When building a home server, could a used/cheap PC do the job?

Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

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?

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

source
- archemist@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
  source
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Anything you need to buy is more expensive than anything you already have.

Especially if youre worried about power costs.

Reuse wha you have, replace when you need to.

source
hellequin67@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
My home media server is an old nuc mini pc i5 16Gb RAM with attached usb storage running on a Linux distro, runs Jellyfin and a few other applications for the household.

In short yes, an old pc will work fine.

source
- Oaksey@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  These also have the advantage of being nice and quiet, which if you are going to have it in your house rather than a hot garage or whatever can be nice.
  I bought a NAS, later realised that it supported Plex and Jellyfin but it was often too slow to do the transcoding. I still use it for storage but there were no real upgrade options. It was cheaper to get an old NUC, rather than replace the NAS with a high spec one to be able to run Jellyfin properly.
  
  source
- treyf711@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’m doing a very similar thing with ann old Dell thin client. I did inherit a large server from a company that was upgrading, but I’ve been thinking about downsizing a lot lately so now I use a few small computers on a 10 inch rack.
  
  the best server is one that you already have
  
  source
LMurch@thelemmy.club ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I love the vibe in this thread/community. You all seem like real cool cats. I appreciate that.

source
- jia_tan@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Image
  
  source
- AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Absolutely, this is great. Knowledgeable people being reasonable.
  
  source
hperrin@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Absolutely yes. It’s better to use an old PC for a home server, because upgrades are cheaper, parts are easier to find, troubleshooting is generally easier, they’re usually more energy efficient than an older dedicated server, and you’re saving an old pc from becoming e-waste.

That being said, what you want to run on it determines how old/cheap of a PC could work for you.

Jellyfin works best when you can do hardware encoding, and these days that means throwing an ARC A310 in there and calling it a day. If you have a new enough processor, you don’t even need the graphics card.

Mastodon is pretty disk heavy, but if you’ve got a nice hard disk to put the Minio server on and an SSD for the db, you’re golden. That’s how I run port87.social. It’s running on an old 6th gen Intel i7. The PC I built in 2015 (with a few upgrades).

Basically unless you’re trying to run AI models on it, cheap hardware is fantastic for personal servers.

source
- prenatal_confusion@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Wondering if you have and insight on power usage with the a310 in the system while idling. I built a sub 25w server and don’t want to mess that up.
  
  source
  - hperrin@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Sorry, but I don’t know. I use an A380 in my system. I got it before the A310 was available.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.
source
qaz@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

source
- pHr34kY@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Leave the battery in and you have a free UPS. Perhaps set it capped at 80% charge to increase its lifespan.
  
  source
Presi300@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Yeah, any relatively modern used PC will be more than enough

source
_cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

source
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
My home server is made of literal garbage.

source
korsart@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

source
qzrt@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

source
paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
My server pc is just my old computer parts. Ryzen 3 2200G with with 6Gb of RAM. It gets the job done!

source
ollioddi@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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

source
Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I started with an old and half-broken laptop. Keyboard war busted.

Worked fine for months, then choosed to upgrade because I started hosting jellyfin and the laptop was unable to transcode on the fly…

You are fine with whatever hardware you have lying around… You can always grow later

Keep an eye for energy consumption tough… Too old stuff might be less efficient running 24/7 depending on your kW/h cost.

source
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
If you aren’t worried about power costs, yes, it’s worth it.

I calculated the power cost required to run a 100w PC 24/7 for 2 years, equals a new mini PC. So I just bought a NUC which draws 7-8W. Less noisy too.

source
pHr34kY@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

Dive into an e-waste bin.

source
Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I use my previous desktop and a rando openbox thinclient I picked up at Bestbuy for like $250 in a proxmox cluster. The desktop does the heavy lifting on stuff like jellyfin transcoding, immich ML, or just general fucking about with things that require a more powerful GPU (got a 3080ti in there)

The thinclient handles all the lighter stuff that needs to be constantly available, like my traefik instance, dns/dhcp server, etc

source
Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

source
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

source
gedaliyah@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

source
Ulrich@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

source
sixty@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I just got a great Jellyfin+*arr setup running off of an old PC. Let me know if you need a hand

source
lapping147@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m running my Proxmox VE on a small asus mini pc with embedded cpu. It can’t even match a 5 year old i3 and I’m having no issues.

Running mainly containers and small projects

source
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I started with handmedowns donated to my by someone from mastodon that was getting rid of junk computers. All tiny think stations.

source
whostosay@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I bought a used m920q for this reason, still working on it, I’m at the docker-compose phase

source
bdonvr@thelemmy.club ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Heck yeah. Not always the best for power efficiency though.

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

source
- leadore@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
  source
  - bdonvr@thelemmy.club ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Because as a headless server it’s likely to sit hidden for a long time. This and the always being plugged in is not good for lithium-ion batteries. If/when it starts ballooning will you notice? It’s a fire risk.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
bigDottee@geekroom.tech ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

source
fishcharlie@eventfrontier.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

source
tonytins@pawb.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Generally speaking, yes. My home server is just a Pi.

source

-> View More Comments