Home Server Setup - Turn your old PC into a useful home server

[@RaidOwl]

🔥 Check out this week's BEST DEALS in PC Gaming from Best Buy: shop-links.co/cgDzeydlH34

[@realchicagophill]

What can I do with a computer with a q6600 in it? Still runs like a champ.

[@justrosy5]

My parents have my dusty old PC, that doesn't work anymore. The specs are 30 years out of date. Struggling to find a realistic updated replacement online. They're price gouging everywhere. I really do want to do this though. What's the best way to go about finding a new-to-me "dusty old PC"? (Other than eBay, whose customer service is so horrid, when the seller doesn't send all the parts they were "selling", that I won't buy on eBay anymore.) Update to this at my WordPress blog, under the name "JustRosy's Blog."

[@LHCB6]

I'm not going to cater to Linux nerds... ...You're first step on Windows 10 is to make sure that Windows has Linux because that's what Docker runs on. Love it.

[@RaidOwl]

😜😜😜

[@N7TWL]

Love being a Linux Nerd!

[@cooky842]

A kidney ain't enough for a top of the line GPU anymore... We need to raise the price of kidneys, too many people selling them for a GPU theses days

[@RaidOwl]

*Googles which organs a human can survive without*

[@32bit_mo]

Pump and dump baby

[@lance_c1323]

1 Kidney and 10 bags of blood maybe

[@AL-Hanafi1]

Sell your balls 😂

[@TechnoTim]

Great video! I love old PC servers, and new, and well, all servers!

[@RaidOwl]

Thanks, Tim! I've yet to meet a server that I wouldn't bring home to meet the parents lol

[@omarashraf27]

This is hands down the best "beginner server building" video I've ever seen so far get to the point, show you the first steps you need to start and doesn't bother you with unnecessary overwhelming details that make you feel lost

[@ethancollinsworth3927]

this video is shit, im an actual beginner, and he just straight up leaves out information, redirects you to other videos which leave out information you cant find after youve paid money for software/website urls.

[@DO-fb5gb]

Bro, thank you so mcuh for making creating a server and hosting a website so simple and easy. I do not think i have ever followed any tutorial that so simple to follow!! Keep up the great work!!!

[@yoelb13]

I am a Newbie and thought this was easy to follow. I do appreciate people who can teach in a simple manner---->means the guy knows what his talking about.

[@ToneXpore]

can you as well host a database and access it online ?

[@jasonpoole5059]

Been doing research on making a home server/test DayZ server for months and your prerequisite section is the most easily understandable explanation of picking an appropriate OS. thank you!

[@FuzzyCow777]

What did you go with?

[@GabrielM01]

what a hidden gem, this guys jokes and honesty is amazing

[@RaidOwl]

We keep it real over here 💪🏼

[@dj_paultuk7052]

I recently got an old Dell T110 II server. Its the size of a PC but man what a spec !. 8 Core Xeon, 32GB RAM, And SATA ports for 8 drives. Ive put ESXi on it with the Dell customised build. 6 Drives in a RAID10 , plus a SSD as a ESX cache drive And running pfsense, pi-hole, freenas, Unifi controller, all virtualised. Absolutely brilliant, wish i had done this years ago.

[@RaidOwl]

Dude that’s a sick setup! I gotta try ESXI next. It’s like the only major hypervisor OS I haven’t gotten to.

[@the_terrorizer]

Already an IT pro (or so I think) that works with esxi and docker daily, but this gave some great inspiration for my old PC. Thanks

[@chrisbuhneing3194]

I had an old quad core system with 16gb of ram, I did add four 4tb drives in raid and 500gb ssd for the OS, this is setup a simple file storage server and I use TrueNAS and it works perfect for my needs.

[@michaelj8637]

I offered my kidney but they wanted my first born son as well. Thank you for this video! It was just what I was looking for!

