The home server. It's subject to heated debate on Hardware.Info. Opinions differ widely on subjects like the necessity for keeping the design compact, the advantage of hot-swap bays, acceptable energy consumption, how much CPU power is needed, what type of storage and so on. It's safe to say that the "ideal home server" does not exist, because its intended use differs widely among our readers.

This doesn't mean that we can't provide a good guide to effective home servers. There are two options, either you buy one off-the-shelf or you build one yourself. While there are a number of pre-assembled home servers available that have advantages in terms of compact design and price-performance ratio, the seasoned Hardware.Info reader of course prefers building one themselves. Our guide will focus finding the right balance between energy consumption, affordability and expandability.

Power usage is essential. A NAS with two disks and an Atom-based PC will consume less power, but both of these solutions lack the all-important aspect of expandability, so we are more flexible in how much power can be used. Our recommended configuration uses between 35W and 45W. You can achieve lower energy consumption, but at a significant trade-off in terms of processor power and upgrading options. A compromise in other words, like with all our recommended systems.