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?
Any normal computer can become a “server”, its all based on the software.
Most enterprise server hardware is expensive because its designed around demanding workloads where uptime and redundancy is important. For a goober wanting to start a Minecraft and Jellyfin server, any old PC will work.
For home labbers office PC’s is the best way to do it. I have two machines right now that are repurposed office machines. They usually work well as office machines generally focus on having a decent CPU and plenty of memory without wasting money on a high end GPU, and can be had used for very cheap (or even free if you make friends that work in IT). And unless you’re running a lot of game servers or want a 4k streaming box, even a mediocre PC from 2012 is powerful enough to do a lot of stuff on.Totally agree, I’ll add that I run jellyfin, the *arrs, an admittedly low throughout ripping/encoding setup, and a few other containers on a single optiplex micro 7060 and there’s a lot of room leftover. I very much appreciate the laptop processor in it because it usually sits idle for 16 hours a day.
Yes, you can easily do it.
You want to look at 2 things: 1. Noise 2. Ratio of performance / power usage.
- Noise
When your PC runs 24/7 then it might be annoying to hear it’s noise sometimes. Real server cases are usually even much louder than former PC’s because they are built for super strong air flow inside.
Think carefully what you need. In my situation it is just one light wooden door away from my bed, so I wanted it impossible to hear. I optimized it so, and it ended up being so quiet that I cannot hear any fans, but I hear the clicking of the harddisks all the time. Well, I got used to that, mostly. For my next home server I want to build my own case that absolutely blocks this noise.
- Ratio of performance / power usage
People are frequently asking what if I turn this old Pentium etc. into a server?
Well, these old CPU’s have very low performance compared to new ones, but it might just be sufficient. But then you recognize that the old veterans burn 100 Watts for the same performance where a modern (low performance) CPU burns only 5 Watts, and now it will do that 24/7. Think about your yearly costs. Many times it turns out that buying a new one saves your money very easily.
My home server is made of literal garbage.
Old PC’s and especially laptops (make sure to consider removing the battery though) make great homeservers. You can run dozens of services on old hardware.
Leave the battery in and you have a free UPS. Perhaps set it capped at 80% charge to increase its lifespan.
Let’s put it this way, I’m hosting about 30 Docker containers including a full Servarr stack, Jellyfin, and Mastodon on an old Dell workstation intended for office work.
Yeah, any relatively modern used PC will be more than enough
I have 3 servers at home. The main is an AMD epyc server. Very nice hardware. The other two, are cheap 13 and 14 Gen Intel i3s (14100t) and they work like a charm, despite being cheap consumer grade hardware. For self hosting, a server is just any computer. Unless you need the features or reliability of enterprise hardware, basically anything can be used. Do it
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.
Servers are just computers, you build what you are going to use it for. You can use a cheap N100 mini pc to host jellyfin as the important part there is the video encoder/decoder to transcode video. Though it can only do 2 streams at 4k with tone mapping. So it might not be good enough if you have more than 2 people using it or are running more stuff on it.
There’s no right way, really. You can turn almost anything into a server.
If you have old hardware laying around I suggest you start with that. When you’re comfortable with setting everything up and using it on your day to day, then it’s time to invest into hardware.
I installed a Linux server on an old laptop, then installed Jellyfin. It’s like a Walmart special from 8 years ago, so no graphics card outside of the integrated graphics. Doesn’t matter. I disabled sleep, and power saving settings on the Wi-Fi. I had a USB external 1tb drive hooked to it. The laptop doesn’t even have support for a 5ghz wifi connection. No issues at all. I can run 2 movies at 1080p in different rooms off the external USB drive without issue. Just go for it. I installed RustDesk on it so wherever I am I can remote to it, turn on the VPN and kick off a torrent for whatever movie someone mentioned while at work or what not. Then when I get home it’s there.
If you aren’t worried about power costs, yes, go for it.
I calculated the energy cost of running a 100w PC 24/7 for 2 years, covers the cost of a new mini PC + 2 years of its own energy cost. So I just bought a NUC which draws 7-8W. Less noisy too. Laptops usually draw less than desktops though so you may be good there.
My server is always my old desktop hardware. It’s a 4th-gen i5 with 16GB RAM and it’s keeping up fine. I have thrown quite a lot of work at it too. If you avoid containers, you can serve 20 services off it no problem.
I too, was worried about power costs. Every time I do the maths, the new hardware will be obsolete by the time I make the money back in savings. If you’re concerned about environmental impact, the initial manufacture of hardware does more damage than running it over its lifetime.
Dedicated (1U rackmount) servers are always loud and power-hungry. I they idle at 130w and sound like a hairdryer that’s been left on.
Find secondhand on Facebook marketplace. Dive into an e-waste bin if you have to.
I use my former PC as the home server. It is probably 10+ years old, has no M2 slot or something, but an SSD for the OS. More than big and fast enough for all my needs: File service (Samba), Web service (apache2), Wiki service (mediawiki), Database (MySQL), Calendar service (Radicale), Project service (Subversion), and probably some others I forgot. All of it running on Ubuntu Server, aministrated by WebMin.
The only investment I did when I turned this into a server was that I put 2x8TB in it as a RAID for bulk storage - I dump the family PCs backups on that machine, too.
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.
