[tpxl]

VS desktop class hardware, the power draw is a giant plus also leading to no or quiet fans. An old laptop, however, has about the same power/performance consumption while including an USP, keyboard, mouse and screen, albeit it is bigger and has no GPIO if you need those.

That being said, I am running a NAS and PiHole on a RPi4B right now and am happy. I am planning on turning an old laptop with busted hinges into a server with a nice housing though. I'm very interested how it's going to pan out :)

Edit: I had a 1U server with 2x intel CPUs (16 threads all in all I think?) with 32G RAM in 2012 or so and it didn't see much use. It was LOUD (small screaming fans that pushed air through the chasis) so it didn't see much use.

[flyinghamster]

Indeed, if I'm going to build a home or small-office server, I want a 4U case, just so I can use fans that are large enough to be reasonably quiet (let's say, 80mm or bigger). Bonus points if it could somehow run 120 or 140 mm fans, but I haven't seen such a beast. I've seen 1U servers in action at a client, and they're horrifyingly loud.

[tpxl]

If you don't really need a rack case, I'd even go as far as to use a normal case with regular Noctua fans. The hardware for PCs is probably more expensive though (plus no ECC, single socket, ...).