM, USB and 10/100 Ethernet are ok.

Support for main-line kernel easily upgradeble by apt-get is a plus!

 

Any suggestion ?

 

Thanks

[vlad59]

Answering questions like that is always tricky but I got a Banana Pi (so  A20) running 24/7 with a SSD for more that two years (since July 2014). At first it was with legacy kernel but now it's using vanilla 4.X. it has some I2C sensors directly connected to GPIO, one UART is also used for my Moteino network.

 

No random crash, every restarts was because of me or electrical problems. I'm trying to do the same with H3 but not having real SATA support (so no SSD) is a problem (I have a NFS / DLNA Server on it).

 

Depending on your needs (domotic you said), Nanopi Air could be completely enough.

[Ford Prefect]

Hi

I think the main problem will be the power supply .

[sovking]

Yes, the question it's tricky, but it's important because often I have to leave these boards in remote locations, and I don't want take a risk to go there to check whats is wrong, reset or power cycle. I've tried with various model of raspberry, but it was non deterministic to find one stable. Then I tried Olinuxino Lime2, it has required a lot of effort to get it stable (reducing gigabit ethernet to 10/100), now its seem to work, but I used legacy kernel and so I cannot update it anymore if there is some serious security bug, and the watchdog was not in that kernel. I like the battery support, it helps a lot in stability, but. But too much time and effort to get it stable.

 

Next time I could use the vanilla kernel, sp I can try the armbian updates. But I would like to consider other options if there good ones. Nanopi seems good but quite young, and maybe with poor community and support. Is it not ?

I could check Banana Pi. But which model exactly ?

And what about Orange Pi ?

[slinde]

I have a Raspberry Pi model B with Raspbian running in a server hall with UPS-power. It has been up over two years now:

root@halo:~# uptime
 02:36:39 up 758 days, 16:40,  1 user,  load average: 0.21, 0.25, 0.57
root@halo:~#

I also have 2-3 Seagate Dockstars with Debian running for months and years as long as there is no power interruption.

I have not been using Armbian for more than a few months but my Beelink X2:s and Orange Pi PC:s with Armbian also runs for months without problems.

 

So I think there are lot of hardware you can choose from. As long as you choose a reliable brand of SD-card the hardware is in my experience seldom a problem. You have to be more careful with other things such as configuration and power supply.

[arox]

I agree with all that is said above. The PSU and the cabling is probably the most important. I would use something like this :

 

http://cdn-reichelt.de/documents/datenblatt/D400/RS-15-SPEC.pdf

 

Because they are branded and provide a datasheet !

 

The quality of the capacitors is essential for lifetime and without a scope, you have no mean to check the filtration of the PSU (for the sake of connected materials). Before my scope died, I had checked some PSU and it was a bit scary ...

 

And anyway, all my stability problems disappear magically when I improve the contacts of the power line.

[pancio]

HI,

 

I'm using Cubietruck with Domoticz since May 2015 non stop. It's platform for control my 12 CT farm (SSD utilization, temperature). This is the best option for me, I'm using standard PC PSU. BTW, for last 3 years my Cubie farm was down  only 2 times (one when I moved this and last when I changed router). It's very stable platform. 

[sooperior]

I'm using a Banana Pi (first generation) + battery + updated vanilla kernel and it can run for months, just restart for installing new kernels or similar. I use it mainly for storage and media: Encrypted backups (ecryptfs), minidlna, samba, ssh, etc.

I try to install or keep running as few things as possible and I have a script to detect "power cut" or "power back" which stops/starts all critical services, dismounts disks, etc (with this trick I can resist 1h power outage, until battery is very low and then I run a script for safe power off). Also my sdcard is one of the recommended models on this forum (samsung evo+ 32gb)

From time to time I get sata errors on high writing operations (I guess is rather due to journalling+disk firmware than to the kernel itself) but never a critical error or lost data.