I am thinking about buying a home server for a wide range of things. I found some cheap old computers on amazon for around 80-90€. Is it worth it to upgrade them with another stick of ram or a larger SSD? 2 8gb RAM sticks are only around 15€, so that would be 100 in total. But my question is, is it worth it, or is the CPU the limiting factor. Some of them have one from the pentium series. Also, is 15€ for 2x8gb DDR4 RAM normal (not too cheap)? Maybe you have other ideas for a cheap home server. In my case I don’t think a 90€ raspberry pi is worth it
With used hardware, it very much depends on what the hardware is and what you’re using it for. if you can find something from the last 10 years it’s probably worth it, but I wouldn’t get anything older than that. Power usage is the main concern, as systems have been plenty powerful enough for most applications for sometime. Hardware reliability would be another factor.
When I was looking a couple of months ago, it looked like $200 USD was the sweet spot for used hardware, but at that price point, you could get one of those NUC knockoffs brand new, such as the Beelink N100. It just depends on what you need.
They’re going to cost you that much in energy alone. Just get an AMD minipc and start from there. Maybe an N100 if you don’t need the speed.
I bought such an old computer. 6th gen i3 Intel CPU, upgraded the memory to 16G and added more storage. For me, it works well.
However, I recommend checking the power usage of the system. Some older PCs might be very piwer hungry, which makes them expensive in the long run.
Edit: 6th gen and 7th gen Intel CPUs are not compatible with windows 11. The market is full of these old PCs and they are cheam. I personally would not buy anything older.
Some addition to my post: The computer I found is a Fujitsu Esprimo Q957. I’ve read online that they are very power efficient and don’t draw as much. I will probably run some lightweight task almost 24/7 and sometimes heavier tasks for short periods of time. A raspberry pi is for me too expensive for the average specs, even if it is very efficient. I think a upgradable pc or mini pc is best, because they are cheap, but can be easily upgraded without buying a whole new computer.
You have to keep in mind that your server is going to be running 24/7/365 (hopefully). Depending on your electric rates, this can be a significant cost, and certainly will justify buying a newer, more efficient computer, over time.
RPi is popular because it is crazy efficient, only drawing a few watts from the wall.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC SBC Single-Board Computer
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You’d want to also consider, that desktop components were not created for 24/7 usage. My previous motherboard died by overheating south bridge – it likely wouldn’t happen in a desktop usage, but 24/7 didn’t let it cool ever. The chip has a small ‘volcano’ in the middle now.
Here’s the deal. If your server is close to using up all its RAM, then yes, more RAM better.
However, if your server is close to being full on storage, you need to address that with a bigger storage drive.
