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?
Even a Commodore 64 can be a server depending on the service it has to give.
I use a random micro PC with Ubuntu installed. 2tb nvme, 16gb ram, not even sure what the cpu is
A computer. Seriously that’s it. Of course depends on your use case (media servers usually need more than a web host for example)
Had this link in my clipboard for a different comment but it fits here as well: https://hackaday.com/2025/04/09/self-hosting-a-cluster-on-old-phones/
In all honesty this may be a bit advanced depending on your experience and more importantly nerves, but any old PC/laptop can be turned into a server.
As for parameters I would suggest you go to the apps you plan on running and check their minimum requirements.
A raspberry pi 4 or 5 and some fast USB 3 hard drives.
The joke is electricity and Linux.
The real answer is the free hardware.
My main reliable is from 2008? It cannot do modern virtualization due to not having the CPU instruction sets.
You might check if a simple CPU upgrade would get you there. I previously ran some 2005 Poweredge servers that came with a Pentium D processor, and it cost me something like $8 from ebay to upgrade to a Xeon and start running KVM.
Anything that does the job is good enough. At its core a server is just a regular PC with a dedicated purpose and software. Sure, there are specialized hardware better suitable and purpose built, but it’s not a requirement.
I for one prefer 19" rackmount stuff with disk bays in the front, but that’s more of a convenience than anything.
UPS is nice, but it’ll work without it.
I’ve had to deal with the Brazilian computer market and how it’s ridiculously overpriced due to import fees, so in your situation I’d just get any hand-me-down computer. Servers generally don’t require much unless you’re doing something special or intensive.
Get your hands on whatever you can find for free or dirt cheap (laptop or desktop doesn’tmatter), install linux, and you have a basic setup that you can work with. If your use case requires more, then that’s something you can accommodate in the next iteration of your server.
Intel i3 or i5 4th gen or newer will be solid.
Dell, HP, Lenovo all make a ton of generic office PCs that are good for a home server, and you can find older models for under $40 in the US so hopefully they’re also cheap in Brazil.
If you can find one of the optiplex desktops with the T version of Intel processor, those are low powered
I don’t think those really idle at much less power, so I’d take the performance of the normal variants
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.
What are you intending to run on this server?
-
If it is just PiHole, you can basically get the weakest computer you can find.
-
If you want lots of storage space, you will need to make sure you have a case and motherboard that will accommodate the drives.
-
If you are running encryption on those drives as well, you will need a CPU more powerful than what comes in a Pi, but nothing crazy.
-
If you are running lots and lots of VMs, you will want lots of RAM. A linux VM will use maybe a few GB each depending on what software each is running internally, a windows vm will use a bit more.
-
If you are doing AI workloads, you will need a graphics card.
-
When I started my media server in 2020 I used e-waste from my building. Had an i7 3770, 16gb ddr3 ram and an rx460 graphics card. I ran jellyfin, ultrasonic and audiobookshelf for 10-15 people with no problem on this hardware. Anything made within the last decade should provide a good starting point for you.
This was almost my gaming PC specs in 2020. Rx580 and 16gb more ram. It’s now my server running jellyfin and immich for my family.
Rx580 was such a workhorse card. Used mine until a year ago and then it went to a friend who’s still using it today.
My Rx580 has basically been on continuously since I bought it in like 2017/18. I used it to mine when I wasn’t gaming until it became unprofitable, then to process sequencing data for my dissertation project while not gaming, and now it’s in my server.
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.
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.
Keep an eye out for people trashing perfectly good desktop machines because Windows 10 is being retired.
If you want a server that “does it all” then you would need to get the most decked-out top of the line server available… Obviously that is unrealistic, so as others have mentioned, knowing WHAT you want to run is required to even begin to make a guess at what you will need.
Meanwhile here’s what I suggest – Grab any desktop machine you can find to get yourself started. Load up an OS, and start adding services. Maybe you want to run a personal web server, a file server, or something more extensive like Nextcloud? Get those things installed, and see how it runs. At some point you will start seeing performance issues, and this tells you when it’s time to upgrade to something with more capability. You may simply need more memory or a better CPU, in which case you can get the parts, or you may need to really step up to something with dual-CPU or internal RAID. You might also consider splitting services between multiple desktop machines, for instance having one dedicated NAS and another running Nextcloud. Your personal setup will dictate what works best for you, but the best way to learn these things is to just dive in with whatever hardware you can get ahold of (especially when it’s free), and use that as your baseline for any upgrades.
This. Be on the lookout for company grade PCs, like from Dell, Lenovo or Fujitsu, they come in small form factors, offer decent upgradability and are low/on power consumption and noise (most of the time)
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
My preferences are quite different.
You’ll need a lot of RAM for all the containers, 64 GB is nice. A CPU that saves power when idle is fine. You’ll need at least 16 TB storage (32 TB RAID1). SATA HDD is fine, when you have ZFS and cache using SSDs. Never use USB for drives.
It does not need to be quiet. Just put it in the basement and close the door.
My jelly fin server is running off of an entry level desktop in 2009, a single core celeron processor. I have to downscale video files to standard definition in order for it to keep up.
