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?

  • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.comEnglish
    22·
    1 day ago

    Heck yeah! Old desktops or laptops are how most of us got started.

    Things to consider:

    • Power- this will be on 24/7 probably. That adds up
    • Speed- not just CPU, but RAM, disk access and network interface can limit how much data you want to move.
    • Noise- fans can suck (pun intended). Laptops tend to run quieter

    I’m sort of looking to upgrade and N100 or N150’s are looking good. Jellyfin can do transcoding so that takes a little grunt. This box would work well for me. It’s not a storage solution, but can run docker and a handful of services.

    • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      While laptop batteries may not have aged well, especially if they’re left discharged, one other nice perk is that laptops effectively have an integrated UPS.

      • lka1988@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        1 day ago

        Some laptops (Thinkpads in particular) are capable of limiting the battery level via a Linux application called tlp so it doesn’t go pop when plugged in 24/7.

    • Heikki@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      I’ve been running a plex server on an old desktop bought in 2016. Mostly streaming movies and tv shows to my family. I have a 2 TB SSD and a spare 2TB HDD. I was thinking about getting a mini PC to swap out the larger desktop. Could I get a larg HDD and ad it in an enclosure to the Mini PC to handle the media volume?