One day when I have some extra bucks I'd try to get a home server running, but the idea of having something eating grid electricity 24/7 doesn't seem to play along well with this 3rd world budget. Are there some foolproof and not so costly off-grid/solar setups to look at (like a Raspberry-based thingy or similar)?

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noname120 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Mac Mini (M1 and later) under Asahi Linux just uses 5 W for a normal workload. If you push it to 100% of CPU it reaches 20 W. That’s very little.

	▲	SchemaLoad 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Only thing is you can't run Proxmox which makes self hosting much better, and you'll be limited to ARM builds, which on server is at least a lot easier than trying to run desktop apps. Modern micro desktops are also fairly power efficient, perhaps not quite as low as the mac, but much lower than a regular gaming desktop idling. Avoid stacking in too many hard drives since each one uses almost as much power as the desktop does at idle.
	▲	atahanacar 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I doubt anyone who is too tight on cash that they have to think about the electricity cost of a home server can afford a Mac.

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imiric 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Your fridge and other home appliances likely use much more power than whatever a small server would. The mini PC in the article is very power efficient. You likely won't notice it in your power bill, regardless of your budget. You could go with a solar-powered setup if you prefer, but IMO for this type of use case it would be overengineering.