A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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I use a nucbox mini pc and two usb ext hdds to run a jellyfin server and a samba file server. Works great. Im using Lubuntu -- i dont exactly recommend it, but it works fine enough. Any lite Linux distro would probably work great. Here's a picture of my janky "server rack" setup:
You actually can use a minipc. Minisforum has their NAB series and those have a slot in their internals for an SSD and they have an NVME slot in the motherboard. I found a NAB9 with an NVME, SSD, and 16GB of ram for around $310. So I would look for used NAB6s (cheaper than NAB9) on EBay. You should find some for under 300 with the Data SSD and NVME.
I usually pick up the cheapest non-chromebook laptop I can find and put Linux on it.
There are a couple key advantages here:
It can be a bit tricky to find one with Ethernet and two SSDs is kinda exotic (especially because you could get two whole laptops for the cost of some NAS enclosures) but there are over 3000 different models under $300 on Amazon, I'm sure you can find something good.
The battery backup is a more of a liability than a benefit imo, will just turn into a spicy pillow eventually. Especially considering any power loss will hit your router/network too rendering the server's battery moot. The only thing a laptop battery really protects against is accidental temporary unplugging.
Not sure, the battery doesn't really get cycled, it doesn't get hot, I have a few which are going strong after 10+ years (the useful life of the hardware).
It's not a hypothetical for me.
I don't prefer this approach either, but if you do, a lot of commercial models (e.g. thinkpads) can be set to keep the battery at a given percent Max. Set it to only charge to 80% instead of full, and safely shutdown at like 30% and the battery will be far more stable long term. Also set ntfy alarms to your phone on the thermal sensors so you know right away if a fan gets clogged.
University surplus. I work for a university and we get rid of stuff all tfe time that is still very useful.
Do they sell/auction them? If so, where? I've seen some things on municibid, but most of it is like "900 iPads, must buy all of them!" or "here's a pallet of printers!"
Well my university just sells them. It’s all in person so there is a lottery to determine place in line because it’s popular. And for us it’s piece meal, not 900 iPads all at once. Might have to do some research to figure out where but I’d suspect most universities do this sorta stuff.
For example I’m in NC so there is this: https://www.doa.nc.gov/divisions/state-surplus-property/retail-store-locations
A big fan of the HP elite desk line. Specifically the mini form factor. Also the Intel version for quick sync.
iGPU for low power draw, but can still handle a transcode or two for Jellyfin.
Cheap as a refurbish on eBay.
My server is currently sitting at 1.5 years of uptime, hosting Jellyfin, minecraft, adguard, and a while suitr of other tools!
A mini PC could certainly work! If you're willing to go ebay, I'd recommend any of these Lenovo Thinkcentre SFF PCs:
1-2x m.2 slots, 1x 2.5" slot, and some can accommodate a half-height PCI-E card in place of the 2.5" slot. Presumably, you'd want to go Intel for QSV
Ask a local ISP like us. We store our old servers and send them to be recycled annually. If I had an enthusiast walk up to our offices asking for a donation, we wouldn't hesitate. Can't speak for competitors, but it's worth a shot.
So a trick for the double drives is to pop in a low profile usb drive and install the os on that. Then you can use the ssd/hdd for other things.
So you leave the usb plugged in for boot and then you are good after that?
Yup! If you installed the os on it.
So you have one usb with the iso flashed to it and a second to install the os on. Use the first to install to the second.
Stop ordering from Amazon
“… order from here instead [insert alternative]”
I just went to ebay and goodwill for my tech stuff. Goodwill is a tad annoying though cause their online shop is literally only bids, so have fun watching the price shot up in the last few days.
ebay is slightly better, but in the end just another publicly traded company that treats their employees like shit.
If you go with eBay, still look local for someone who is selling surplus stuff. There's a lot of hassle and cost for the seller over ebay, but they are not allowed to arrange anything via a back channel - however, once you have bought one thing and you are happy with them, you have their contact info! You can ask for more or reach out in the future directly when they look to have lots of stock of something you like. They will probably be happy to avoid eBay and get some easy sales.
It's good to encourage reuse, which is eBay's main thing. I wouldn't have a reason to buy anything new from them however.
Slightly better is still the direction we want to head in. Not sure how else we get off the racketing-effect/boiled-frog path we've been on.
Yes it is, I would just like to encourage the frog to jump out rather than reduce the flame.
Ask your local university facilities department about their overstock policy. The university of Arizona literally has a warehouse where you can peruse their old computers and furniture and buy at Craigslist prices.
Yeah I just posted the same thing. I work for a university and we send useful stuff to surplus all the time. I can verify several universities in my area do in fact have warehouses with stuff like this in them.
My last build and current have been a Thinkstation and a z series workstation, both used from ex-gov auctions, were decently priced, will run everything you wanna throw at them.
They do come at the cost of increased power draw, but since I've put in solar I'm not worried about that.
You you could do most of that with a raspberry pi5, 8GB. With a whole kit, you can get it for under $250. I'm running 3 at my place: 1 for media (servarr stack, JF, Navidrome, Invidious), 1 for the Fediverse (Mastodon, Piefed, Peertube, WordPress), and 1 for anything else.
Edit: I also missed the part about truenas, but you can still run containers on any other OS just fine.
The newer raspberry pis have gone up in price so much that the limited port selection is off putting to me now. You could pick up an older thinkcentre and do so much more.
Why tho?
For $250 you can build a pretty solid system with lots of storage
I have a NAS for storage. The pi sips power, doesn't make any sound, and runs what I need.
Would a pi5 work?
It would, but it does not have SATA. You can find much cheaper computers that do have it
He said "sub $300" \s
They're quite versatile computers for general purposes, but their i/o performance is dreadful. Mine all max out at about ten megabytes per second. That will not do, for server purposes.
Fortunately, there's businesses all over that are chucking out all their old mini PCs since they won't run Win11. I got an extremely decent one for £20 and it's my new home server. Absolutely storms it, while just sipping at electricity.
I served 4k content with plex off a 4, while running pihole on it.
They say they have a drive enclosure, so if that’s network attached they may be good.