What still runs on a M1?

Banana Pi SBCs design BPI-M1/M1+/R1(A20)
1

Hi,

I’ve found 2 old M1s and I’m curious, what I could run on it nowadays.

My requirements would be something like:

  • Nexcloud
  • Docker
  • MongoDB
  • A Python web crawler that is running in the background, not needing much CPU / RAM
  • Local network storage maybe with Syncthing or similar

Could be all on a CLI / remote SSH access.

What do you think, can I successfully get working?

2

Yes, why not. But A20 is slow, so keep expectations low.

3

Is there a list of devices & their computing power related to the power consumption? I’d be curious, whether, if I buy a new Banana or similar, for x€ / month more electricity cost, I get y% computing power more (not regarding the initial investment)

4

@Chris876 m1 consumes AT MOST 10W power (mine has uptime of 340days via usb1.0, so 2.5W max, average even far less)

So, with 1W average it would cost ~210* kWh per year, or ~$35* in US

R4 claims also to consume also 10W at most, so I assume a similar power consumption for $165 price. Where $165 is about 5 years of power consumption. Delta between M1 and R4 will be even less than that, so let’s cut power savings to a half of M1 electricity costs.

So, in >10** years R4 would pay back in bills.

IMHO, unless you’re capped at CPU/GPU utilization with M1 is still fine.

Edit, kudos to @Valentin_G

  • I took 24h into the account twice. Actual usage is 24 times less, so that’s 8.7 kWh per year, or $1.5 ** 200+ years!
5

Your math is waaaay off

1W average is 8760Wh or 8.76kWh per year or ~ 1.5$ in the US