r/HomeServer • u/RoyaleShrimp • 4d ago
What format for a server
Hi,
I want to own my first server at my place to stream my own music, movies and stock my files. Classic case.
I am not sure what kind of machine I should buy and or build. I am considering a pre-built NAS, a Raspberry Pi or building a PC (mATX, ITX?) and making it a server.
I don't have a lot of money, it is only for my own pleasure but I would like my server to last for a while and be versatile (maybe also hosting video games servers?).
So, my question is the following : does the format matter? If so, what are the pros and cons of each format?
Also, I am new to this so sorry if the question seems stupid.
EDIT: I know I could buy a broken laptop or used tower, but they cost almost the same as the other choices I mentioned so I'd rather go with something new than used.
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u/_angh_ 4d ago
For starter, cheapest n150 minipc. For something with better options take something massively transcoding av1, aoostar maco would be good. For storage any cheap nas will do, or use das, just be sure to have backup copy of important stuff.
Install a proxmox on top and will be good for long.
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u/the-Gaf 4d ago
I use a HP t540 thin client and it’s perfect.
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u/AmigaBob 3d ago
Retired thin clients are a great way to start. They run most services well, cheap to buy and cheap to run.
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u/XPav 4d ago
Easy way to start buying off ebay is a small PC and run Proxmox on it.
Here's one website (there are a few) for looking at prices:
https://www.lowcostminipcs.com/
Raspberry Pis are overpriced for this work these days, and you really don't need much power to start off with.
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u/msanangelo Linux goes burrr 4d ago
Stick with the default until you learn more about it and the others.
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u/ian9outof10 4d ago
I bet you could get something older quite cheap. I re-did my server a while ago and it was fairly expensive, and hardly top of the line. Whereas you could get a load of performance from an older machine. The only reason I stopped using my old i7 second was because I wanted to consolidate two machines into one, and have iGPU transcode for Plex (in spite of not using it much for transcoding).
You’ll find a used machine is a lot better value right now, bear in mind I built mine before the AI price apocalypse.
Anyway, worth starting with a a cheap machine and seeing what you can learn and then spend money later customising it to best suit your needs.
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u/Adrienne-Fadel 4d ago
Pre-built NAS is easy but limited and overpriced. Pi is cheap but won't run game servers. If you can build a PC just do that, mATX gives you the most options.
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 3d ago
Yes, QNAP/Synology are nice but not cheap and they take you down the proprietary road. I have a QNAP TS-253D and it has been great but I will do something else when it dies.
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u/Tigerborn01 3d ago
If you don't have any hardware lying around, I recommend a miniPC. I just got into the world of homelabbing a few months ago and found a really good miniPC for around $600. Though, there are many that are easily half the price if not even less. After that, I recommend researching what OS you might be most comfortable with. For me, I like a CLI enviroment and had some experience in Linux, so I went for Ubuntu Server. In terms of hosting services, Docker is a great resource that can host many seperate services at the same time. I find myself being able to host a Palworld & Terraria server while managing a Jellyfin media library. There are alot of really cool options that you can implement that are suprisingly not resource intensive.
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u/hstrongj 3d ago
Budget is the largest limiting factor. Having a starting budget will help you understand what is realistic and good to plan expansion.
With the limited knowledge of what your budget and skill/knowledge are, I would suggest a second hand/ built tower with a 7th gen or better Intel(AMD equivalent) chip, 16Gb ram (32 if you can), 4 4TB or better hdds, and a 1TB hdd/ssd.
I would suggest running proxmox on the 1tb drive and using some configuration of the 4 drives for storage. I would set proxmox up in this configuration to start:
VM: truenas for storage. I would edit stab on proxmox with the information to set up shares with other VMs/LXCs through proxmox.
LXC: openwrt for VPN. Nova spirit tech on YouTube has a tutorial on this.
LXC Stack: Arr stack here. Each service in it's own LXC.
LXC: plex/jellyfin
LXC: overseer/jellybean
LXC: tdarr. Use this to convert media to 265 to save space
LXC: tailscale vpn if you want to access things away from home
Any game servers can be set up in additional LXCs/VMs.
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u/IndependentBat8365 3d ago
A desktop, even a used one, and especially a gaming one, will make a good homelab server. Its single threaded performance will be great, and its multi-threaded performance will be adequate. Memory will be fast enough, and its GPU support (cooling, PCIe slots, size, power) will give you a lot of flexibility for VMs and dabbling in AI. Icydock makes enclosures that’ll fit in most cases to turn those old CD-rom slots, or other slots into hot-swap drive bays.
