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

submitted 2 weeks ago by SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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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?

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[-] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

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.

[-] neatobuilds@lemmy.today 1 points 2 weeks ago

I started with my old gaming rig as a server, any decent intel cpu with quicksync is very good for plex and transcoding saving having to buy a cpu if you went with like a server grade cpu with no igpu

[-] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 0 points 2 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.

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this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025

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