Hey, I want to dip my feet into self-hosting, but i find the hardware side of things very daunting. I want to self host a Minecraft server (shocking, i know), and i’ve actually done this before both on my own PC and through server hosts. I’d like to run a Plex server as well (Jellyfin is champ now it sounds like? So maybe that instead), but I imagine the Minecraft server is going to be the much more intensive side of things, so if it can handle that, plex/jellyfin will be no issue.
The issue is, I can’t seem to find good resources on the hardware side of building a server. I’m finding it very difficult to “map out” what I need, I don’t want to skimp out and end up with something much less powerful than what I need, but i also don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on something extremely overkill. I looked through the sidebar, but it seems to mostly cover the software side of things. Are there any good resources on this?
Buy yourself a new gaming rig, and use your old gaming rig as a server. That’s what I usually do.
Or, see if you can get an old office PC for a couple hundred bucks on eBay. Anything that’s around 5 years old (10 is pushing it) and has decent specs (maybe an i7 and 16GB of RAM) should work fine as a Minecraft and Plex server. Then you can get a cheap (ideally less than $200) graphics card and be good to go.
Bottom line, a “server” is just a PC that’s serving things. You don’t need enterprise grade hardware. If you’re new to hosting, I’d advise you to start cheap and then upgrade to better hardware in a few years when you KNOW what you need. No need to get something really nice and expensive right now.
I have something 10 years old for jellyfin only, (other light stuff too, not important) and it handles it fine. No hardware acceleration but the CPU can keep up for just me and 1 friend using it. I got it for 50 bucks on eBay and it rocks. I don’t know about Minecraft servers though.
Edit: It didn’t come with drives. Don’t ever trust old drives.
It depends on whether or not you’re transcoding, how many users you have, and your resolution. If you’re just direct streaming 720p/1080p content to a couple of people then even a Raspberry Pi is fine. But if you’re sending transcoded 4K streams to several people simultaneously, you need some horsepower.
Might I suggest Server Part Deals for drives? Excellent track record and very responsive. They are my goto for refurbished enterprise drives and have never let me down.
Thanks. I don’t currently have any raid or backup set up, so I should probably do that before it becomes a problem.
Seconded. A few years ago I upgraded my CPU, which also required me to swap the motherboard and RAM. The old Mobo / CPU / RAM combo was sitting around in my closet. I just bought a decent case, power supply, and a few hard drives, and bam. Instant server.
As far as graphics card, I would go with something cheaper unless you have a specific reason. If your CPU has a built in graphics processor, that’s probably good enough. My CPU didn’t, so I had to throw a $30 card in.