[@JeffreyBaconBacon]

This video is great. I've watched a bunch of videos about setting up my own server, but this is the only one that guided me through the process step-by-step. Thank you!

[@hsfournier]

Thank you so much! Yesterday I was ready to throw my old PC out the window. Every How To article and video I tried to follow seemed to end in glitches, and trying to find fixes got even more complicated. None of them used Docker, which made everything very easy. All I wanted to do was share files and test a few things on a web server. 🎉

[@nddulac]

This is a very useful video - thanks! I have been running my own home linux servers since the early 2000s, but I feel like my server chops are stuck in 15 years ago. A video like this is really helpful to lower the activation barrier to moving to Docker for a curmudgeon like myself. Thanks!

[@ryanriddell8376]

I resemble this comment.

[@marc_tucker]

Thanks so much for this video. I've been trying to understand Docker, even on a basic level, and every other video I've watched has been too advanced for me with Linux only command prompts and not a concise explanation of what is actually going on. This was super helpful in terms of understanding the differences in why you might want to consider hosting a server outside of Windows for Virtual Machines, allocating resources to specific containers for specific functions/services, etc. I'm not a coder, but I'm interested in tinkering with some home server possibilities and this was both the clarity and step-by-step guide I needed to learn how to get started in Windows with a familiar interface. Thank you!

[@bett0diaz]

Your videos are getting better and better! Greetings from Argentina!

[@JustinRampage]

Wow. LOVED this video. Thanks so much. I’m getting ready to turn my mini-pc into a Plex server. I’m a beginner to all of this. Thanks!!!

[@OPatron24]

Wow how insightful, I actually wanted to learn docker in a more practical sense and I must say this walkthrough is clear and concise. Thank you for your time and wisdom!

[@LL-ue3ek]

good video but it is not for very beginners as you indicated in the start of the video. The pace is too fast without more detailed explanations for each step. I think true beginners would need to find something with a bit more description.

[@mr.c6674]

I was beginning to think I was the only one thinking this. The video starts off slower with great explanations, but he then gets on a roll that only those with experience can keep up with. I wish content creators would stop apologizing for making longer videos when educating viewers. It's quite ridiculous because to learn as "a beginner" often requires a slow long pace of explanations. Hence, long video!

[@davepetro5676]

As a electrician I have a 100 or 200 Digital Video Recorder with terabytes 50 to 200 of memory for close circuit Tv system sitting in my garage The camera system used tons of storage. The commercials customer just want bigger memory and compact size DVR recorders and don’t want the old DVR recorders. These companies want petabytes memory or bigger they have plenty of money to spend and say keep the old stuff I remove For DVR camera system now. Can I used them to start a servers room I have don’t know how to program a computer. I installed termite cat 5, cat6, cat 7 shielded, cat8, install ternate fiber lines , termite HDMI ends. And can install the rack and power but program a computer I’m useless.

[@Znargelmaff]

24 minutes _is_ brief and to the point. More longform content please, less youtube minimum length algorithm optimizations! Keep up the good work and thank you!

[@sunglint]

Kick Rocks! Great intro, really enjoyed the vid.

[@kennethdarlington]

Why not like Ubuntu server with the lxc/lxd containers and maybe 1 or 2 virtual machines on the host for the docker? I'm genuinely interested. Keep up the good work!👍

[@IndellableHatesHandles]

A file server only really needs 1 core. I recommend a Skylake or newer processor with 1 core enabled, since Skylake is both really cheap and still pretty power-efficient.

[@TruthBelow]

Deserves more likes 👍👍 Explanation and walkthrough succeds in being useful, clear and simple while avoiding being boring and monotone

[@TheIbwahooka]

@Raid Owl just subscibed to your channel after watching this video. I'm in the process of doing this to my old PC and this is exactly what I was looking for! I'm going to check out your other videos about the various hypervisor OSes.

