At a crossroads with what to do about my home server now that I'm a full-blown selfhosted addict. reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- malachi347 · 2023-11-03 03:09 TL;DR: I'm torn between adding 8GB of RAM to an already-stretched-thin i3-4360 Windows box, or taking a Dell XPS which is a rarely-used, but a very decent gaming rig and turning it into my main home server. What started as me installing Plex server on my downstairs PC has turned into a full blown self-hosted, home automation addiction (and I love it). A few POE cameras, a custom built rack/punch panel/switch closet, a custom built pool/spa controller and a ton of sonoffs and raspberry pis later... So anyways a while back I frankensteined that same downstairs desktop into a server I lovingly call "Forge" (everything is Westworld named). i3-4360, 8GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 960 and stuffed like a turkey on thanksgiving with HDDs (4x4GB=10.9 RAID5, a 10TB 7200rpm HDD and a couple SSDs for the OS and caching and stuff). It's also used as a web browser for the wife and guests as well which isn't ideal. Now that the addiction is in full swing, I'm running just about everything under the sun on this poor thing. Blue Iris, Sonarr, Radarr, uTorrent w/ Web Server, Plex Media Server, CodeProject.AI Server, Filezilla Server, Docker Desktop for PhotoPrism, as well as functioning as a network-wide SMB/FileShare. He has a mobo that maxes out at 16GB RAM. I only have 8GB in there right now and it's a bottleneck I can feel for sure. I realized that I have this Dell XPS (i5-6400, 64GB DDR4 RAM, 500gb nvme, GTX 1660Ti) that isn't getting used very much at all and I was wondering if I should just turn THIS into my home server. It's just that it feels like I'd be making a server out of a gaming machine. But having all that RAM would be so nice. I'd probably build a NAS from the RAID5, and just put the 10GB HDD in the XPS along with the 500GB nvme) Uhg. This is such a frustrating "hobby". FYI: I have a home office with a beast PC, my son is a gamer and has his own and I have an even better rig at my office. So it's not like I'd be losing my ability to play PC gaming. It just feels weird to swap out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dadarkgtprince · 2023-11-03 03:15 Use the XPS so you'll have the resources to do more ---------------------------------------------------------------------- No_Dragonfruit_5882 · 2023-11-03 03:40 The only right way. And after the XPS you will add your Office PC and your Sons gaming rig. Nah but srsly. Help me! My rack is getting bigger and bigger ;( ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wakomorny · 2023-11-03 04:03 I actually went the opposite way. The gaming rig was consuming too much power for me. So for things that didnt require GPU i mainly shifted to a small 1L mini pc. It takes 15 W as opposed to my gaming rig which takes atleast 70W ---------------------------------------------------------------------- therealSoasa · 2023-11-03 04:21 Add the extra 8gb to the i3 and optimize it because it's Windows, there's shit you can disable to improve CPU usage. That will help keep power down and still give you head room for all your current apps. Leave the gaming PC for gaming and hiking up your energy bills 💵😁 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- malachi347 · 2023-11-03 06:17 The decision is killing me. I keep making up more and more excuses, too. For example, BlueIris and PhotoPrism both have AI/Machine Learning/TensorFlow features which are GPU intensive (facial detection, scene/object detection, etc) and things seem to be going that way. I was even learning about network 3d render nodes. I do VFX work (and sometimes do light 3D stuff) so maybe the GPU can help me in that area as well? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- malachi347 · 2023-11-03 06:21 No help here man, I'm done for. I thought tattoos were addictive but I put all mine on hold for this. Every extra cent is going to Microcenter right now and the employees know me over there now... And those dudes know my weakness too. They saved/sold me the last Raspberry Pi 5 which people lined up at 5am for. Of course I couldn't say no to that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- malachi347 · 2023-11-03 06:25 What kind of software are you running though? Are you running the kind of volume I am? Blue Iris, PhotoPrism, SMB, Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, uTorrent, Nginx, AdGuard, Home Assistant, etc etc... If I *do* go through with using this XPS beast as my home server, I'm probably going to consolidate all my smaller "servers" (raspberry