Make Money with Home Server?

[MainStageNews]

I have a home media server running FreeNAS that is pretty much just being used for Plex and Syncthing. Is there any way that I can easily allow others to use some of my free storage? I could possible do things like host websites for people but I would have to market that. Is there anything that I could easily start doing?

 

Also sorry if this is in the wrong forum section. I didn't know where else it would fit.

[cox1000]

To my knowledge there is a project currently under development that would support this. Although I haven't looked into it a great deal personally, storj.io. It was mentioned on the wan show a while back.

[paprikman]

You won't benefit much from it, even if you will at all (from personal experience).

[burnttoastnice]

I have a home media server running FreeNAS that is pretty much just being used for Plex and Syncthing. Is there any way that I can easily allow others to use some of my free storage? I could possible do things like host websites for people but I would have to market that. Is there anything that I could easily start doing?

I host websites for a bunch of people I knowknow and trust but for free. I dont personally see the biggest challenge as marketing, but security(People using PHP/ASP etc. to access parts of the system that they shouldn't) as well as backups etc.

On my server I have both a mirrored backup as well as automatic monthly archives of each website's root folder. I use Linux so automatic backups are simple as a cron-job (On windows, the equivalent would be Task Scheduler). I also have the mirrored backup drive unmounted but plugged inin all the time.

As for making money, you should be able to offer some of your processing power to others' projects. Or, you can still take on web hosting.

[Sir Asvald]

I have a home media server running FreeNAS that is pretty much just being used for Plex and Syncthing. Is there any way that I can easily allow others to use some of my free storage? I could possible do things like host websites for people but I would have to market that. Is there anything that I could easily start doing?

Also sorry if this is in the wrong forum section. I didn't know where else it would fit.

I wouldn't do it. You'll need to get a domain name, plus some SSL certificates. Also running servers at home won't be the best thing, because you'll be paying so much for electricity costs a lot. Plus you'll need to get business line Internet because the amount of traffic that will receive is so much.

I've done my share of home servers, I made profit, but since stopped, to much maintenance and work on them. I decided to move them to a datacenter, costs around £200 per month.

[dzonidev]

I have a home media server running FreeNAS that is pretty much just being used for Plex and Syncthing. Is there any way that I can easily allow others to use some of my free storage? I could possible do things like host websites for people but I would have to market that. Is there anything that I could easily start doing?

 

Also sorry if this is in the wrong forum section. I didn't know where else it would fit.

 

I've seen this question a couple of times here.

 

Hosting from home on a home grade internet connection, is a big no no. First of all, your home connection likely has at least 5m of downtime every day, 35m a week and 30h a year which comes to around 99.5% uptime, excluding maintenance, drops, etc. You probably have a dynamic IP, meaning your IP changes every day or week, which means your clients would have to update their DNS every time your IP changes. There is Dynamic DNS, but you should add another 5m/day to that uptime calculation. Then there is the chance of DDoS attacks, which brings up another topic, ISP suspension, devices breaking, etc.

 

This is just internet related. There's a whole other topic on Electricity Usage, Hardware, Security and ISP Policies.

[Nixellion]

I know it's old, but this was #1 in my google search, so I'll post anyway, in case someone find it useful.

 

I just wanted to address a bit of misinformation that's going on in this thread.

 

While I agree that commercial hosting on a home-grade connection may not be a very good idea, It's still not as simple and not true for the whole world.

For example here in Russia a 100\100 mbit unlimited connection is quite standard for home users. Getting a static IP is just 1-2$ a month. And it's not expensive to up that connection to 300\300 or even 500\500. I hear that it's similar for Europe. It's just US that's a bit behind on this front. Sorry, guys.

 

You also don't need to pay for domain name if you're hosting websites for other people. THEY have to get their own domain names and just point their DNS at your IP.

 

Speaking about electricity - you're already running a home server for plex\nas, so it's already there. Hosting some websites will not add much to that.

 

And managing SSL certificates is a breeze with Let's Encrypt and certbot. Just run a script once, and set a cron job to renew it every few days or month.

 

You can easily add a security level by running your hosting services on a virtual machine. They won't get any access to the host. And you can back that VM up daily, for example.

 

 

DDoS attacks are more of a concern, however.

 

 

There's lots of people out there who hold huge servers at home, just check /r/homelab on reddit.

 

I hope this answer will encourage people to at least put more time into researching this instead of dismissing this idea completely.

 

My verdict would be that sure, you won't be able to host some large websites with lots of users, etc. But it can be possible to host some online services and websites for smaller groups of people, that can be commercial in nature. And it all depends on prices. I recently had to move away from a few big-name hosting provides (granted - cheap), because downtime was like... 50% of the time :D

 

I'd say best way would be to ask friends around, and host websites and services for people you know. But you would not be able to compete with big hosting providers.