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?
Yes, you can easily do it.
You want to look at 2 things: 1. Noise 2. Ratio of performance / power usage.
When your PC runs 24/7 then it might be annoying to hear it’s noise sometimes. Real server cases are usually even much louder than former PC’s because they are built for super strong air flow inside.
Think carefully what you need. In my situation it is just one light wooden door away from my bed, so I wanted it impossible to hear. I optimized it so, and it ended up being so quiet that I cannot hear any fans, but I hear the clicking of the harddisks all the time. Well, I got used to that, mostly. For my next home server I want to build my own case that absolutely blocks this noise.
People are frequently asking what if I turn this old Pentium etc. into a server?
Well, these old CPU’s have very low performance compared to new ones, but it might just be sufficient. But then you recognize that the old veterans burn 100 Watts for the same performance where a modern (low performance) CPU burns only 5 Watts, and now it will do that 24/7. Think about your yearly costs. Many times it turns out that buying a new one saves your money very easily.