Well if you are using strong passwords or no passwords from outside at all, but key auth only, i think you are pretty in the safe side. As i said, i have no ssh port open to the internet. Raising the ban time could only lead to banning myself. 😀
But for ports open to the outside, yes. I ppbly would do that too. Plus hardening the ssh config a bit
Tbf I had a 200 Euro bill. For one year. If i invest say 1000 euros, for a low power setup, id be running it for at least 5 years for it to pay off.
I currently run a truenas on old consumer hardware and the rest I host is on sbcs.