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What sort of microSD card should I buy to run a SMF Forum?

Started by Catherine Constantine, October 19, 2018, 12:26:42 AM

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Catherine Constantine

October 19, 2018, 12:26:42 AM
I am thinking that I am just going to turn my Raspberry Pi 3 model B into a web server since it's just sitting there unplugged since it was always on.

I don't want to wipe the card that I currently have in it since that is what holds my emulators, but I am not sure what is the best buy for a microSD card that will be used to run a SMF forum and all other associated programs needed.

I am getting close to starting this project.

Kindred

#1
October 19, 2018, 12:53:15 AM
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Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

#2
October 19, 2018, 01:06:23 AM
Make it fast, make it large enough to hold your files and database. That's about it.
Slava
Ukraini!
"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

Catherine Constantine

#3
October 19, 2018, 04:44:33 AM
So for a rough estimate, would you say 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB, or larger?

live627

#4
October 19, 2018, 04:48:47 AM
That sounds awesome!

Any card will work as long as it fits the device. The operating system and webserver take up much more space than SMF.

Catherine Constantine

#5
October 19, 2018, 04:54:54 PM
Do you have a recommended maximum that I should be looking for? I'm thinking 128 GB.

vbgamer45

#6
October 19, 2018, 04:59:59 PM
That would be more than enough. Unless you are doing serious file and video hosting.
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GigaWatt

#7
October 21, 2018, 09:46:30 PM
Quote from: Catherine Constantine on October 19, 2018, 04:54:54 PM
Do you have a recommended maximum that I should be looking for? I'm thinking 128 GB.

Might be a bit of an overkill... unless, as vbgamer45 pointed out, you're planning on uploading and hosting large files ;).
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."

SpacePhoenix

#8
January 06, 2019, 05:23:20 PM
Could you keep us updated as to how it goes. Was just thinking myself the other day about getting a raspberry pi as a development server running Ubuntu (working with Linux would be new territory for me)

Looking

#9
January 07, 2019, 07:02:31 AM
If you do that make plenty backups as I never trust the longevity of those things.

Antes

#10
January 07, 2019, 09:56:15 AM
This is my micro-server, has LAMP, few php scripts and SMF (2.0/2.1) with few themes installed.

GigaWatt

#11
January 08, 2019, 09:17:32 PM
Is it a Pi 3 B or a Pi 3 B+?
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."

GigaWatt

#13
January 09, 2019, 08:50:48 PM
Though not as small and as cheap as the RPi 3 B+, the design is better. More I/O ports, SATA as well (something that the RPi, at least to my knowledge, never had). Good choice ;). If nothing else, the power connector is not Micro USB based, like the RPi ::). 3A over Micro USB ???... really ???... who came up with that design ::).

What are the load times :)?
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."

SpacePhoenix

#14
January 10, 2019, 02:17:37 AM
If Linux is installed on one, can it have PHP, Apache, MySQL, etc set up very close to the typical setup that a hosting company would use?

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

#15
January 10, 2019, 04:23:47 AM
Quote from: SpacePhoenix on January 10, 2019, 02:17:37 AM
If Linux is installed on one, can it have PHP, Apache, MySQL, etc set up very close to the typical setup that a hosting company would use?
Yes, there are actually specially tailored distros available for that I think.
Slava
Ukraini!
"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

Arantor

#16
January 10, 2019, 05:00:47 AM
I guarantee you the configuration on a microSD card version of MySQL really should be quite different to what is done on a hosting grade server, if done properly. The characteristics make it such that you should configure it differently to avoid wearing the SD card out sooner than it should be (and configured differently for performance and reliability)

SpacePhoenix

#17
January 10, 2019, 05:18:04 AM
Quote from: Arantor on January 10, 2019, 05:00:47 AM
I guarantee you the configuration on a microSD card version of MySQL really should be quite different to what is done on a hosting grade server, if done properly. The characteristics make it such that you should configure it differently to avoid wearing the SD card out sooner than it should be (and configured differently for performance and reliability)

Would setting up a virtual machine on a PC (Windows 8.1) for development in a Linux environment be better than using a Raspberry Pi?

Arantor

#18
January 10, 2019, 05:26:07 AM
Why does it need a Linux environment in the first place? Also, why does it need to be configured exactly the same way? The reality is that you will never get access to the level of configuration on a hosting company because they won't tell you how they have it configured and anything else is largely guesswork.

For the record I've been happily developing on XAMPP and WampServer for years even though never running on Windows in production. I learned many years ago that trying to replicate the hosting environment never works out.

And that persists today, I run stuff that is much larger and much more complex than SMF on much larger hosting environments (multiple servers, load balancer etc.) and we never have the staging environment be a full replica of production, bearing in mind that the AWS hosting bill for one customer runs into 5 figures per month...

Antes

#19
January 10, 2019, 08:28:23 AM
Quote from: GigaWatt on January 09, 2019, 08:50:48 PM
Though not as small and as cheap as the RPi 3 B+, the design is better. More I/O ports, SATA as well (something that the RPi, at least to my knowledge, never had). Good choice ;). If nothing else, the power connector is not Micro USB based, like the RPi ::). 3A over Micro USB ???... really ???... who came up with that design ::).

What are the load times :)?

