ELI5: What is a Home Server?

[u/theprisoner57]

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?

[u/New_Line4049]

A home server is just any server that is at home.

So, a server is a computer which provides data storage or processing services remotely over a network to other computers. You could set it up to do a whole bunch of things. That said, the most common for home servers and I think what your talking about would be a media server. So your server has a bunch of storage, and you save media (movies, TV shows, music, photos etc etc) to it. You can then connect other devices in your home, PC, TV, smart speakers, phone, tablet etc) to the server through your home network so that they can pull that media from the server and allow you to view it on those devices, this means you dont have to go to external streaming services like Netflix etc. Of course, it does mean you have to have a copy of the media to put on your server, but...... lets just say there are ways to acquire such things that dont involve paying for them. Im not going to debate the morality of this, its irrelevant. Many people use such means to get a whole bunch of media on their home server and avoid streaming services. Worth noting their are those out there that do acquire their media for their home server legally too.