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?

  • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    If you aren’t worried about power costs, yes, go for it.

    I calculated the energy cost of running a 100w PC 24/7 for 2 years, covers the cost of a new mini PC + 2 years of its own energy cost. So I just bought a NUC which draws 7-8W. Less noisy too. Laptops usually draw less than desktops though so you may be good there.