this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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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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[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Heck yeah. Not always the best for power efficiency though.

Old laptops also a great choice but I really recommend removing the battery first.

[–] leadore@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago (4 children)

Why removing the battery? I was thinking that could be one good thing about using a laptop is that in a way it has its own UPS.

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[–] bigDottee@geekroom.tech 4 points 18 hours ago

100%. That’s how I started, that’s how I continue to operate. Currently have a few HP prodesk and elite desk mini pcs, my old desktop converted to be a proxmox node that runs OPNsense as a vm, and an even older desktop that runs TrueNAS. However, I would like to replace my current truenas system with something newer and lower power as it consumes quite a bit for what it’s doing.

[–] Konraddo@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

You could ask the question for video gaming. Can a used computer do the job? Yes, but you may not be able to play cutting edge / demanding games if your computer lacks the appropriate hardware. It really depends what kind of things you want to do, for choosing hardware that's powerful enough.

Jellyfin? You need to consider if you need transcoding. Transcode or not makes quite a difference on the hardware needs.

[–] PoopMonster@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

I have two servers/mini lab / whatever you want to call em. Ones running unraid and is my main server Frankensteined from an old mini itx mobo off of ebay with an Intel quicksync capable cpu. And the others a $80 Lenovo m93p that I just installed Ubuntu server + casa os to mess around with it.

[–] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

When I build my NAS/server last year, I bought a used Dell Optiplex from 2013 on eBay for $50. I tossed in an old SSD I had laying around, and squeezed in 42 TB worth of HDD drives. I added a PCIE SATA expansion card, and a 10 gig network card for 60 bucks to improve performance.

The only real downsides of doing it this way are

  • No realistic way of upgrading hardware
  • Limited space for internal drives
  • No hardware transcoding abilities out of the box
  • More power consumption than buying something newer
[–] ashenone@lemmy.ml 2 points 17 hours ago

Yea definitely. I started tinkering with my first server in 2020 and used an ewaste dell tower with an i7 3770 (8 years old at that point) and an old rx460 I had laying around. As others mentioned power consumption was way worse than modern hardware. But I had at one point a half dozen people streaming jellyfin 1080 content from it with no hiccups at all. That said I was running on linux, not sure how it would do if you run windows.

Right now I'm using a low power pc to run my server, again an old ewaste dell micro pc with a 5th or 6th gen i5 and no dedicated gpu. Still no problem streaming to my partners and I's phone/tablet simultaneously. Again, running linux.

[–] fishcharlie@eventfrontier.com 3 points 18 hours ago

It really depends on what you're trying to do. At the end of the day, the foundational components are pretty standard across the board. All machines have a CPU, motherboard, storage mechanism, etc. Oftentimes those actual servers have a form factor better suited for rack mounting. They often have more powerful components.

But at the end of the day, the difference isn't as striking as most people not aware of this stuff think.

I'd say considering this is your first experience, you should start with converting an old PC due to the lower price point, and then expand as needed. You'll learn a lot and get a lot of experience from starting there.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 3 points 19 hours ago

If you already have one, it's a good place to start. However, power efficiency will be the biggest drawback. Power ain't free, and in some places it is very expensive. I'd recommend picking up some cheap ThirdReality switches and using them to monitor power consumption in Home Assistant.

[–] Shady_Shiroe@lemmy.world 1 points 15 hours ago

Its less of a need for powerful hardware and more of a want.

I started off my days with a laptop that had a broken screen. I took screen off and hid it behind my desk, worked perfectly fine, even came with a built in backup battery too xD

[–] Marvelicious@fedia.io 2 points 18 hours ago

There are a lot of ways to go. My own isn't particularly efficient, but it's an old rack mount server. Everything is built like a tank. It's robust as hell, and yet everything was well used and cheap. Probably not a good solution if you live somewhere with expensive power, but I don't.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

My current home server that runs three dozen containers including Plex and Emby as well as two dozen other services and many terabytes of data is literally an old Lenovo desktop I got for free out of somebody’s garage 14 years ago. So yeah it’s sort of a perfectly fine place to start.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 19 hours ago

It depends on what you are running, but at one point I had an Odroid N2+ with 8GB RAM running Home Assistant, mpd, Snap server, zwavejs, mympd, jellyfin, and Calibre, all in containers, controlling the house and providing music for the sound system, playing movies, and with no issues. It ran for 7 years. So you don't need much; memory helps.

Oh - I take it back; after I put Jellyfin on it, it would struggle with transcoding. No GPU, old, weak CPU, whatever. But otherwise, it was fine.

At some point I realized I'd have to leave the computer with the house, because I have over 30 hardwired z-wave devices I'm not taking out if we sell, so I moved all of the services except Home Assistant and zwavejs to another computer.

My point is: old computers should be fine, assuming you're not trying to run LLMs on them. Or going heavy video transcoding. Just for serving up some web applications? You don't need much.

[–] tonytins@pawb.social 2 points 19 hours ago

Generally speaking, yes. My home server is just a Pi.

[–] neatobuilds@lemmy.today 1 points 16 hours ago

I started with my old gaming rig as a server, any decent intel cpu with quicksync is very good for plex and transcoding saving having to buy a cpu if you went with like a server grade cpu with no igpu

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 19 hours ago

Yes, a used PC can work great for a home server. Just don't go too old or it will be power hungry. Obviously you will want one with an integrated GPU to save power too. If you want to run jellyfin, make sure it supports hardware video encoding, preferably AV1 or H.265.

[–] southernbeaver@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

I think that's preferable. I have resused my old gaming computer as a server since I stopped gaming for a while.

[–] skribe@aussie.zone 1 points 17 hours ago

It depends, but probably. I use 5-10yo laptops running Debian.

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

I started out with an old laptop then eventually "upgraded" to a refurbished office surplus desktop. I highly recommend starting out on a project PC as a sort of proof of concept before investing any money into it. Even hosting the family media libraries, I have never had an issue with streaming video, etc. even with pretty dated hardware.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 1 points 18 hours ago

I use a couple of old HP proliant mini towers. Relatively low power consumption, i7 CPUs and 32GB of RAM. I got mine from ewaste but it's the sort of thing you can easily find refurbed for the price of a high end Raspberry Pi.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

Mine are lenovo thinkcentres, ypu xan get a good cpu, low power usage, up to 32GB RAM, one 2"5 drive + one nvme. Very easy to open and service.

[–] TinyRhino@lemm.ee 1 points 19 hours ago

Hardware requirements really depend on what you want to do with the server. I have a few raspberry pi, an old PC, and at least one or two old laptops to host things on. But really, I use the old PC the most. It pulls more power than a raspberry pi, but I've found it to be much more reliable and stable.

Drop some additional hard drives if you need a media server. More memory & CPU if you are doing things like manipulating images or transcoding video. I run a webserver and host various subdomains for things I don't want to pay to host. Plus working samples of my portfolio projects. I keep my actual portfolio on cloudflare, but link out to these work samples.

I also host some other apps that are just for my home network. Everything works great on a 10 year old PC sitting in a network closet. You are very likely not in need of professional server hardware.

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