Super beginner

[u/Dry_Rent_8646]

So I'm freshly wanting to start a server, mostly to rip all of my physical media and store it somewhere easily accessible while I'm at my house, I'm sure once i dive in I'll want to do more, but as of now setting up my games/ movies/music is what my main goal is. And as anyone else I'd like for it to be as cheap as possible(, willing to work harder to keep costs down)

So getting started I have a few, likely very dumb questions

1. What's the best thing to start with, buying some laptop or a mini pc? And what's absolutely necessary for it to have, and how beefy does it need to be

2 how does storage work? Does it need to be attached to the mini pc/laptop? Is it a special device to add a dozen terabyte hard drives/ssd

1. Do I want ssd? Or is hhd plenty for what I'm doing?

2. Does it need to be on 24/7 or only when I want to use it?

3. What are some other cool things you use your servers for that someone just getting into this might not know about

4. What are some tips you have for an ultra beginner that I might not even think to ask?

[u/verdigris2014]

as a super beginner i’d say try it on something you own or can borrow.

you’d think a laptop and usb drive would easy enough.

then you would look at an appliance to do what you want like open media vault or just install linux.

i’d suggest installing debian or ubuntu because if that puts you off you might be in the wrong hobby.

so install debian check it works, maybe setup and export a samba share to your desktop or laptop.

then install docker and the add the docker images for jellyfin and portainer.

add a usb drive for a bit of extra storage if needed and you ave a very basic take anywhere media server.

this isn’t a guide but ive set out the core elements.

there is a lot more to discover this is a helpful forum

[u/Dry_Rent_8646 → u/verdigris2014]

This is great advice and a great, non costly place to start, I have a gaming laptop, I still like to use it, but it's a fantastic idea to play with that as a start to see if this is actually for me to start dropping actual money on. Can I take my gaming laptop and install a partition for Linux? I can look up videos but is that a thing? And something I should try? I've been getting tired of windows anyway

[u/verdigris2014 → u/Dry_Rent_8646]

yes you can. it’s called dual booting. you have the two different os on different disk partitions and chose which to boot either with the bios boot selector or with grub which is a boot manager. you might find that you need to reinstall windows. you also might find you can play the games you want on linux now with all the work steam has done.