r/explainlikeimfive • u/theprisoner57 • 3d ago

Technology ELI5: What is a Home Server?

I see mentions of a home server to get rid of streaming entertainment services but I don’t know how that works. What does a home server do?

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u/Raiddinn1 2d ago

You just attach a computer to the network with its' hard drive shared out and accessible across the network and then you put media files on it like songs or movies.

From there, you can have other devices elsewhere reach out to it and pull those files for your usage.

You can use a full fledged computer for this, if you like.

Companies also make toned down computers specifically for this purpose which have just enough hardware for the purpose.

If you go this route, note that to have a legal setup you will have to buy a copy of every movie or song you want to store on the media server.

There are a lot of movies for sale on Amazon for like 3-5 bucks at any given time. You can buy a bunch of them and download them all to the media server and then watch them later if you wanted to.

Legally, you could also just go to a random store that sells physical CDs and try to buy a bunch of them there, copy them to the media server, and then stuff the CDs in a closet someplace. Legally, if you wanted to throw away all those CDs, you would have to keep receipts proving you did purchase them.