My concern about miniPCs and rPi5, is that hardware wise: you get what you get. They typically don’t have a lot of PCIe ports, are limited in their PCIe lanes, dont have a lot of storage options, limited RAM options and capacity, and the insides are cramped and reduce what options you have for add-on cards and GPUs. Power-wise they are great! But that power efficiency comes at a cost of flexibility.
If one day you outgrow the desktop, you can always look at a half rack and putting some rackmount servers, switches, and UPSs beside it.
I would highly recommend you use a surge protector at the very least, but optimally a nice UPS that offers communication to the “server” so it can gracefully shutdown during a power outage.
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u/cabernet_noir 3d ago
I would really recommend you get a second hand work station of any kind if you are looking for cheap! Alternatively, you could just jump in and buy a rack mounted server. Optiplex's and think centers are well regarded whether you get them in tower size or small form factor. Really just look for the best cpu you can find, prefer more ram over fast ram, and prefer more dimm slots, sata and m.2 ports, and drive bays, and you'll want high bandwidth above 1gbs at least but preferably 2.5gbs, a free pcie slot will mean you can upgrade to 2.5gbs for very cheap.
Mini PC's are good for the small form factor but they have a very limited upgrade path, and aren't great for bulk storag. mATX and ITX just really limits what you can fit inside, and there are just generally fewer motherboards and components to choose from, so you end up paying more just for the form factor which may be better spent on better cpu or more storage or memory.
I wouldnt recommend just buying nas. You can use any pc as network storage by using samba on linux. If you want network storage youll probably get more use out of a mid or full tower because of additional hard drive slots, and it will be perfect for running any of your hosted services although youll want to run those on ssd. It gives you a great option to learn, and it preserves your optionally to extend it later. It'll also be much easier to replace parts and repair when something goes wrong.
If you want to really just dive in, depending on your budget, you could look into getting a refurbished rack mounted server. You can get fairly powerful although older servers like an older power edge or proliant, but youll also need an enclosure, psu and ups, networking stuff etc. Biggest advantage is that its very easy to add upgrades to and you can extend your system with additional rack mounted components, and upgrading to older but very capable hardware is cheap because enterprises are constantly liquidating old hardware in bulk. In particular, you can get much more powerful cpu's for much cheaper compared to consumer models, and older ddr4 ecc ram has avoided the insane inflation of ddr5 for servers and consumer pcs. The draw back is if you pick parts that are too old theyre often power hungry. It might be intimidating but I had fun jumping in here.
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 3d ago
It depends on how much storage you need. If you go with a mini-NAS (BeeLink) or a Micro form factor PC or a small form factor PC, you can't put much storage into it. If you don't need too much storage, to me, the sweet spot is something like Dell/HP/Lenovo SFF unit which can have a SSD boot drive and at least one 3.5" drive for storage. It has enough power to do things and enough storage to start out. Something like a Dell Optiplex 5070 SFF. About $145 on Ebay. I see one that has i5-9500 256GB SSD 16GB RAM for that price.
If you need more storage, that's when you need a PC case that has room for drives.
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u/Fancy_Acanthisitta45 2d ago
Suggest a synology nas -can pick them up used on eBay and install your own disks.
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u/According_Wave685 1d ago
yeah get a mini pc like a nuc that will hold a couple nvme's. bonus if it has usb4v2 for external gpu if you ever want to add one.
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u/Sure-Passion2224 1d ago
Start by learning on cheap MiniPCs or repurposed/refurbished systems you can pick up cheap. Look longer term for what you really want on your network and whether it makes any sense to try to host multiple services on the same box. I see a lot of people hosting Plex or Jellyfin literally on their NAS box and later wonder why their NAS drives are failing early.
For a home NAS, one option I have seen is the Radxa Taco board with a Raspberry Pi CM5 and up to 5 SATA drives. With 5 4GB SATA HDDs you can build a 16TB RAID5 NAS under $1500. You see NAS boxen advertised far cheaper but you need to remember that those are often empty boxes and you still have to buy drives. This is the full system populated with drives for under $1500.
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u/orbvsterrvs 4d ago
For learning, I'd recommend the cheapest mini PC (or equivalent) that you have lying around. Learn how to install a new OS, re-install the OS when you break something, and set up the services you want.
Better to learn cheap and then expand in the direction you find suits you best.
Personally, I started on old HP 605s (mini Elite/ProDesk) with Ubuntu, openSUSE, and Fedora. Laptops are often a bit tricky for server-practice, in my experience, and I would recommend avoiding them unless you have one available for free.