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I would like to buy a personal server that I can leave plugged in at home in order to run some of my programs 24/24 and have some storage space.

I did some research about the prices of servers but it seems to be a bit overkill for what I want to do... I discovered the existence of Raspberry Pi which could be a solution for me but I do not know much about it.

Can you guys advise me on what should I take?

I will need an inexpensive device that could connect to wifi and able to run programs that are not very resource intensive. And I will also need about 100 gigabytes of storage or the possibility of plugging in an ssd!

Thank you very much for your help!

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  • The Pi is amazing for it's price, But has some quirky limitations. (EG. Only use a 4 or above for decent network speed). For Reliability you want Raid: magpi.raspberrypi.com/articles/build-a-raspberry-pi-nas. On the other hand like Irsu85 says, a pc build is (much) more flexible. FYI, the site the following build is on has many resources, and even some Pi info / stories serverbuilds.net/the-original-nas-killer-v10. Be aware that second hand (tower) servers can sometimes be ridiculously cheap picked up locally
    – Stax
    Oct 18, 2021 at 23:08
  • If you go with an RPI, I've had better luck keeping my OS on a USB drive over a mini
    – Journeyman Geek
    Oct 22, 2021 at 5:11
  • I attached a M.2 via USB to my Pi4. WI would need to know more about the software your going to try and run. Also what is going to run concurrently. Especially RAM requirements as the Pi4 max is 8gb.
    – cybernard
    Nov 8, 2021 at 20:52

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Raspberry pi is an option, but what I prefer is building a desktop pc, because its way faster and upgradable. If you don't need much power, you can get an athlon 3000G, a B450/A520 motherboard, and 8GB of RAM for under €200. Add a cheap ssd, 400W PSU and Ubuntu server (LTS) and your server is done (you dont even need a case, just use the motherboard box). O jea, and don't connect a server using wifi, always use a cable.

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  • Thank you very much! I will inquire about it and establish a budget
    – Freddy
    Oct 19, 2021 at 7:05
  • 2nd hand or refurbished desktops can be a great bargain too. Especially refurbished business desktops that had the "Pro" motherboard features for remote management -- Useful for remotely rebooting servers or maybe it even has IP KVM.
    – Romen
    Oct 19, 2021 at 15:11
  • In some countries, I've known folks to give away hardware and frankly even my 7-8 year old desktop has more grunt than a raspi. Raspis are lovely, cheap, low power machines, but I'd rather an x86 machine of any stripe if I want reliability.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Oct 22, 2021 at 3:32
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If you want a step up from a raspberry pi - I run a few NUC class machines which would be more powerful/flexible options. 2 of them are industrial PCs, and one's a NUC clone

I'm going to be linking to aliexpress here, simply because that's where I'd buy these machines.

While the 'baseline' machines of this class are j1800 or j1900, depending on your budget these are old and quote crappy,so the 'low' end would be Gemini lake and you're probably starting at 150 usd all in - with storage and ram included. They often come with windows (and I recommend a reinstall), and you can run any modern linux distribution of your choice.

One can go all the way to a modern ryzen 3 5th gen or older intel core processors depending on your budget. Since they take standard laptop ram and SSDs, you also have an upgrade path.

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