I want to set up a home server and take advantage of everything it can offer, specialty privacy.
Raspberry PI, no matter the version, are all quite expensive here in Brazil, so that’s off the table. I’ll go for a regular desktop. But the the requirements for a server that “does it all” remains a mystery to me.
What specs do you guys recommend?
A raspberry pi 4 or 5 and some fast USB 3 hard drives.
For Linux: Anything Intel 4xxx is fine, later is better obviously. 4GB RAM is OK for one family, 8GB gives enough headroom to host NextCloud for a small office. SSD for operating system makes it snappy as fuck at the terminal but aren’t mandatory, slow drives for storage are fine.
Why would raspberry pi’s be expensive but the hardware to build a server be any cheaper?
Second hand markets exist and Raspberry Pis are rarely sold second hand.
Sorry for my ignorance, so brasil has nothing like an Amazon where OP could buy a new pi from and have it delivered? If thats the case i feel like I could buy OP a pi and ship it to them in brasil for less cost than it would be to buy anyother option of hardware for a home server. Assuming USPS still offers flat rate boxes for international shipments.
I’m not Brazilian, but I’m guessing importing stuff is expensive. Look at PC components elsewhere in the world, it’s typically much more expensive than the US.
Right but thats kinda what im saying is that wouldn’t all hardware be expensive and not just Pis?
Except second hand. That’s my point.
That very much depends on what you want it to do (what is “everything”) and how many users you have.
Find out if there are any corporate off-lease machines being sold in your area. USFF machines are frequently used as mini desktops or point of sale computers then sold off for peanuts when warranties are done. Especially look at i3-8xxx generation, as they don’t support windows 11 fully.
Any corporate fleet machines, really. Corporate C-suite executives always demand the best laptops on the market… They also demand the newest laptops on the market. Because they can’t be seen with a worse laptop than the graphic artists or the programmers. This means there’s always fresh stock of last year’s corporate laptop hitting the used market. And they’re almost always gently used, because they just sat docked on some executive’s desk for a year, and were only used to answer emails.
Those $2000 laptops often get dropped on eBay for like $250, because the random Accounting person who has to auction them off doesn’t really care how much they sell for; They’re just checking a “was sold to recoup costs” checkbox.
How does one find such retired laptops? As an individual hobbyist in the US, would I just monitor eBay, Craigslist, or Facebook?
One hundred percent go for USFF. Even the cheapest, most basic processor will smash server roles because it’s not having to power desktop applications, graphics, window managers, etc.
If you have an old android phone, then you can repurpose it into a Linux server.
Or an old computer. But you probably don’t need to buy anything to get started.
Link to guide to install a Linux server OS on Android device?
General Linux servers distros do not support android devices, you would need postmarketos.
You have to have an idea of what you’ll run on it first.
Old corporate desktops will do for a NAS and basic light services. Look for one that has three drive bays plus an NVMe slot.
Take a look at some N100 devices (or N95/N150).
These are a good alternative to RPis. Just be aware some of these are sort of haphazardly assembled so they might have cooling issues or bad power supplies.
Can’t say my Chuwi Larkbox X has any issues (other than missing a few QoL settings in the UEFI).
A CPU that can run Linux along with some networking
But the the requirements for a server that “does it all” remains a mystery to me.
“All” can include anything. I mean, you can include a home parallel compute render farm that will cost millions of dollars.
You’re going to have to narrow it a bit down. You can have people maybe suggest some of the things that they use their systems for. Maybe it’s hosting services for a cell phone that some people use cloud-based services for. Maybe it’s home automation. Maybe it’s a webserver. Maybe it’s AI image generation.
You can build a render farm for not all that much money. You will pay a very high electric bill but other than that it is possible.
I mean, you can build a render farm on a single Raspberry Pi if you want, technically.
A repurposed old PC with something like yunohost, generic Debian, or some lightweight Linux will probably get you what you need.
It heavily depends on what programs you want to run.
Do you have access to Raspberry Pi clones like Orange Pis etc? They’re often cheaper and you can order them straight from China.
The things I paid attention to was
USB3 - you need this otherwise connecting external drives will be a joke Motherboard needs to accept up to 32 GB of RAM. Mine currently has only 8 but knowing I can upgrade is nice.
Quiet - must be silent when idle.
CPUs of less than 8th? gen will suck at video transcoding due to lacking certain capabilities. Important if running jellyfin, etc.The beauty of self hosting is it’s all about your individual circumstances so you priorities and acceptable tradeoffs will differ.
i’d modify the CPU requirement and say you can sub that out for a 2nd hand cheap nvidia card if it’s easier
here’s the table of cards with nvenc: https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new
i’m running an old af xeon and added a $30 entry level GPU from years ago and it was a great upgrade
Anything that does the job is good enough. At its core a server is just a regular PC with a dedicated purpose. Sure, there are specialized hardware better suitable and purpose built, but it’s not a requirement.
This.
Almost all of my gear is bought used: switches, server, even memory. My main server is an old Dell C6100 blade server I got for $250. My disk array is a 12-bay SAN that I found for $50 and took a chance on being able to get it working. It’s power hungry but it’s got redundant everything and I have spare parts on the shelf next to it.
I’ve been branching into ARM servers a little and right now I’ve got an RK3588 board with 32G of RAM. That’s new (and expensive for me) but I got a fibre channel array for $20 that I’m going to try to make work with it. $8 FC HBA and a $12 cable along with a $30 m2-to-PCIe adapter intended for eGPUs. I’m not going for speed here, but used data centre equipment is nice and some of it is dirt cheap because it’s too slow for “real” work.
If the size and low power consumption of the Pi are what appeal to you, you can try a getting a used thin client. Lots of suggestions and specs here: http://parkytowers.me.uk/
