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What really separates a PC from a server? Mainly the hardware, but I guess software too.
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this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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Pretty much software. Servers predominately run services that other computers use (web server, file server, etc). PCs may run some of those things as well, which blurs the line, but the software they run is meant for direct usage by the end user (word processing, browser, media player).
Hardware wise, at the high end, the hardware is definitely different, but there is a lot of cross over at the mid and low end. The self-hosting community use a lot of consumer grade PCs as their server hardware.
Gonna copy/paste my other comment because it applies here too, especially the thank you part.
Thanks for the reply. This much I understand, I guess a better way to ask would be, what are the differences in "advertised"(for lack of a better word) server hardware that more effectively accomplish the task of serving?
If I were to build a server at home for media hosting, what are the areas I should focus on? I guess a good example is error correcting memory (hopefully I'm remembering that right)
Is that something that's just going to have slightly better performance or is that crucial? And are there other examples of hardware that I should be focusing on?
For media hosting, you can go an incredibly long way without needing to dip into "server grade" hardware.
An old desktop with a GPU and plenty of storage will be just fine, especially if you are only serving a few clients.
ECC isnt really that important, you'll likely never notice if you get a memory error.
The one major advantage desktop PC hardware has is power usage and noise. They are generally quiet and reasonably power efficient, which matters a lot.
My advice would be to start small on an old desktop, and then upgrade when you actually hit a limitation of your current hardware.
I've used parts from my old PC for my Homeserver. Among other things, it runs Jellyfin. Most of my library can be directly played by most clients, so I need almost no transcoding. Just serving the media uses tiny amounts of ram and compute, and the only bottleneck I could see is a residential Internet connection (I've got symmetrical gigabit, but there's lots of residential gigabit that limits uploads to like 50mpbs).
Yes, ECC memory. If used, then CPU also needs to be able to support it. Then there's number of cores, unless you specifically need high single-core performance. Efficient and reliable PSU, low power-consumption, lots of memory, redundancy for storage. Stuff like that.
None of which are essential, BTW. Any working PC can be made into a server regardless of its hardware.
All server really is is just another PC that's been built with a different purpose in mind. The rest is software configuration. They need to be reliable, scalable, and cost you as little as possible to upkeep.
Even your router is the same. It's all computers.