I need some advice on what hardware to buy for my home setup. I see a lot of posts talking about software, but not so much hardware. I would love to have a box I can buy and start setting up stuff.
A rack seems a bit expensive, my initial budget I feel is reasonable starting out is about $500-$800.
I’ve been looking at mini PCs, what are your thoughts on ASUS PN52? Just throwing that into the post to give a pin point of what I’m looking for.
I’m planning on hosting
- Bitwarden
- Nextcloud
- Plex
- Standard notes
- Lemmy instance
- Web server
- Openresty
And need to be able to upgrade storage etc. for future proofing.
Thankful for all insights, tips, and suggestions!
A lot of people start on used small form factor desktops like the ASUS PS52. Other common ones are the Lenovo M series tiny desktops, Dell Optiplex micro desktops or Intel NUCs. These can sometimes be found used for sub $100 a piece from businesses updating their fleets. They can struggle a bit doing stuff that needs some CPU grunt, like live plex transcoding, but are decent otherwise, especially considering the low power draw. You might want to consider spreading that software demand over two or three of them.
live plex transcoding
If you need this, the most cost-efficient way is probably to get an Intel CPU with an integrated GPU that supports QuickSync (all recent ones do) and pay for the lifetime Plex Pass. In the long run, it’s cheaper than getting a beefier CPU, let alone a dedicated GPU, just for transcoding.
