I am looking to get into self hosting, for setting up a simple plex + nextcloud server. However I also would like to buy a nice desktop pc soon which I would like to access at at least two locations, I think I should be able to combine this with a home server but I unsure what the best way to do this/what are the right software tools for this. The situation currently is: I have a television in my living room on which me and my partner regularly game (for now using an hdmi cable and a shitty laptop) and we have a study room where we work and play games involving a keyboard (currently also on laptop). I would like to be able to access the compute of the desktop in both locations, for this I see two options:
- Setup a small mini pc that is also connected to the tv, use it to always run nextcloud + plex, set the main pc in the study and use steam link to forward just games to the tv.
- Put the pc in the living room connected to the tv and use it as a home server, and setup a small pc in the study connected to the monitors and other peripherals. Then connect to the main pc with a different tool.
Option 1 seems more simple but a bit limited, while option 2 should give a more powerful home server but also increase power draw (I have been thinking if there could be a good solution to this using wake-on-lan when it is not in use) but also needing a more refined way of connecting the two pcs. For sharing the computational power I have found steamlink, a remote desktop (like anydesk/teamviewer), and I have some experience with using SSH which is nice for coding but doesn’t seem to work well for anything graphical. Any advice or insight what would be a good way to set this up would be appreciated!
I would get a cheap MinisForum/Beelink mini-pc with an i5 and install Yunohost, or Casaos, or Cosmos or something like that, really easy to install, use and maintain.
To access the PC, just add a Wireguard server to your mini-pc server, set wireguard client on the PC, AND and you’re ready.
I got this one for around US$360 and added a SATA 4TB SSD to it, running all my services out of it and have yet to see it hit 50W.
MINISFORUM Mini PC NAB6 Lite Intel Core i5-12600H,12 Cores 16 Threads,up to 4.7GHz 32GB RAM DDR4 512GB PCIe4.0 SSD Dual 2.5 G RJ45 LAN Mini Desktop Computer,2 x HDMI,7 x USB Port,WiFi 6,BT5.2 https://a.co/d/a5BzT7t