[@RaidOwl]

Awesome! Hope they help out

[@benoitcloutier6228]

Quick question though …. Why bother installing Proxmox if you’re going to install Ubuntu server and Docker? Why not « just » install Ubuntu server bare metal (for that old pc I mean) why add the overhead? Oh and by the way. Just nit picking here: to my knowledge, OMV and Truenas are not hypervisors…. They are just OS’s that can run containers or jails…. Just like Windows or Linux Server you used as an example. Great video by the way.

[@RaidOwl]

Just to expose yourself to a hypervisor os and give you the option to easily add other VMs and stuff. I meant for the video to just show the basics of getting set up. If I would have shown everything you can add I’d probably still be filming haha.

[@benoitcloutier6228]

@@RaidOwl Great answer. You know what, one advantage of using a Hypervisor that I have yet to see is the ease of use in adding multiple virtual nic interface to the containers and VM’s. This is an easy way to traverse multiple VLan’s for one machine… Like for example your Home Assistant box, can have one NIC in Vlan 10 and the other in Vlan 20. This reduces greatly the complexity of the firewall rules and the packet management the firewall needs to process drops significantly. Same for the camera’s Vlan vs the NVR software. Anyway … just saying, maybe a video opportunity? Food for thought.

[@RaidOwl]

@@benoitcloutier6228 Yeah fore sure. I have a video that kinda touches that (Turn your PC into a Router).

[@aer0449]

Man I saw the best video out there ... Thank you so much my friend ❤

[@alexgoris1653]

I m 12 seconds into the video and had to pause........wtf is going on with this intro? Love it lol

[@e.sannicolas5939]

Great presentation and instructions, thankyou so much. I am going to build a server from one of my old PC, based on your instructions, for all my devices to use for media and data sharing across all my devices and remote storage..

[@janetbayford133]

Wow,this is so interesting. I learned so much.

[@JerryNeutron]

Annnd done...repurposed an old Ryzen 3 1300X, 16GB RAM and bought 3 4TB WD Red Plus drives. Now running Unraid on my first ever home server. Looks like a gaming PC though, kinda weird

[@RaidOwl]

Lol I like the Unraid GUI. It definitely feels more inviting than Proxmox.

[@XolaniMaseko-hr9rl]

How is that old that's relatively new hardware

[@TastyTrees916]

Hey man, this is cool. Thanks for doing this. I want to learn more about linux, but this makes self hosting a lot less intimidating to me and makes linux seem more inviting now.

[@discombubulate2256]

sweet, now i have somewhere to store my happy videos that i can access from my phone next time i'm alone in my hotel room in singapore. 👍

[@maneeshnanu2778]

Thanks Raid Owl. This was a very useful tutorial. I am not a devops guy and setting server was not my thing. But this video helped me set the server up and running. I am using the first approach.(though I am planning later to change it to Proxmox as suggested in the second half of the video. Though I am facing issue in accessing my mongo container. couldn't find much documents or videos on setting up of container and accessing it outside of the server itself.

[@absurdbird3556]

Just one small correction... if you sell your kidneys, they remove them through your lower back, if they went through the front they'd have to get through the abdominal muscles, past the stomach, intestines liver and colon. It could involve a lot of poop. From the back there's basically just skin, fat and kidneys.

[@jtykka]

What has been seen cannot be unseen...

[@RaidOwl]

You’re welcome

[@JoshuaRegan]

That intro was pretty good

[@SantoValentino]

Thanks. I’m learning all this stuff for my older pc

[@mat_max]

I would love if you made a video explaining what security measures should we take for this home servers for both local network only and public setups

[@isaiahash9697]

Thats one of the issues i have with making a server. do i know enough to make it secure???

[@original12310]

Interested as well

[@dylanjam]

Great video man and digging the bayside tee!

