I’m considering a business plan for people getting in to self-hosting. Essentially I sell you a Mikrotik router and a refurbished tiny x86 server. The idea is that the router plugs in to your home internet and the server into the router. Between the two they get the server able to handle incoming requests so that you can host services on the box and address them from the broader Internet.

The hypothesis is that $150 of equipment to avoid dozens of hours of software configuration is a worthwhile trade for some customers. I realize some people want to learn particular technologies and this is a bad fit for them. I think there are people out there that want the benefit of self-hosting, and may find it worth it to buy “self-hosting in a box”.

What do you think? Would this be a useful product for some people?

  • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    The hypothesis is that $150 of equipment to avoid dozens of hours of software configuration

    OK fair try, but you also need to sell me 20-25 TB of disk space on 5 spindles (plus a SSD for the bootdisk), 64 GB RAM (with a chance to go up to 128) and the CPU must have 16 threads or more.

    • EliRibble@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      What kind of workload do you run that makes you confident you need that much hardware? Do you think people just beginning could get buy on 4 cores and 8 GB RAM for a while? How long before you think most people need more?

      • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        This will be the spec for my next server. The current one is smaller, and several years old

        I have several different requirements for my server, for example, my son does video editing and needs lots of storage. I want to experiment with more VM’s and containers, therefore RAM and threads.

        Do you think people just beginning could get buy on 4 cores and 8 GB RAM for a while?

        For most people I think they just want to have some NAS and a reliable machine. But please grant them 16 GB, otherwise they would ask why their laptop has so much more than their server :-)