Well just be sure to remove the GPU, don’t install a GUI and turn on every power saving option on the BIOS / disable hardware you don’t need etc. If you’ve a watt-meter it will make the task easy as you’ll be able to see how much power you can cut back with BIOS tweaks. Sometimes (but not always) even disabling CPU cores helps.
DIY gives you more flexibility, but also more maintenance.
More maintenance? Setup is harder for sure, but after that no more maintenance required if you don’t feel like it. To be frank the amount of maintenance is usually corelated with the amount of crap you install. a TrueNAS Scale will run just fine, maintenance free most likely for more than 5 years, however a clean Debian install with a simple Samba server (install via apt-get install) + FileBrowser (webUI file explorer) will last indefinitely without maintenance. Simple tools fail less.
replace my current aging gaming PC and was thinking id make this one actually just be the server. I have a closet that shockingly has a power outlet and everything that would be amazing for that.
Oh yeah, you’re set, no need to look further. Use that hardware, better than having it laying around end up on a garbage pile. If that’s a gamming PC it should be way overkill for what you need but it will get the job done.
Side note: obviously a HP Mini with an i5 8th gen mobile CPU will be more power efficient but does it really matter? The difference between a 45W or 100W CPU running at idle won’t be that much (they both will downscale to a lower speed like 800Mhz or 1Ghz). Even if the desktop wastes more it will most likely be something like 4 or 5$ more per year to run it so it isn’t worth it to spend more money on a new machine while you’ve that one around.
Pro tip: remove the GPU from the machine AND if it has integrated graphics don’t run a GUI on it - this will greatly reduce the power consumption of the machine. In fact by not having a GPU installed and not having a GUI running you’ll save more power than by replacing that machine with one of those mini units I suggested.
Debian version is the only one that seems reliable enough but, again, it is Debian, the packages are “old”.
Install Debian, then install all the software you might need using Flatpak. There you go, solid and stable OS with the latest of with little to no effort. Bonus extra security.
Build it yourself, avoid proprietary solutions. If you’re after power efficiency go with some ARM board with PCI/M2 slot to use as SATA ports, if you want more performance and want to run a few services on it, get a second hand computer like an HP mini or even a full desktop.
I what would recommend is instead a Mini-PC like the HP EliteDesk 800 G2 DM or the Dell OptiPlex 3050 Micro.
If you plan to create a small NAS for storage and self-host a few services even an old laptop will do it, however there are advantages to picking a mini PC. Those machines are quiet, don’t require much power and some can even fit a 2.5" hard drive so you won’t need external hard drive enclosures.
Mini-PCs are also cheap second hand, you might be able to get an 8th Gen Intel CPU for 100-200€. Sometimes you’ll find really old models (i3 CPU + 4 GB of RAM) selling for 50€ and while those aren’t usable anymore as a Windows desktop they’re are still more than enough to run your NAS/Cloud solution. I would pick something 6th gen or more recent.
For eg. for 100€ you can find an HP Mini with an i5 8th gen + 16GB of ram + 256GB NVME that obviously has a case, a LOT of I/O, PCIe (m2) comes with a power adapter and outperforms a RPi5 in all possible ways. Note that the RPi5 8GB of ram will cost you 80€ + case + power adapter + cable + bullshit adapter + SD card + whatever else money grab - the Pi isn’t just a good option. Aside from the big brands like HP and Dell there are other alternatives such as the trendy MINISFORUM however their BIOS comes out of the factory with weird bugs and the hardware isn’t as reliable - missing ESD protection on USB in some models and whatnot.
A very important thing for you to consider is the storage / hard drive interface. On a Pi you’re usually constrained to USB for your hard drives, however on a Mini PCs you’ve the following options:
USB Storage - is slower and USB isn’t very robust, not recommended, the only advantage here is that you don’t have to DIY anything;
Some of those machines come with a SATA port and space for a 2.5" hard drive, either use it a single drive if you don’t need much storage or get a 5 SATA port card to expand it;
Recent models come with a NVME M.2. slot (PCIe) and that can be turned into 6 SATA ports with a cheap adapter like this.
In both SATA cases you just have to throw NAS hard drives and a cheap power supply at it and you’ll be done. SATA is faster and way more reliable than USB for storage, it won’t randomly disconnect and you will be able to take full advantage of the disks, no speed limitations like in a typical USB connections. Personally I would pick model that has both the SATA connector and the NVME slot and then use the SATA connector for a small 2.5" SSD (boot drive) and the NVME with the adapter above for the NAS hard drives - this option will give you the best performance.
Software: run barebones Debian and install everything from scratch OR use something already made like TrueNAS Scale or OpenMediaVault.
Now suddenly, there are embedded Raspberry Pis and ESP32s doing realtime facial recognition and video feeds.
Oh yes, you can buy an ESP32-S2 for 2$ and run with Python or something higher level than C and get something that would’ve done with an AVR in days quickly up and running in hours. It is the brand new world of hardware is cheaper than developer time and nobody knows how to code anything and read datasheets anymore. Also there’s the trend of cloud-backed platforms like PlatformIO that essentially make it so you can’t ever develop anything completely offline and become hostage of some provider, ecosystem etc.
Something that might interest you is ESPHome and HomeAssistant. Heads you, you can now flash a microcontroller (be ir an Arduino/AVR or ESP) from a Chromium browser :).
Use XFCE for a day and then come back here and talk about performance. Not that I like XFCE’s crude approach to thing but it is indeed fast and BS free.
horizontal virtual workspaces are a major paradigm shift somehow
Yes. I also consider the removal of desktop icons, the default change to going into the activity view and whatnot important shifts and attempts at reinventing things.
Yes because constant flashy animations that get between you and the task is the definition of “extremely productive”. The same goes for themes made with CSS and other web technologies and their absolute top notch performance. “Extremely productivity” is clicking a button and getting the window/panel/icon or whatever in front of you before your brain can even register the event, not a 2 second fade in followed by another equally excruciating fade-out animation.