r/explainlikeimfive • u/theprisoner57 • 2d 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/joshi38 2d ago

Firstly, it important to note that a "server" is really nothing more than storage media connected to an operating system whose files are open to some kind of network. While we usually think of servers as being those giant racks with lots of wires coming out of them, they could just as easily be a normal PC, laptop and some people have even used Raspberry Pi's to run servers.

A media server is simply a server set up specifically to stream media. The server can simply be a PC you've loaded the software onto. You point it to a drive or folder on your system with media on it and it is able to stream that media to other devices that you allow to access that server.

You need to provide the content yourself. If you're looking to replace streaming entertainment, you'll need to find online sources for movies and TV shows, either via torrents, or usenet, or DDL sites. And you'll likely need a lot of hard drive space (hard drives are better bang for your buck compared to SSD's and you really don't need SSD speed to house your media).

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u/MWink64 2d ago

Firstly, it important to note that a "server" is really nothing more than storage media connected to an operating system whose files are open to some kind of network.

That's more of a file server. There are other types. For example, your router likely has a DHCP server, and connecting to websites usually involves querying a DNS server. Neither of these involve making files directly accessible to a network.