All-in-one server at home or rent one?

[Takeo]

Hey folks!

 

I've been thinking about getting myself a NAS system as a media storage for a while now. Additionally, a few friends and I are now intending to build up a gaming server for ourselves which led me to following question:

Would you recommend building a media/website/gaming server at home? I keep thinking that buying the hardware once will be cheaper than renting a root server for at least two years.

 

 

PS: This topic has to do with several forum areas. Since networking is the main topic though, I thought I'd put it here.

[Paralectic]

Building one yourself is cheaper in the long run, fun to build and it's completely yours!

[acidydragon]

Building one has a higher price to entry, but ends up cheaper in the long run.

Renting one has a lower cost to entry, but ends up more expensive in the long run.

 

If you can front the cost, build one, if not, rent one.

[ShadowCaptain]

For a home server, build it

=doesnt cost much to build or run, doenst need to be upgraded

 

For a game server, rent it

=expensive to build, expensive to run, needs upgrading 

[xXxYOLOxSWAGxXx_420BlazeIt]

For a home server, build it

=doesnt cost much to build or run, doenst need to be upgraded

 

For a game server, rent it

=expensive to build, expensive to run, needs upgrading 

That makes literally no sense at all.

[ShadowCaptain]

That makes literally no sense at all.

 

What I mean is, for most uses a super basic atom pc would hand file server tasks around the home, it would consume very little power, be super cheap to build, and even in 5/10 years it will still probably be sat there doing the same thing pending nothing failing

 

In contrast lets say I wanted to build a 64 person battlefield 4 server, or a dayz server, it would need much higher end components, it would consume alot more power if its on 24/7, if people are constantly playing on it, then it isnt really going to be sat at idle all day like a file server is. also as new games come out it will have to be upgraded in order to meet the requirements,

 

A rented server is normally super high spec, has no running costs, has close to 100% uptime, no maintenance costs or upgrade costs

 

For example, I can rent a 12core server with 12 gbs of ram for like  £20 a month, so over 2 years thats £480, 

 

lets buy a dual 2011 cpu motherboard £400, 2x 4930k, thats £800, 12gb of ram £100 - £1300 thats like 6 years worth of renting, and we havnt even added all of the compnents in, or taken into account electricity costs, or parts failure, or that maybe a different game come that requires different server configurations

 

Thats just my 2 cents, you can rent game servers SUPER cheap , I have just seen a site letting you rent a 4 player minecraft server for £3.20 a month!!!

 

EDIT: also means your entire bandwidth isnt taken up with people connecting, and they server probably has a super fast connection

 

Sure if all you want is to run a server every now and again for a few friends, then a home build is way better, but renting can be very cheap

[Takeo]

Thank you for the fast response. I appreciate your replies. 

 

The overall opinion here seems to be tending to building a home server. Since we are not going to play the latest games we won't need the highest end system. The costs shouldn't be that high, but that's something for a topic in another section.