Getting into Self Hosting on a Budget
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- For the last couple of years, getting into self-hosting has been a bit more of a struggle for a number of reasons.
For me, the biggest barrier to entry has been a spike in prices for little things like Raspberry Pi 4 8GB boards that started at $75 and now are over $200.
With the lack of compatibility and an outrageous cost, I want to look at other, more practical options in this video to let you get started with your first or your next self-hosting project.
All of the following purchase links are affiliate links.
The following are affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
HP EliteDesk 800 G1 SFF PC:
amzn.to/3PjAhkp (Affiliate)
Small Form Factor PCs:
amzn.to/3Fk3d7n (Affiliate)
Ebay Options:
ebay.us/iF5JLl (Affiliate)
ebay.us/m3cQny (Affiliate)
Raspberry Pi 4 8GB:
amzn.to/3HvsUEx (Affiliate)
Mini PCs:
amzn.to/3v3nFop (Affiliate)
SSDs shown in video:
256GB: amzn.to/3VQCczu (Affiliate)
1TB: amzn.to/3BuJkZX (Affiliate)
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I am using dell optilex lga 1155 socket upgraded it to i5 processor added 4gb extra ram installed omv then docker portainer and now hosting 15plus container easily able to access them from outside via reverse proxy....learnt all this from UA-cam 🤗
Recently added quadro p400 for plex transcoding also.
I was fortunate enough that the hospital where I work was throwing out some really nice Lenovo ThinkCentre Tinys. I grabbed up 3 of them and beefed them up into a Proxmox HA cluster thanks to your instructional video on that.
That's awesome
Great ideas! I used a handful of used surplus Lenovo M73 tiny machines to build a cluster of container hosts that have run 24/7 in production since late 2019. Very low buck, low power - but solid bang for the few bucks I spent on storage and some ram upgrades. Although the big iron surplus is cheap as well, it can be very noisy and power hungry - hence updating to old mini desktop machines. I like your thinking!
Thanks for posting this video - just getting interested in self-hosting and it's helpful, confirmed a decision I made last week - purchased a refurbished desktop, $35!
I've jumped down that rabbit hole and i'm still going. I'm thousands of dollars invested and still going, so...yeah lol
Great video..
Purchasing upcycled IT gear is absolutely the way to go..
So many corporates out there upgrading regularly - means there's many a bargain to be had!
RPi prices are nuts lately, so I'm gonna try Dell Optiplex 32gig ram setup here in Ireland. Only €220 including 512gb Samsung 860 SSD plus 1TB HDD.
Can't go wrong 🥺
Totally agree!
Good explanation of pro and cons but I would suggest putting all data on a spreadsheet and add the electric cost of keeping on the the server to give also the impact that have on your electricity Bill.
Great Job 👍
The best compromise I've found is a Terramaster F2-423 (of F4). Small and quiet with great long term expansion options to go all the way up to a fairly decent Proxmox cluster with Ceph.
My homelab consists of a bunch of sff dell optiplex’s. One of them is running pfSense bare metal and I have 3 more running as a proxmox cluster. I barely even hear them, they run efficient and can handle just about anything I’ve thrown at them so far.
Looking forward to your Videos on Self Hosting 👍👍
Almost my entire channel is about self hosting already 🙂
I use my pi4 with CasaOS. Development of CasaOS is very slow but it is stable.
Nothing wrong with that if it works for you :)
Even the HP g3 models can be picked up at a decent price on eBay. I use one right now and it's a beast
Hell yeah! That's awesome!
Thanks nice ideas .. can you make videos on self hosting including docker container will be of great help
7:10 To be honest, my server PC is basically the same but the internal fan is too loud for my taste. BIOS doesn't allow any tweaks for the PWM controller so it's always running at like 30% or maybe more, just a guess. I swapped it for a new SilentiumPC Zephyr 80 for like 3 bucks which is bigger than the current one but it's so much quieter now. I've swapped the power supply fan as well but I've used the stock CPU fan there as the PWM controller on the PSU is much better so the PSU is now basically dead silent.
My situation might be a bit weird but I sleep in the same room and the PC is next to my like 1,5 meters. It was really hard to sleep with the stock cpu cooler previously.
