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What really separates a PC from a server? Mainly the hardware, but I guess software too. (self.nostupidquestions)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by whostosay to c/nostupidquestions

52 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In title, can elaborate if needed.

Edit: thanks everyone, I ended up deciding on an m920q for the server.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Features you'll find in the machines you'll get if you order from the "Server" section of Dell's website:

A chassis that fits in a 19 inch rack
Loud, high volume cooling fans and otherwise cooling systems intended to allow the machine to run every component in the box at full power continuously for years on end.
Often, multiple network adapters both for redundancy in case of failure and possibly for increased bandwidth.
Xeon or Epic CPUs with truly large core counts
Large amount of PCIe or other expansion, possibly used for the aforementioned multiple network adapters, ASICs, GPUs for rendering or CUDA type workloads (or increasingly the manufacture of AI slop), etc.
Drive bays for DAYS if it's to be used for storage intensive workloads or as a file server.
Redundant power supplies. As in, most "servers" have two power cables so you can plug them into separate UPSes.

The thing is, what really makes it a "server" is the software it runs, and nearly every computer I own is nine kinds of "server". Take for example my Wi-Fi router, it has a little web server running on board, it hosts a web page I can get to by keying its IP address into a web browser from inside my network to get to its settings. It also runs my LAN's DHCP server. New devices get hooked up to my network and assigned an IP address nine or ten times a year when I decide to play with a Raspberry Pi or ESP32 or something, so it doesn't have a lot to do, but it is providing a service therefore it is a "server."

You want to build "a server at home for media hosting." I've got my movies and such stored on a lower end 2-bay Synology NAS, which is a little box about the size of a toaster that sits on the shelf next to my Wi-Fi router/switch thing. It's got two 3.5" hard disks in it, a little ARM processor, it runs Linux, it can do a lot of things, just, not everything all at once because it'll beat the poor thing's tiny little brain out. They make NASes with beefier x86 CPUs that can do things like run transcoding operations for Plex and shit...I just hose mp4s across my LAN.

A home media server is probably going to sit around most of the day doing basically nothing, then maybe do a bit of work in the evenings when you want to watch a movie or something, and then do basically nothing all night while you're asleep. Consumer grade PC hardware is very much up to the task for that.