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this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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Power consumption is a massive reason to really not do that. Its cheap for a reason, its takes a shitload of power to be shit and you will pay more in energy than you save in hardware unless its only powered on for short periods of time - a server typically isn't.
This is actually something that applies to cheap products too. Was in Asda a little while ago and saw 2 LED bulbs with the same lumen rating. Cheaper one used 3w more and you only saved £1. Running it for 8 hours a day for a year would cost double that saving in electricity. For a server you are looking at almost £2 per watt each year. Does that ewaste look so good to you now?
Some things are absolutely worth getting second hand, but you really should be careful considering the power cost as well.
Quick edit: If you don't need it running 24/7, consider something like AWS too. I love selfhosting but if its not running much it might be cheaper to not bother buying hardware.
This is generally not true. If you are using your laptop as a home server chances are it's going to be idling 99% of the time and laptops are generally pretty good in terms of idle power draw if you manage to disable the screen (or just disconnect it, take it off and find a way to repurpose it)
And in terms of environmental impact saving a laptop from landfill is definitely better since the majority of a computers impact is from the co2 emmissions from the manufacturing process. And this isn't taking into account the likely ethical considerations such as supporting terrible mining practices for resources like cobalt.
This is generally not true. A small server running on an old pi when idling will have hardly any draw. It will cost literally pennies to run for the whole year.
A rasperry pi idles at about 2 watts vs a laptop that idles at about 4 watts. At $0.30/kwh (a very high price for electricity) you would save 5 dollars per year on electricity. This laptop trades blows with the rasperry pi and costs half the price (55$ aud vs over 200$ aud for a brand new pi 5) Even this second hand one costs 110$ aud which is twice the cost. With that cost of electricity it would take 11 years in order to break even. And that's only if you consider monetary cost and not environmental cost.
That's not the point here. People probably do not need a pi 5. There are many other pi devices (and similar boards) with significantly less draw.
But I MUST CONSUME MORE ELECTRONICS