So a bit of background on why I even looked into this.
I had about a two week gap between jobs recently and I just wanted to reset, find something to do with my time. I stumbled across home servers and it kind of clicked for me straight away.
The reason being, I was just getting sick of subscriptions. Like genuinely sick of them. Apple Music, Netflix, iCloud… it’s just one after another and you don’t even notice how much it adds up. Netflix alone is like £20 a month. That’s £240 a year. Over five years that’s over a £1,000! and the moment you cancel, what do you actually have? Nothing. All that money and you don’t own a single thing.
It’s funny because we’ve almost gone full circle. Back in the day you could own your CDs, your Blu-rays, your games. That’s still technically possible but it’s kind of being phased out slowly isn’t it. And we’ve all just gone along with it.
I didn’t really want to anymore. So I looked into making my own home server.
What is a home server?
It’s basically just a device that lives at your house, stays on 24/7, and runs your own services. Music, movies, photos, files, all stored and streamed from your own hardware. No subscriptions, no third party, no “sorry our servers are down.”
You can literally use an old laptop for this. Whatever you’ve got lying around.
How I researched it
I started on Reddit and Facebook just to get my head around what people actually meant by a home server and what different setups looked like. Once I had a rough idea I started using Claude to go deeper, figuring out what hardware I’d need, how much storage made sense, what software to run.
That’s the thing with home servers, it depends on you. If you’ve got loads of media you need more storage. If you’re running loads of services you need more RAM. For me the right fit was a Lenovo ThinkCentre off eBay for £100. It came with 8GB RAM and a 256GB NVMe already in it. I then added:
Another 8GB RAM stick — £20 off eBay
A 4TB external hard drive — £80 from Argos (bought new, didn’t want to risk a dodgy used drive) An ethernet cable — £10
Total: around £210.
One thing people don’t always mention, think about where you’re putting it. It’s going to be on all the time so it can’t be somewhere warm or it’ll just deteriorate over time. Mine’s near the stairs, cool spot, out of the way. Works perfectly.
The setup
I put Ubuntu Server on it. It’s different to Windows but it’s the right choice for this kind of thing, it just handles running services really well.
The main concept that makes everything work is Docker. Basically instead of all your different apps and services getting mixed up with each other, Docker keeps them in their own little containers. So if one thing updates or breaks it doesn’t affect anything else. Really clean way to run things. You don’t need to worry about this as Claude gave me all the code to do it correctly.
For movies and TV I use Jellyfin, the interface is actually really nice. For music I downloaded an app on iOS, pointed it at the server and that was it. All my music, streamable from wherever I am.
Where Claude came in
It wasn’t just “give me a setup guide.” It was back and forth the whole way through.
I’d find a RAM stick on eBay, screenshot it, send it to Claude and ask if it was compatible. I’d get an error in the terminal and just paste it in. I’d describe what I was trying to do and ask how to approach it.
The terminal is basically how you control everything on a home server and if you’ve never used it before it can feel a bit much. But having Claude explain what each command actually does made it click pretty fast.
One thing I will say, if Claude starts going in loops on a problem, just start a new chat.
Happened to me a few times. I just start a new chat when AI starts losing it.
The one proper hiccup I had: I was trying to set up a VPN on the server and it ended up locking me out of remote access completely. Had to go downstairs, plug a monitor back in and sort it from there. Annoying but a good lesson. Whenever you’re messing with remote access settings, always have a physical backup plan.
SSH
Once everything’s set up you don’t need a monitor on the server anymore. I use SSH which basically lets me log into the ThinkCentre’s terminal from my MacBook. The ThinkCentre just sits downstairs with no screen, ethernet in, powered on. If I need to make any changes I just SSH into it from wherever I am.
Sounds technical but its not if you use GPT or Claude or whatever.
Was it worth it?
It’s been about two months now and it’s been running without any issues. I’ll make that £210 back within the first year just from not paying Apple Music and Netflix. After that it’s just saving money, and the setup should last me till 2030 easily.
But honestly more than the money it’s just the ownership thing. It’s my stuff, on my hardware, in my house. Nobody can take it away from me and I’m not dependent on anyone else’s servers being up.
You don’t need to be a tech person to do this. You just need a bit of patience and the willingness to ask questions. Whether that’s you using Reddit, YouTube or Claude. If you hit a wall there’s always someone who’s hit the same wall before you.
Cost breakdown
£100 eBay Lenovo ThinkCentre (used) 8GB RAM
256gb Nvme memory (Enough for music but not for media/photos)
£110 Argos 4TB HHD WD external drive
£10 Ethernet Cable
£20 8gb DDR4 ram
Total £240 Software: Ubuntu Server · Docker · Jellyfin
Any questions just email me — link’s on the contact page.
Disclaimer : I did lot’s of researching to get the right gear, nearly ended up getting the wrong RAM, I have added commision enabled links to some of the equipment which i could find but honestly get a good feel for any items before buying.
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