pis / linux server) into this thing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- malachi347 · 2023-11-03 06:31 Here's the thing. I'm currently running: Blue Iris (5x webcams), FileZilla FTP Server for storing security cam files, Docker, PhotoPrism, SMB/NAS 12TB RAID5 for my huge Insta360 and Drone hi-res video files, Plex Media Server, Sonarr, Radarr, uTorrent w/ Web Services, Nginx web server, AdGuard, Home Assistant, and eventually I'd like to host my own email and maybe even my own git or code repo. Do you think the i3 with 16GB of RAM will run that all? Because I can tell it's already struggling. That said, you're right - I haven't optimized Windows much - I could even try one of those LiteOS installs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wakomorny · 2023-11-03 06:36 Then your solution makes sense. I mostly have the \*arr's. Cloud, plex, home assitant. A lot of those times its usually idle. Its just me and a couple of friends who can access my server. So it works for me. But if your consolidating I would def go with something with more grunt so it has room to grow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- malachi347 · 2023-11-03 06:54 Thanks man... I've even toyed with the idea of installing Windows Server 2022 as the OS since I have volume licensing as part of a non profit I work for. So many choices... I think that's what I love/hate about SelfHosting and HomeAutomation... A million ways from A to B haha. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- malachi347 · 2023-11-03 07:10 Uhg you guys. I'm now making plans to transplant the guts of the XPS and install into my larger server case. I was just playing with Windows Server 2022 Datacenter with Containers and docker storage and... yeah. I can never just stop and work with what I have. I have a todo list ten miles long now. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Defiant-Ad-5513 · 2023-11-03 07:25 Maybe use Proxmox for the XPS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PopeMeeseeks · 2023-11-03 07:31 I used to run all my home VMs on a EliteDesk 800 g6. It is the most amazing machine ever. It has a i5-10500t (6c/12t) it was more more than enough to run all my VMs without problems. Now if you wanna go crazy... There are very cheap i9-13900t being sold in China. Couple it with a power eficiente board and you will stop thinking investing in hardware for about 6 months. In self-hosted the answer is always yes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gladroger · 2023-11-03 09:34 Instead of using Microsoft, you can tryout xcp-ng to run vm and run xen orchestra from source ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Catnapwat · 2023-11-03 10:20 None of these things are particularly demanding though. I'm running 30 containers on an i3 9100T with 16GB and it's more than adequate. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tomistruth · 2023-11-03 10:28 One thing to consider: You can also go the vps route. Some hosting providers allow you to change the hardware config after installation. You can start small and add better hardware and more storage and memory, when you need it and costs are quite low for vps starting with 10 bucks a month. You connect them via wireguard in a private network to make them secure and only available to you, if you live alone. If you have family, then it gets a bit more complicated and truly self hosting beind a router is the way. The advantage is that you don't have to pay electricity and can access it from anywhere as long as you have wireguard installed. Can also go with tailscale client which also uses wireguard protocol. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mark-haus · 2023-11-03 10:39 Now that self hosting AI is becoming more normalized, I'm wondering how we get GPUs into our smaller PCs we use for self hosting. I might give the Jetsons a look for use as purely AI hosts. Low power CPU, decent size unified RAM, and somewhat capable GPUs for AI depending on model. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rjames24000 · 2023-11-03 10:58 what is the jetsons? other than the old tv show that is ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Stevieflyineasy · 2023-11-03 11:00 This is where youd have to compare pricing to your own power bills and server builds to determine if it's worth. Short term I think vps might be good ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mark-haus · 2023-11-03 11:05 nVidia's ARM single board computer line. They usually differentiate themselves from other ARM boards by including GPUs mostly for the purpose of AI workloads. