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

submitted 1 day 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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[–] jonne@infosec.pub 11 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

My answer would basically be yes, but. An old desktop (or even laptop) can definitely be used and will run fine. It should be very easy to get one for free or very cheap as companies will typically write them off after 3-5 years.

However, you might want to consider power consumption. Running a desktop 24/7 will use a lot more power than a new MiniPC or a NUC, so you may want to calculate how much it'll cost to run a desktop 24/7 compared to a device that only uses 5W or whatever, and see whether the upfront savings make up for what you'll pay in electricity over a certain period.

I think you might actually want to look into second hand MiniPCs unless you absolutely need to fit a bunch of hard drives in a case (like you probably would with Jellyfin).

Also I want to echo what others are saying about noise. A desktop or rack mounted server will make more noise than a laptop or MiniPC.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 3 points 7 hours ago

That depends. A lot of the power consumption comes from spinning media. Even very old desktop Intel chips have CPU throttling and consume very little while idle. Corporate desktops, even old ones, are usually quite economical.