[@RaidOwl]

Best band ever

[@pacoreguenga]

Thank you very much for this video, I've been holding from trying containers until now becasuse thought they needed much more power. My current jellyfin media server runs on a Core2Quad Q6600 based old pavillion with 8gb ram, 512gb system drive and 32Tb of internal storage space and 8 TB external. I'm running a bare metal windows 11 jellyfin server and feel I should try containers to run another tasks more efficiently, such as a cloud storage for example. New subscriber here!

[@cooky842]

Saved it, gonna try this this weekend on my Ubuntu server VM :)

[@antmck33]

Oooh, new RaidOwl video ....... Go on then!!

[@nivethanyogarajah1493]

It will definitely be a sacrifice to the tech god

[@arvidjayal9304]

Excellent tutorial. Thank you. Saved me hours of research.

[@cliffcmac7878]

Your tutorial on turning your old computer into a server was excellent. Will you do a tutorial on how to store Nest Cam video footage onto the newly created server? I was able to partition the hard drive so one of the drives could be used for video storage. However, I got stuck on how to transfer the videos onto the designated drive for video play back?

[@nduri2]

another excellent guide, this channel never disappoints

[@carlospcpro]

This is sick! Way more what I was looking for! Thanks!

[@JasonsLabVideos]

Good video, this is how all of us get addicted to servers and stuff in the house ! Except i'm addicted to 10g Fibre all over the house.

[@RaidOwl]

Man I ran 10Gb CAT6a to like 2 rooms and that was enough for me haha

[@JasonsLabVideos]

@@RaidOwl I went Fiber, much easier cheaper. Next purchase is a Mikrotik 8port 10g switch for extra 10g ports.

[@JasonsLabVideos]

@Todd Starbuck 10 Gig ! Note the "G"

[@zeke3366]

You’re hilarious, content is great. Love it. Subscribed!

[@ironwolfusa]

The kidney shot was a hoot!

[@RaidOwl]

🦉🦉🦉

[@Kreemerz]

Been thinking of doing this for some time now. This really helps. I just want to run 3 other laptop client machines.

[@walderfranco]

Excelente video BRO. Thank you so much bro

[@Anuitu2u]

For average users, home lab server need a keyword, and in my opinion, the keyword is efficiency. For average users, the homelab server is not for gaming, need to run 24/7 and quiet, also modest. Therefore, 1. No need for GPU, 2. No need for super power CPU, use the low TDP (T code or L code CPU) but supply lot of core and thread. 3. No need for server grade jet engine cooling fan. 4. Raid is but expensive, better use SSD and a lot backup location.

[@louisbertini]

Dude, I really enjoy your content....

[@MrSweetpoeticjustice]

I almost turned from the video but 4:36 in and you made me a fan and i subbed hahaha

[@runrunsomethings5229]

This was a real cruch course. Thanks soo much

[@ITWithZad]

Am use an older motherboard with 6 SATA plugs paired with AMD Athlon(tm) II x2 250 and 8 gigs of RAM to run openmediavault (OMV). I used 1 of the SATA plugs for my NAS OS and remaining five for my data drives (4TB each).

[@notiau]

4:20 "get over it nerd" just gets me

[@nicozica]

Thanks for this great video Brett!! Very interesting as well as your channel. I managed to get the docker thing running on my modest Asus Intel J1900I-C with 8gb of RAM. Cheers bro!

[@RaidOwl]

Awesome! Cheers to learning. If you need help feel free to join the Raid Owl discord!

[@jasonmollett5308]

Love the shirt. Did you pick that up in Denver?

[@DavidErato]

I just did this. I practiced using Unraid on a pc my parents no longer use. It’s so old, I had to replace the battery inside.

[@RaidOwl]

lol good as new!

[@germulhall8668]

Excellent video

[@kevinhughes9801]

Great vid pleased to see ur getting subs u deserve great content thanks

[@speedsrj]

Very direct explanation

[@steelfalconx2000]

Just picked up an optional from eBay, 8 threads 24gigs of RAM. I'm hoping to say least run a Minecraft server and pfsense in proxmox. Maybe pihole would be cool too.