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NotEvenNothing · 2023-11-03 11:54 Use an AI accelerator like Google's Coral. Way cheaper, smaller, and consumes less power hungry than a GPU. The cheapest one is just a USB device, a bit bigger than a flash key. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rjames24000 · 2023-11-03 12:04 thank you for exposing this to me.. but also dammit now i have something else i have to buy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unusableidiot · 2023-11-03 12:13 Add more. Add more. Add more. And then you run over 400GB ram like I do... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- szayl · 2023-11-03 12:17 And here I am planning out my next build because the 128GB on my current whitebox build is limiting at times... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jay-Five · 2023-11-03 12:34 Careful there. Dells are notorious for proprietary case and PSU mounting, so it may not "fit" in the off the shelf case. (not because of size, but because of mounting posts and the breakouts in the rear) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- speculatrix · 2023-11-03 12:36 I did the math and found that a used but high end workstation was cheaper per core than a raspberry pi particularly when you consider that a Xeon core attached to fast ram and a decent m.2 sad offers a lot of performance. From bargain hardware, 10 cores, 64GB ram, 512G sad for £1000. CURRENT CONFIGURATION £1,002.00Inc. VAT 1 x Dell Precision T7920 (A Grade) - 6x PCIe-x16 FH, 1x PCIe-x8 FH 1 x Intel Xeon Silver 4210 - 10-Core 2.20GHz (3.20GHz Boost, 85W TDP) 1 x Dell Precision CPU0 Heatsink 2 x 32GB - DDR4 2400MHz (PC4-19200, 2Rx4) 2 x 256GB - NVMe SSD - OEM ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pastelfemby · 2023-11-03 12:41 > It's also used as a web browser for the wife and guests as well which isn't ideal. I know this isnt what you're asking help on but give them a containerized browser if you're not already? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dadarkgtprince · 2023-11-03 12:42 The only help we can offer is to buy your old equipment after you upgrade to newer devices, lol. We enable each other ---------------------------------------------------------------------- u53rx · 2023-11-03 13:10 how about u skip all of that and get a girlfriend?? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Swimming-Bank6567 · 2023-11-03 13:20 Proxmox... Virtualise your setup, then you can create a cluster and just add in varying cheap devices. With what you're looking at doing, now is the time to look into it and get it all running. You can then expand your cluster as/when you like 🤷‍♂️ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Swimming-Bank6567 · 2023-11-03 13:23 TrueNAS for the win 👍😉 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- useless_mlungu · 2023-11-03 13:57 To me you made a great case for the XPS. Do it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OccasionallyImmortal · 2023-11-03 14:11 The only service I see that could be a resource hog is Plex if you're transcoding multiple streams. Considering the capabilities of modern clients, it's often unnecessary unless you're under heavy bandwidth restrictions. Stream direct and let the client deal with it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ben237 · 2023-11-03 14:26 We don’t do that here ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _RootZero · 2023-11-03 15:19 Something about gaming rig as selfhost, it's not going to be energy efficient. I have turned my old gaming system into a server and it really racked up my electricity bill. Switching to a odroid soon. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A2251 · 2023-11-03 15:30 I noticed you don't run immich. You should try that :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HereticGods · 2023-11-04 02:40 Dude. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kmisterk · 2023-11-06 18:41 ## Post Removed Hey, malachi347! Thanks for your submission on selfhosted. Your post has been removed due to a violation of the purpose of the subreddit: **Self Hosting** ## Not Self-Hosted When it comes to posts regarding applications in this subreddit, they must feature a self-hosted tool, or a tool that *can be* self-hosted, or some kind of related information, help request, or otherwise related to a tool that is something that one can self-host. If you believe this post *is in fact* relevant to /r/selfhosted, feel free to [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to= /r/selfhosted&subject=Removed For Not Being Self- Hosted&message=[Removed Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/17mljkq/-/\)) with your concerns.