this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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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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[–] deadbeef79000 19 points 1 year ago

Anything you need to buy is more expensive than anything you already have.

Especially if youre worried about power costs.

Reuse wha you have, replace when you need to.