I'm not into (tbh not even remotely interested in) the hardware, all hardware belongs to my brother. He has interest in those stuff :P, but since one was laying around we decided to power up and make it work, so far its not frequently used but still its nice to have one around :)

Themes are RDD & Lunarfall. I don't have any other theme work at this point. If I create another one, it 'll be listed there as well :D

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

#20
January 10, 2019, 09:39:37 AM
Quote from: Arantor on January 10, 2019, 05:00:47 AM
I guarantee you the configuration on a microSD card version of MySQL really should be quite different to what is done on a hosting grade server, if done properly. The characteristics make it such that you should configure it differently to avoid wearing the SD card out sooner than it should be (and configured differently for performance and reliability)
Good point, and I wasn't thinking "setup" in way of configuration, and only thought of the actual software components.
The resources on a Pi are limited, and the hardware isn't really designed to run at full 24/7, so of course there will be differences.
Slava
Ukraini!
"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

Arantor

#21
January 10, 2019, 09:40:15 AM
Oh, the actual components you can put in and even be close with versions, but configuration is a separate ball of wax entirely :(

GigaWatt

#22
January 12, 2019, 01:44:41 AM
Quote from: Antes on January 10, 2019, 08:28:23 AM
Quote from: GigaWatt on January 09, 2019, 08:50:48 PM
Though not as small and as cheap as the RPi 3 B+, the design is better. More I/O ports, SATA as well (something that the RPi, at least to my knowledge, never had). Good choice ;). If nothing else, the power connector is not Micro USB based, like the RPi ::). 3A over Micro USB ???... really ???... who came up with that design ::).

What are the load times :)?

I'm not into (tbh not even remotely interested in) the hardware, all hardware belongs to my brother. He has interest in those stuff :P, but since one was laying around we decided to power up and make it work, so far its not frequently used but still its nice to have one around :)

Themes are RDD & Lunarfall. I don't have any other theme work at this point. If I create another one, it 'll be listed there as well :D

Cool :). Update us if you do any tests, do some changes, etc. :).

@Arantor & Lex: Trust me, it's good enough for a small forum ;)... like mine :P.

And yes, you can run it 24/7 with adequate heatsinks and coolers. It's been done before ;).
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."

SpacePhoenix

#23
January 12, 2019, 02:36:04 AM
What's the graphics handling like on a Raspberry Pi? If Windows 98 was installed on one, would the Raspberry Pi be able to handle the graphics of any Windows 98 era games?

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

#24
January 12, 2019, 02:40:04 AM
I highly doubt you'll get any Windows 9x to run on a Pi, without an emulator like qemu, and that will hurt performance.
Slava
Ukraini!
"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

GigaWatt

#25
January 12, 2019, 03:17:22 AM
@SpacePhoenix: Unfortunately, Win98 wasn't compiled for ARM, but as Lex said, you could try to use an emulator, but it will reduce the performance of the RPi.

WINE is also an alternative ;). You could try that, should have better performance than an emulator ;).
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."

Arantor

#26
January 12, 2019, 04:05:24 AM
WINE suffers from the same problem, you can't run x86 on ARM without an emulation layer and Wine Is Not Emulation. ;) It just maps syscalls so if you're on x86 you can get by but not on ARM without some other help.

And I'm well aware you can run stuff like this on a Pi, we have a meeting room at work that runs Google Hangouts on a Pi, and that's more demanding than a quiet forum on CPU resources.

SpacePhoenix

#27
January 12, 2019, 04:40:20 PM
In the early to mid 90s in the UK there was a computer brand, sometimes known as Acorn, sometimes known as Archimedes that used the ARM architecture. It also used an OS called RISC OS, which was stored on a ROM. The Raspberry PIs might be able to handle games from them, using an emulator.

For running Win98 era games looks like i'll have to look into a virtual machine to run on Win 8.1. I assume that i'll need my old Win98 disc which i've got somewhere

Arantor

#28
January 12, 2019, 04:54:16 PM
Yeah, I know Acorn, ARM originally stood for Acorn RISC Machine ;) and their machine brand name was the Archimedes as the successor to the BBC Model A and B. Essentially the guts of the architecture at the conceptual level still live on in modern ARM processors, but you'd absolutely need to use an emulator for Acorn stuff, even if it has shared DNA it's enough levels away that you have to emulate it. There's a great emulator for Windows whose name eludes me right now though.

Win98 is a pain to emulate though - it's old enough that it doesn't play that nicely on VMware or VirtualBox, and too heavy to run via say DOSBox nicely.

live627

#29
January 12, 2019, 06:37:43 PM
Quote
For running Win98 era games looks like i'll have to look into a virtual machine
Could you use dedicated hardware? Something running with Athlon Thunderbird would be good. I have a Duron 750MHz.

Arantor

#30
January 12, 2019, 07:01:36 PM
Sure you could if you wanted to! Only thing I'd say about running 98 era games, you don't want a *massively* powerful machine because Windows 98 doesn't like it if it has too much memory and stuff like that. But I think you're probably OK.

GigaWatt

#31
January 12, 2019, 11:20:44 PM
Quote from: Arantor on January 12, 2019, 04:05:24 AM
WINE suffers from the same problem, you can't run x86 on ARM without an emulation layer and Wine Is Not Emulation. ;) It just maps syscalls so if you're on x86 you can get by but not on ARM without some other help.

Ah, yes, I forgot about that ::).

Quote from: Arantor on January 12, 2019, 04:05:24 AM
And I'm well aware you can run stuff like this on a Pi, we have a meeting room at work that runs Google Hangouts on a Pi, and that's more demanding than a quiet forum on CPU resources.

Hmmm... interesting. Could you get any CPU/RAM/HDD stats on this :)? No obligations, of course ;).

Quote from: SpacePhoenix on January 12, 2019, 04:40:20 PM
For running Win98 era games looks like i'll have to look into a virtual machine to run on Win 8.1. I assume that i'll need my old Win98 disc which i've got somewhere

The install is free for download, as far as I know ;). Though, if I remember correctly, it was taken down from Microsoft's site (XP too :(). There are alternative sites which offer Win98 SE as an ISO download ;).
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."
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