Selfhosted

44510 readers

795 users here now

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.

Rules:

Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
No trolling.

Resources:

selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
awesome-selfhosted software
awesome-sysadmin resources
Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

HybridSarcasm@lemmy.world

HybridSarcasm@lemmy.hybridsarcasm.xyz

155

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

submitted 19 hours ago by SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

79 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 10 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

There are advantages to getting server-grade hardware. It’s designed to run 24/7, often supports more hard drives, ram sticks, processors, etc, and often is designed to make it very quick to replace things when they break.

You can find used servers on sites like EBay for reasonable prices. They typically come from businesses selling their old hardware after an upgrade.

However, for simple home use cases, an old regular desktop PC will be just fine. Run it until it breaks!

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 2 points 46 minutes ago* (last edited 43 minutes ago)

Yes, but if you care about power efficiency then they really aren't a great option. Most professional server hardware that you can get for a decent price uses significantly more power than an old mini computer or a cheap N100 PC. I own a proliant but rarely power it on due to the fact that I could rent an similarly performant VPS for 2x the power bill. Besides that many server CPU's don't have integrated GPU's and will require additional hardware if you want to run something like Jellyfin.

[–] danny801@lemm.ee 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

https://labgopher.com/

LabGopher extracts information from active eBay listings to help you easily find the right hardware for your needs.