EDIT: Thank you for all the comments and suggestions! I’m sorry I can’t reply to everything but I have a list now of hardware to look at. I appreciate that everyone has been so helpful! I’ll post an update once I buy one and get it going.
I’ve been running a Plex server for music off my gaming laptop for a few months and (I think) I’m ready to take it further - that is, I’d like to have the server running on its own hardware.
At this point, I’d just be running a music server, but I know I’ll want to add more services.
The first would be something like Google Drive - I’m working with a couple of other people on business plans and I’d love to self-host our files and the software (like LibreOffice) to edit them.
I’m comfortable with the software side and I’m finding lots of options, especially in this community.
The hardware side… I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by all the options and I don’t know enough to judge the search results.
Any recommendations for hardware or links to guides would be appreciated.
I’m a big fan of ipmi so I can remotely manage it. I’d look at one of these now: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/supermicro-superserver-e200-8de300-8d-review/
I don’t really like having to connect a monitor and keyboard when working on my servers now.
Storage is really limited for TV and movies though if you are running Plex.
If you want to host something like libre office, just remember how important backups actually are. If you take the risk of hosting business documents, make sure you do everything necessary to protect them.