[@anon2036]

It's actually power consumption I'm worried about. I've got an old haswell i5 strapped to a (potentially volatile) old 650 watt psu.

[@flhrci1]

Awesome comedic editing! Funny while informative.

[@alanwolf313]

Hey man, nice video. Just a question: what would I need for accessing the nextcloud container created on computer A, from another computer through LAN, let's say computer B. I'm kind of a beginner in the topic, so I appreciate the help

[@mackjay1777]

Hi, very informative and witty! If I already have Plex server running on my old PC is that enough, or will I need Docker and the other programs you tell us about? I'm very new to the server thing, less than a year with Plex and liking it a lot. The old PC runs Plex server for media and I access on the TV.

[@roxfire23]

I’ve always ran windows server standard editions and had no issues 💁🏻‍♂️

[@jserr9682]

great video ....I did a sacrifice to the tech gods for this video lol

[@1964catt]

I am using my old pc just as a file storage, but need to do some registry edits to enable remote desktop cause my old pc dues not have windows 8.1 pro, also I just use the default windows network file sharing thing as a local file storage so no installing any programs, I just need it to run without a monitor and keyboard or mouse

[@jcrdeveloper6242]

The future you don't have pc but a service to access applications NICE

[@TrueNAS]

Hilarious! Keep em coming!

[@newart88]

Great video tutorial. Thanks

[@davepetro5676]

Watch your video I’m lost on your computer program. My laptop I used windows 2003 my computer and I have no problem and it not slow at all. I used for billing people and burg and fire alarm program and that it. My wife has a Apple computer I get confused try to used it so I keep with my old computer.

[@kychemclass5850]

Hi thank you for the informative and entertaining video :D Can I as.... The server with Docker and Nextcloud... does it/they always have to be connected to the internet to run the home network? Thank you.

[@RaidOwl]

Nope, they can still provide services on your local network without an internet connection

[@GrumpyStoic]

I got totally confused after we installed Portainer as this wasn't setup to use Nextcloud right? Plus you mentioned Windows Docker wasn't the best, but Portainer is still running using Windows Docker is it not? I closed Windows Docker but then (as I suspected) the Nextcloud and Portainer containers weren't available. Feel like I'm missing something here. First half of video was great, second half I'm left feeling confused. Edit: I tried running docker start container from Powershell which worked, but only if Docker Desktop was running. I am SO confused. I thought Portainer was instead of Docker desktop. (I'm in Windows 10 Pro)

[@minhnguyenanh6027]

this is useful thanks for sharing this.

[@Asrock73]

Have an old dell pc that I turned into a Plex server and made a Time Machine drive. Initially went with Truenas core, that was a disaster, Time Machine drive worked great but not apps would install at all, just time out during the install. After 2 weeks of fighting it I moved to truenas scale and everything worked just fine. Still don’t understand the failure with scale, wish I did for my own curiosity.

[@SPLaholic]

Debian 11 with webserver and Jellyfin. 32Gig of Ram, cheap old Nvidia card, 8TB hard drives, Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2

[@RaidOwl]

Hell yeah 💪🏼

[@ReshamPanth]

As always, love your videos! Quick question - Let's say I am building a system that I want to use as my workstation (Windows 10) while I'm working on it, and while I'm not working on it use it for NextCloud, Plex and Docker and all that. How do you suggest I can do that?🤔

[@ReshamPanth]

I know I can create a windows container on Proxmox, but accessing windows via VNC or RDP doesn't sound that exciting compared to the native experience!

[@RaidOwl]

If you have a GPU in the system you could pass the GPU and your USB mouse/keyboard to a Windows 10 VM and set it start on boot. You would then be able to plug in your monitor and use your keyboard/mouse as if you were using a regular ole Windows 10 machine.

[@ReshamPanth]

@@RaidOwl woah! Now that's what I wanted to know!

