I am thinking about buying a home server for a wide range of things. I found some cheap old computers on amazon for around 80-90€. Is it worth it to upgrade them with another stick of ram or a larger SSD? 2 8gb RAM sticks are only around 15€, so that would be 100 in total. But my question is, is it worth it, or is the CPU the limiting factor. Some of them have one from the pentium series. Also, is 15€ for 2x8gb DDR4 RAM normal (not too cheap)? Maybe you have other ideas for a cheap home server. In my case I don’t think a 90€ raspberry pi is worth it
You’d want to also consider, that desktop components were not created for 24/7 usage. My previous motherboard died by overheating south bridge – it likely wouldn’t happen in a desktop usage, but 24/7 didn’t let it cool ever. The chip has a small ‘volcano’ in the middle now.
I’ve never had a problem, running machines for 10 years at a time.
But… I suspect it could easily happen if the cooler wasn’t sufficient or the thermal paste broke down, or the system ran at high CPU for some time.
I’m gonna go check the paste on my old desktop now…