You can do a lot better by buying your own modem and router, but that can be expensive. The thing you’re doing right now is a good idea if you don’t want to spend a lot of money, whine at your internet provider and get them to send you a better router.

NetworkChuck

Not really, you’re ideally paying for a server that you have complete control of. The differences are mostly just fundamental limitations.

Example: if you’re hosting off site, you will always be connecting remotely, so your access depends on a network connection. If you’re hosting at home then your stuff is still accessible when your internet goes down

Right, a KVM’s usefulness is narrow and you’re ideally using it as a sort of backup to a backup of critical systems. That means you usually only hear about them in server environments, and that means that sysadmins pay a LOT of money for enterprise-grade KVMs.

But it’s very cool that we can build a dirt cheap, half-decent KVM out of a Pi nowadays. I might have just left mine running if I there wasn’t a Pi shortage; I wanted that Pi for other stuff.

It’s good for critical systems that you might need to reboot and do things like see the BIOS (which you can’t see if you’re using a normal VNC-type remote access solution). It’s probably not necessary for most setups, but it can be very useful in certain situations. I made one myself, then literally never used it, and I’m now using that Pi in a different project.

How bad is your upload speed? Most of my x264 and x265 encodes have a total bitrate of around 1.5-2 Mbps. You can’t stream that without transcoding?

Also, have you LOOKED at transcode quality from the other side? It looks TERRIBLE, and it doesn’t significantly reduce your bitrate. I’m telling you, whatever math Plex does to decide whether or not to transcode is USELESS. I’ve seen it transcode x264 videos (that definitely didn’t need to be transcoded) and send them to friends at a HIGHER bitrate, it’s legit insane.

Do what works for you, but Plex transcoding is a bad “feature” that should be avoided at all costs.

EDIT: I’m far from the only one noticing this, the common wisdom is that Plex clients are telling your server to transcode, even when it’s not necessary, and there’s not much you can do about it other than fully turning transcoding off.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/ojsspo/help_finding_out_why_plex_is_choosing_to/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/ugu0rg/how_to_avoid_transcoding_as_much_as_possible/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/13qrknp/plex_transcoding_when_it_shouldnt_advice_please/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/uxu4v6/transcoding_when_it_shouldnt_be/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/crhw8r/why_is_plex_transcoding_when_it_doesnt_need_to/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/9qade9/how_do_i_avoid_transcoding_as_much_as_possible/

It’s only limiting if you’re doing things that need more RAM and faster drive speeds (most people are not). Of course, if you need more, don’t buy this thing? I didn’t say it was great for EVERYBODY.

Handbrake

You can convert most movies to 1080p x265 and it takes up a little over a gigabyte of space. If you’re already hosting 4K movies, why do you give a shit about another gigabyte? If you’re NOT hosting 4K movies, then you have ZERO reason to transcode, just make everything 1080p and call it a day.

Also, transcoding DOES cost you money, your electric bill goes up, even if you don’t track it or care. So spend the extra fifty bucks on a few extra terabytes now rather than spending it over the course of several months transcoding. And if you cut out transcoding, you can run Plex on VERY cheap hardware, so that saves you money too.

Transcoding. Is. Dumb.

Most Macs are overpriced, but the $599 M2 Mac Mini is an absolute STEAL compared to the rest of their lineup. And its existence drives the price of used Mac Minis down, which is also great.

Don’t transcode on Plex if you can avoid it. It’s very compute-intensive and it makes your streams look like shit. Convert your videos to nice formats that most people can direct play (like x264 or x265) and turn transcoding off. It’ll keep your hardware running longer, keep your electric bill down, and your streams will look better. Win-win-win-win.

HomeAssistant will easily run on a Pi, it’s Nextcloud that needs more horsepower.

Makes sense. It’s always a good idea to start with a cheap solution just to get comfortable. Then, if you decide to push things further and upgrade you’ll be more informed about what hardware you might need.

What makes you think other servers aren’t having similar problems?

(spoiler alert: they all are, lemmy is an immature platform)

No problem. Another really good option is to get something brand new like a ZimaBoard (don’t bother with the 2GB of RAM version). It uses very little power and runs perfectly with CasaOS, which is a linux distro designed to make self-hosting dead simple. It will cost you more up front but will likely save you some money in the long run (after a couple years) because it uses less power.

Try this

Oh, looks like Lemmy is breaking it for some reason. I just searched eBay for “Dell SFF”.

That’s an antique. The list of stuff you want to run probably needs several gigabytes of RAM. I think Nextcloud alone needs 512MB. I’d recommend newer hardware, you can find stuff on ebay for under $100 that would be a LOT more powerful than what you have.

I was under the impression that it’s mostly Raspberry Pi stuff out of stock nowadays, and similar boards from Odroid and Orange Pi are easier to find? I see both of those in stock at Amazon right now, though I don’t know the exact models you want.

This is a tool for hosting pirated games. It’s not meant to be safe for work or kids.

I get that the name is offensive, but it doesn’t really matter. They’re not going to hire a marketing team and do an IPO.

Also, the name makes sense. It’s a pipe to transport cracked games.