Benefits from hosting own server?

[Christoffer]

I was wondering if Any of you guys could tell me If there are any benefits from having your own server?

 

[ssc456]

Are you talking strictly a web server?

Also when you say hosting your own are you referring to the machine being physically in your house or a dedicated server hosted by someone else?

If it's physically in your house the only few benefits I can think of are absolute full control over the machine, control over repairs / downtime etc though I say this as a benefit realistically a hosted companies downtime is going to be less than yours because of onsite parts / UPS etc.

So the only other benefit I can think of is cost, if you are looking to host a small low traffic website and by low traffic I mean a dozen hits an hour or so, and your not trying to do anything special and you have at least a 2Mb upload 4 - 8Mb preferable and a static IP address then it is probably the cheapest route out there, I did it myself for many years and would recommend it.

 

[Christoffer]

I was thinking about having my own physical server at home. By benefits I was thinking, what can I use it for? Is it needed?

 

[root]

it depends what you're hosting really.

if you just want a web server to play with an learn coding then this is probably cheaper (assuming a power efficient server) than paying for hosting so that you can play.


if you're trying to learn system admin skills then this is definitely cheaper than buying a dedicated virtual server, or a dedicated server or having someone else host for you.

 

[Christoffer]

Well, what about storage? Is it beneficial to have your own server at home?

 

[ssc456]

Well, what about storage? Is it beneficial to have your own server at home?

Can we just clarify what we are talking about when we say server?

The "server" I had running at home was an old Laptop with a broken screen that when I needed to access it I either RDP'd to it or plugged it into my normal Desktop screen.

This was brilliant, it gave me a cheap web server, print server, a small amount of network storage and a general test machine with a VM I had on there. It worked brilliant, being a laptop it was low power consumption, but then it didn't need to be high performance either for my use. Definitely worth doing.

If you are talking about building what most people call a "server" and having several thousand pounds worth of kit in your home for your home server or even one thousand, then it's probably not worth it, chances are your internet connection will be the limiting factor for anything major and anything smaller, you simply don't need a lot of power.

A small web server and storage server will run fine on any old C2D with 1Gb RAM, if not lower specs! and yes that may well be worth you getting, but it really is down to each individual.

 

[Christoffer]

What about problems regarding overheating?

I was thinking about having my own storage server for my DVD's and such.

Would it be accessible from another computer regardless of where you are?

 

[root]

If you only want storage to access inside your house then look at network attached storage (NAS).

these don't have to be big servers and don't have to be power hungry either.

they range from really simple NAS devices, (I've got a USB disk with a network port, so can either be USB or network storage, cost me £20 from ebay and used an old IDE disk to something that is like a small server where you have RAID protection, the ability to schedule backup tasks, possibility of streaming media programs running on the device.

but of course, the more you want to do then generally the more power hungry, and possibly more expensive the system becomes.

 

[Christoffer]

What type of things can I do with a server?

 

[Christoffer]

How do you prevent overheating?