I much prefer a separate server for the simple reason that it makes my desktop somewhat disposable. Reboot whenever, install whatever. If it breaks my server stays up
Basically, the more you isolate the purposes, the less the purposes clash
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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I'd still prefer a separate server even if it's only for myself:
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power efficiency, you don't need to keep a power-hungry PC on when you don't need it, but only an old laptop or a rasp Pi or whatever
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if your PC is down - broken, needs reinstall, having an issue that needs troubleshooting - you can still have your server stuff running
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expandability. Media server alone is good to stream movies to a TV, or to a phone over the web, and again the PC can be off
For power efficiency, you get the added benefit of being able to run on battery backups for longer. This for pihole, file servers, etc. can be a lifesaver
My current server is anything but power efficient as far as I can tell. It was thrown together during lockdown from various older server components bought from eBay.
My server needs to be reachable as much as possible, as it hosts a lemmy instance, discord bots for large communities, a web site, etc. I like being able to reboot my gaming PC whenever I want, as things sometimes go wrong and a reboot is an important step in diagnosing problems.
So for me, having two different computers is ideal.
I absolutely wouldn't have this issue as I could happily reboot whenever I wanted and it wouldn't inconvenience anyone.
I use an all in one. Linux host for hypervisor. Windows 11 with virtual tpm and gpu pass through for gaming, and a FreeBSD guest set up with 1 virtual hard disk, one ssd for boot mirror, and 3 2tb platter drives for file serving. At idle it takes about 80 watts (including the router hooked to the ups) per hour. Definitely more than a raspberry pi, but it really only burns 1-2 kWh a day which comes out to .30 a day for us (roughly).
The amount of time it would need to be running before it was cheaper to use a raspberry pi including everything it needs was almost 6 years of 24/7 uptime for our electric rate so to me it makes 0 sense to run this differently and separate. There are also more efficient at idle chips nowadays.
System specs: Ryzen 7 2800 8-core processor 128GB ram Gt 1030 video card for host 3060ti for windows vm 2 1 tb nvme drives 2 500GB ssd (one for boot, one for zfs cache FreeBSD) 3 2tb platter drives
Ah nice to see that it is actually feasible then. I imagine I'd have an even easier setup too as I intend to just use Linux with all my selfhosted software in Docker containers.
My server at the moment is anything but energy efficient. It's an old Xenon (can't remember the exact model) so definitely not Raspberry Pi levels of efficient. My biggest concern would be the GPU idling but it seems there are power management precautions I can take with Linux so maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
The 1030 uses a ridiculously small amount of power at idle for the server. The 3060ti is obviously a smaller card too but it only pulls ~15w at idle while the vm is running from my tests. It’s not the cheapest but 15w is not all that much of the 80 the server is pulling overall
I use several separate small servers in a Proxmox cluster. You can get a used Dell or HP SFF PC from eBay for cheap (example). The ones I am using all came with Intel T series processors that run at 35w.
You install Proxmox like any other OS (it's basically Debian), then you can create VMs (or LXCs) to run whatever services you want.
If you have existing drives in a media server, you can pass those drives through to a VM pretty easily, or any PCI device, or even the entire PCI controller.
I'd still recommend a separate server for numerous reasons:
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You can save power instead of letting your gaming PC run 24/7. The lowest I've ever seen my gaming PC idle at is 125W, whereas my dedicated DIY NAS idles at 27W. That's a huge difference in your electricity bill over the long-term, although it really depends on what area you live in. My PC kicks out a lot more heat than my server though so it does make a difference when it comes to my AC bill!
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You may want stable software for your server (ie Debian) and bleeding edge (Arch Linux) for your gaming PC, or you may want Linux for your server and Windows for gaming, etc.
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Separate server provides better uptime. I would hate to interrupt a big transfer to my Nextcloud just because I needed to restart my PC to do system updates.
Buy a new desktop/gaming PC and retire the old one to the server cupboard.
I'm not sure it would be much good or much of an upgrade compared to what I already have now.
I can't provide precise answer, since some services rely on HDD performance, while others enjoy big amount of RAM.
Personally, RAM and reliability are two things I'm after when entertaining the idea of a home server.
For example: I'm about to build a very simple file server + jellyfin + printserver + RDP rig and it's going to be based on DELL 5040 + 8Gb RAM + 4Tb SATA, running... Windows 10 Pro. 🤠