What's the best homeserver option for upto $500?

Hardware Build a PC
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I don’t have much of a budget for my first homeserver (compared to how much I’ve seen some cost), but I want to build one anyways. Can you please suggest what the best build for the budget would be?

I do have a gaming laptop (as my main computer) with a i5-10300H, GTX1650Ti, 16GB RAM, and have tried running WSL on it but I can’t really allot much in the terms of RAM, and getting Home Assistant running on it has been an issue with networking.

I do have an old MacBook pro and did try to load many Linux distros on it, but the root partition becomes read only. I did think it could be the SSD and got it replaced under warranty, but the issue persists, which makes me think it’s something else.

Thank you for your assistance!

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What are you planning to do with it?

Does the Budget include storage and if so, do you have a need to store X amount of data?

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Running a media server (no transcodes), Navidrome, NextCloud, and other self-hosted stuff.

No.

I’m sorry I forgot to mention this earlier.

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I would advice against using the Macbook for this type of work, since Apple just tries to lock those down…

That laptop might be okay as a server, if you are not going to need a lot of storage, but again, that is currently your main computer.

If you have the budget, I would go with older off the shelf HW
At least 4C, 16GB of RAM, althought that might not be enough, depends really on many variables. So take that for a rough guess.
And I assume you don’t need 99 or 98% uptime, so normal off the shelf HW should be fine.
Just get a case that can fit a lot of drives, 3,5" drives specificly
For me, it is almost easier to just get 2,5" ssd’s, since it is not worth getting 2,5" HDD for server usage, and those really are not availlable here.

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Thanks for the advice! I’ll keep this in mind!

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Getting an older PC, or at least totally new parts is also a good idea
Althought finding a good intel Motherboard is a challenge, at least for me

Maybe a iGPU version of that, so not an F SKU
Another option is older 3rd or 2nd gen Ryzen
Or the 4000-without iGPU

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I was thinking a Ryzen 3200G or a 3400G might be a good option?

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That’s a good basis. Get some old hardware, with spare SATA ports, case with storage bays (future NAS-expansion?) and leave room for an additional NIC. And pick a power-efficient CPU and avoid using discrete GPU (saves slot+power).

Making your old PC your server is common, but buying cheap used stuff is too. Be careful when buying old servers; Noise levels and proprietary/exotic components can make it more trouble than worth.

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I’d go for:

  • Used Supermicro X11 LGA1151 Motherboard (for example X11SSL)
  • Used Xeon E3 12xx V5/V6
  • Used 2x16GB ECC UDIMMs Kit (so you can upgrade to 64 later on)
  • New 400W PSU
  • Used Fractal Node or Define Case

That should fit into your 500 Dollar Budget, be power efficient enough and have all the features needed.

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Thanks for the recommendation!

I do live in India so availability might be lower, but I’ll try to look around for these!

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Will definitely keep that in mind, thanks!

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You can look for X10 (and fitting CPU/RAM) too, but keep in mind you’re dropping from DDR4 to DDR3.

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Thanks. I’ll try to keep it modern, considering DDR3 is rather antiquated now.

Any AMD-based recommendations worth looking at?

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Not anything too specific.
Server Boards for Ryzen are probably out of Budget, so I’d just look around for a good deal if you want to go with it.
3600X seems like a good choice if you can find a good deal with a used board.

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Do you think it’s worth it to go for something super beginner level like a 3200G or a 3400G with a motherboard with many SATA ports?

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“Worth it” is always relative. It’d definitely have enough power to do the typical homeserver tasks, if you want more server features like remote management it’s not the right choice.

I think you can only decide whether it’s worth it yourself. Both the the Supermicro Board and a Ryzen System are good choices.

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Fair enough. I’m kinda new so, if you don’t mind, can you explain to me what the distinct advantages of server-specific hardware would be?

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  • IPMI + HTML5 KVM - you can control the server from another machine via the network, simular to remote desktop
  • More SATA Ports and support of PCIe-Bifurcation + SR-IOV
  • Multiple (often Intel) Network Interfaces which you can use to separate traffic or create a Failover/Aggregate Link
  • Reliability and good software support

Consumer Hardware also has it’s advantages, mostly coming from the fact you can afford to buy much newer Consumer Hardware than Server Hardware.

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I’d just add if you want to use a more commercial Hypervisor, say ESXi it will probably not work with the onboard Realtek NICs that come with most consumer boards, ask me how I know.

And do be careful, 3200G has 8 PCIe lanes, so NVMe + better NIC + RAID/HBA card… it adds up fast. Also B series chipsets tend to turn off all but two onboard SATA ports if you use up all the bandwith.

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Ooo thanks, I was not aware of that! I’ll keep that in mind!