[@tractorman7733]

0:53- I mean I have a home server but I like watching these vids for additional ideas, advice and entertainment. That said, I would like to point out, based on my personal experience with proxmox, the server would fail to boot after a hard disk that was made usable was removed. This concerned me as I was running a software raid z10 pool and I didn't know how I could recover the pool if I couldn't boot the OS. This is the reason why im running hardware raid. This makes it so that the OS never sees the physical hard disks in the server, instead it sees a virtual disk.

[@john3622]

Great Video & I really like the channel, I've been looking for something like this for a while. Tried it out last weekend on an old laptop. Docker installed fine so did Nextcloud & Portainer. Was able to access next cloud on the laptop I installed Docker on via LocalHost:8080, but not from any other machine on my LAN. Tried via Firefox & chrome also tried using the IP assigned by my router to the server / old laptop. NOt using a VPN and have turned off the windows firewall on the server Laptop. But still I just get "Unable to connect " in my browser. I know I'm completely new at this so I'm sure it's something basic I've overlooked. Any Suggestions / Advice ? Thanks !

[@wildcatrugby4670]

For me I had to open the port on the firewall. I cannot get the trusted domain added though to Nextcloud.

[@peterschmidt9942]

The video wasn't what I was expecting (but in a good way). But I am a little confused? So you're using docker because all the installs will be the same no matter what OS you're running correct? Although I suppose you could still just run any of the applications (like cloud servers etc) on any OS by just installing it without using docker?

[@RaidOwl]

Correct, I mentioned that most software can be installed to whichever OS you want so most of the time it just comes down to preference. I like Docker as it's a consistent experience across every platform, but others may feel differently. I'm glad you enjoyed the video, though!

[@peterschmidt9942]

@@RaidOwl Thanks for the clarification. I've only ever run a QNAP server, so I'm used to just installing an app and setting to run if I want it running on startup. Although I've switched to Linux a while back and getting comfy with that. So thought about creating my own server as the QNAP is hanging on by a thread and only a matter of time before it dies LOL.

[@itsmegareth9663]

Ive just done this with some spare parts. All i needed to buy was a cheap gpu and 1 ram stick, cost about £64. Using it for plex only. Is it safe to leave it running 24/7?

[@Gaspode-uj8jt]

Great shirt!

[@Bodneyblue]

Ah!...an "old pc"...which is better than than the pc I am using.

[@notreallyme425]

Is there an advantage to installing Docker as a container on Proxmox, versus just using the containers (CT) option in Proxmox and skipping Docker? Is it for the compatibility you mention at 22:34?

[@RaidOwl]

Yeah you can certainly use the Proxmox containers for your services but I just like using Docker to keep things consistent .

[@FlyboyHelosim]

I was gonna say, that seemed like an unnecessary step.

[@doggogaming9288]

The only reason why I even clicked on this video was just for finding something to do with my old dusty PC

[@normanziegelmeyer7693]

I have a spare computer with windows and a software raid of about 6gb that I want to use as storage. Would using as a server instead of just a mapped drive be significantly faster? I want to be able to use windows when necessary, I use a boot manager (Bootit) and can have two occurences of windows on the machine. Thanks

[@rayrivera57]

What? I am learning, I think. Thank you.

[@jerwal83]

Great video and very funny.

[@RaidOwl]

Thanks!

[@lilmsgs]

No, I tuned in to see what kind of server I would possibly want at home.

[@RaidOwl]

Ok

[@jean-claudelaurin4180]

It's funny how each time you say "it's super easy" it gets more complicated. :P

[@RaidOwl]

He’s onto me…

[@STEVEN-h7r5m]

Thanks for you video

[@BertM3]

If you are going with Windows, why not a server OS like Windows server? You can download a free version of windows server. Then you can add a lot of native services. Also you don'w have any of the bloatware that comes with Windows 10.

[@RaidOwl]

I’m going with Windows 10 in the video because that’s what most people have already installed when they want to convert their PC to a home server.