I’m trying to start out self-hosting and was looking for some good servers. I have a budget of ~100 USD and am in the US. I was initially going to get some type of raspberry pi but they seem to always be sold out here
I’m trying to start out self-hosting and was looking for some good servers. I have a budget of ~100 USD and am in the US. I was initially going to get some type of raspberry pi but they seem to always be sold out here
While I totally agree that managing hardware at home can be cumbersome, if you need large and slow amounts of storage - e.g. for torrenting o plex - VPS are too expensive. With a ~250 € investment I could get a server with 2TB HD that consumes 50W at max while the same VPS would cost me twice - if not more - for 12 months.
Yes the immediate cost is lower, but when drive fails? You need to consider some RAID setup then so that means at least 2 of them. Well depends how much your data is worth…
Also consider that computers need external battery power for short power shortage and lightning protection. At least battery requires replacement every few years.
Thank you for your comment, however, considering that renting a VPS with similar specs would cost twice, if not more, for a single year, I believe that factoring in a second drive for RAID configuration and a potential UPS (although I would not mind the downtime) is more than possible.