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A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

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When building a home server, could a used/cheap PC do the job? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 23 hours ago by SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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I've never done any sort of home networking or self-hosting of any kind but thanks to Jellyfin and Mastodon I've become interested in the idea. As I understand it, physical servers ("bare metal" correct?) are PCs intended for data storing and hosting services instead of being used as a daily driver like my desktop. From my (admittedly) limited research, dedicated servers are a bit expensive. However, it seems that you can convert an old PC and even laptop into a server (examples here and here). But should I use that or are there dedicated servers at "affordable" price points. Since is this is first experience with self-hosting, which would be a better route to take?

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[–] TaiCrunch@sh.itjust.works 6 points 22 hours ago

A couple years ago my in-laws were downsizing after retiring and they asked if I would possibly have any use for their ancient desktop PC (at least old enough to have shipped with Windows 7).

I installed Debian on it and it's running Jellyfin, qBittorrent through Gluetun, Calibre-web, NextCloud, and Pi-Hole containers, with plenty of room to spare. I've also got some services running on Raspberry pis (back when they were cheap). And an external 4TB hard drive connected to it acting as a NAS. No hardware transcoding or 4K video on Jellyfin but that's no big deal for me.

All that to say yes, you can absolutely self-host on repurposed hardware. Any old PC you're looking at is no doubt newer than mine.