Lexi 🌸Jun 18, 2024
i now have enough money in my account for an entire home server setup, but i have no idea where to start.
i want to host things like a website backend, qbittorrent, and jellyfin, just a general use setup. (edited to remove mail server because i've learned this is a bad idea on a home server)
where should i get hardware? what hardware should i even get in the first place? anything i should know about choosing a distro to host a server on? i'm completely new to this and would appreciate advice.
please boost for visibility :3
Show threadAlex Bissessur

@lexi
As was said, you're toast with a mail server in your homelab.

I run a cluster, but even solo, micro PCs (dell optiplex, lenovo thinkcentre) are great for starting a lab. They're cheap second hand, upgradeable (unlike pis) and are low power. Can get them on ebay or other second hand markets.
If you're really going in deep, a Ryzen CPU is good for the extra performance (read: less future upgrades)

Jun 18, 2024 at 1:33pmWeb
Show threadAlex BissessurJun 18, 2024

@lexi

The advantage of going with a desktop build is that it's a lot easier to expand and upgrade through the PCIE slot(s) and SATA ports for storage for your legally procured content.

I run OpenSuse on mine because I'm slightly biased towards SUSE but you can use most OSes such as Ubuntu or Debian. I think OpenSUSE is fairly underrated but you're of course free to distro hop :P