I also bought a 80mm Noctua NF-R8 redux which to my surprise was noticeably louder than the SilentiumPC Zephyr 80. Currently it's running proxmox with home assistant at around 17W.
Thank you very much for this video.
What host expectations would you expeft to provide with you HP? Do you need a bigger setup to host and make some cesh?
Good video. But there are a couple errors in it regarding the Raspberry Pi.
One, the price is not $200 from a legit seller. Amazon is not a seller but a marketplace and scalpers are the ones charging those crazy prices during the supply shortage. You *can* get Raspberry Pi boards for normal price if you know where to look and when (e.g. Adafruit every Wednesday at 11:00 AM New York time.)
Two, it was stated the Raspberry Pi cannot be upgraded, and technically this is true. However, you can cluster boards together to distribute workloads for scenarios such as busy websites.
I do like the notion of using a second hand PC or Mac as a home server. Definitely more processing power than a Raspberry Pi.
I just bought 2 more of the HP 800 G1 units with 16gb of RAM on Ebay for $60 each which is still less than an 8GB Raspberry Pi.
Is unraid a good OS for self hosting or a server with docker installed. I like Unraid but I thought about converting my gaming rig into a server since I don’t use it anymore.
Will I be able to do these things on a CGNAT connection?
Very good video. My current network setup has:
1. TrueNAS running on a Dell PowerEdge T110 II Tower E3-1220 v2 3.1ghz Quad Core - 32 GB RAM, 8 TB of hard disk space. I only use it as a NAS. Local PCs are all backed up to it.
2. Dell 9020 mini-tower - I will be upgrading the current RAM from 8 GB to 20 GB (all I can afford right now). It has some old hard drives installed. It is running Linux and my Dockers. Mostly it is used for Plex and ARM (Automatic Ripping Machine). I plan on experimenting with connecting to it from outside the house using Cloudflare.
I would like to self-host a website (I use Joomla for my personal sites) that I could access when I am traveling. What would I need to do for all of that?
If you already have Docker running on one of your machines, you could install Joomla via a Docker container and then use a reverse proxy like Nginx Proxy Manager or CloudFlare tunnels to gain remote access to it via a domain name.
Was that the stock cpu cooler that came with the g1? If not what kind was it?
I got the unit from a refurb seller on Amazon. I believe the cooler was stock, but I think the fan was upgraded to the CoolerMaster fan.
@@DBTechYT Sweet thanks for fast response! I have another quick question does the ram not overheat or anything if you blow hot air right into them? It looked like the fan was blowing into them but I could be mistaken
Most of us have dynamic IP addresses. I have used dynamic IP DNSs before, but there's downtime when addresses are changed. What's the best way to keep the downtime to a minimum?
ua-cam.com/video/Q5dG8g4-Sx0/v-deo.html
Does the elite desk support virtualization? Would it work for proxmox?
A quick search found that it does support virtualization :)
How important is ECC ram? I actually bought a server to run unRAID but I'm sure what I have is overkill.
It's really not important. It's mostly for real datacenters. I own a self build server with normal ram and desktop motherboard which works perfectly. I have never had a ram issue with it, but if your motherboard supports it and if ECC ram is cheaper in your region, than go for it.
This is correct. Linus made a video about ECC memory a while back: ua-cam.com/video/pPeCNrNTr3k/v-deo.html
@@LavaLaugh Same here, been running a small server for almost two years and had no issue so far
If you use it for storing personal data or something critical its a must in my opinion. You dont want to find out one day that some bit is rot
Otherwise if you are just tinkering not necessary at all
@@Malus234 What does RAM have to do with storage? Also, if you don't want to run the risk of losing data, you should always have multiple backups of your data.
Hi my friend I will appreciate if you would make a tut on CHEEKMK, Server & Application on Proxmox
A 8GB pi is way more expensive than a server here where I am from
I wasted all my funds on a gaming PC and now find myself using that for a dedicated Homelab and my expensive af 3080Ti eating dust.
fml
that sucks. I wish I had a 3080Ti to collect dust lol
I feel this. My 3060 is collecting dust.
Just use old laptop or a phone if u can put linux on it