A Move to Docker Images (EmonCMS or InfluxDB/Grafana)

So, I have been running my IoTaWatt and a local instance of EmonCMS (v11.0.9) on a Raspberry PI for over three years without incident. I know my SD cards are getting close to end of life and I am looking at moving to docker images for quick and easy upgrade options; still on a PI. Now is the time to make changes if I’m going to so I wanted to put out the question as so many of you here have one or the other and love it.

Question: Should I stick with EmonCMS (rebuilding everything) and containerize it or is this a time to move to InfluxDB and Grafana containers for my energy DB and dashboard.

I have not seen as much upgrading to the EmonCMS technology over the years, but I can say that it has worked and worked well. I just do not know what I may be missing or lacking that InfluxDB and Grafana may give me. I’m here to be persuaded, so please let me know your thoughts.

Addressing your SD card aging comment, I think the most impactful improvement you can do would be to start using USB attached SSD. For RPi 2 & 3 use the excellent instructions below. Make sure to attach the disk to one of the USB 3.0 port. RPi 4 natively supports USB SSD boot capability.

When buying the SATA USB adapter, make sure to buy one with USB 3.0 and UASP support to get maximum throughput from your disk. Most of us have a used SATA disk lying around and this is a great way to reuse it.

@nhasan Good advice and I planning on moving all the data to a physical HD (non-SD) while keeping the boot and system files on an SD as these can easily be replaced. I guess I could move everything to a physical disk (I have a few large ones laying around and SSD is not really required for speed in this case). I will have to think about it and see what may work best. Again, thank you for the advice as doing this earlier in the process makes things easier overall.