Comment on Starting out with Selfhosting
metaStatic@kbin.earth 3 weeks ago
There's nothing wrong with just running a laptop as a server until you have specific requirements it can't meet.
Like maybe running a pi hole over wifi doesn't fill you with confidence and you really need something plugged into your router.
in which case I'd get a cheap mini-pc. even something as cheap as an N95 will handle everything you want to do here easily but you can also go the 2nd hand 1L route which can be fun too.
puck@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Thanks for the reply. Regarding pi-hole on WiFi, I can connect the laptop via LAN with a usb adapter. So that may mitigate that issue
poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
USB to Ethernet adapters are about as reliable as wifi connections, i.e. not very.
puck@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Okay thanks. Damn shame manufacturers keep removing useful ports
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’d spend more time considering whether you want a mini-PC or not because it’s going to make storage expensive or difficult as youll either need to fork over a ton of money for a NAS and a bunch of matched drives or use one of those janky external DAS/storage boxes that could lead to you losing your entire storage pool.
What would work best (IMO) is a smaller tower PC with multiple drive bays. You can put whatever hardware you want in it, have SATA ports, PCI-E slots, plenty of ports, etc and upgrade/expand things as needed. You can also use mismatched drives in a setup like this with something like SnapRAID meaning you can use the stuff you already have without spending a ton of money. The hardware doesn’t need to be too powerful for your requirements. A modern Intel CPU will handle transcoding with Jellyfin extremely well and you can also use this with Frigate for your security camera footage. A decent amount of RAM isn’t bad either.
metaStatic@kbin.earth 2 weeks ago
I mentioned a cheap dedicated server because I'm not sure when quicksync was introduced, if you need to do any transcoding at all an intel macbook will probably catch fire.
and if you haven't already then change the thermal paste. I have a 2015 pro as well and it gets real hot, factory paste can be a crap shoot if it's even making contact in the first place much less after a decade and new paste actually makes a bigger difference in performance than I expected.