Testing a Raspberry Pi 3B as an internet hotspot - anything I should be concerned about?

Like issues with uptime, risk of backdoors, privacy concerns, etc.?

Using Raspberrian Bookworm, input connection is through an ethernet cable and the hostpot was set up through Pi-Apps' hotspot tool and is using WSA2 and password, but nothing else to note.

Not much info I could find through articles online.

nabladabla 7 points a year ago

A main thing to worry about is that the SD card can stop working at any time for no reason.

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Auster 2 points a year ago

As in, constant reading and writing would massively shorten its life span?

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ggtdbz 3 points a year ago

Yes. They do make long lifespan SD cards for things like CCTV recording, they cost a bit more but might be worth taking a look at. I know people running more critical systems on Pi 4s and Pi 5s will use something more durable than an SD card nowadays, like an actual SSD.

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mesamunefire 4 points a year ago

Just FYI you may want to check the speed on the Ethernet and WiFi. Its not the strongest chip out there in those regards.

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Auster 2 points a year ago

Thanks. Though luckily I suppose, considering the path from the router wirelessly, with a few walls in-between, it's still a massive upgrade. =)

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spaghettiwestern 4 points a year ago

If you've secured your wifi network the Pi shouldn't be any easier to hack into than any other AP device. If you want to do more with it like add a firewall, you can turn it into a full-featured, advanced router with OpenWRT.

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Auster 2 points a year ago

Will take a look. Thanks!

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spaghettiwestern 3 points a year ago

Want to 2nd the mention that the PI's SD card can fail unexpectedly. I set up a PI server using a Micro SD card and the card became completely corrupted after a few consecutive power failures during storms.

If you are relying on that PI consider buying a cheap SSD to boot from. 250GB SSDs are less than $25.

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Auster 1 point a year ago

Makes sense. Maybe to avoid that, as I won't be using the internet 24/7, to turn off the device when I don't need.

Also, would an external HD instead of an SSD be a good option too? Heaviest I think I'd use it for is for playing PS1 games, if I absolutely couldn't from a Pi5 I have, or if I set up a Jellyfin server on it. And afaik HDDs in my area are still cheaper than SSDs.

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spaghettiwestern 3 points a year ago

A hard drive might be fine, but take into account the limited capabilities of the Pi's power supply. Yours may not be able to support an external HDD unless your enclosure is powered separately. And of course that HDD will be slower than a MicroSD and much, much slower than a SSD.

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azimir 2 points a year ago

Mostly at the radio chipset sucks for range. It'll work fine, but don't expect the kind of physical capability without better antennas.

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N0x0n 2 points a year ago

I don't know about the 3B but the 3B+ uses the ethernet port via USB2... If throughput is an important factor, keep that in mind.

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