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?
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.