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?

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    20 hours ago

    If you’re hosting a website or a game server with a lot of active users around the clock, you might want to look into more professional hardware.

    Honestly, that’s going to be pretty far down the road. Use what you’ve got, and fix issues as you go. Professional hardware is rarely needed, but it is pretty cool.