Understanding server hardware
Server hardware comes in a wide variety of capabilities and prices, ranging from this Dell PowerEdge T40 server up to server farms capable of running a large business.
The
PowerEdge T40 comes with 1TB of storage, which is relatively little for a modern business. But it has three drive bays, which means there's room for a boot drive and a two-drive RAID. You could add two 10TB, $367 Toshiba drives to the T40 and have yourself a very capable starting server.
When you're picking out a home server, keep in mind that you don't need a massively powerful CPU. Most servers come with a 1GB Ethernet connection and that's usually fast enough, especially since most home users will connect over slower Wi-Fi. It's for a similar reason you don't really need SSDs in your server; you won't be sending data fast enough to fully utilize their speed.
But if you want to consider a more powerful class of servers, take a look at the new
Dell PowerEdge T550 Tower Server. It’s a smart choice in terms of its expansion capabilities.