If you can fit your storage on an SSD (or RAID-mirrored pair), and don't need much compute, you can do a low-power server (like to run little services for yourself) using an SBC like a RasPi, or something like a NUC.
Personally, I currently have a couple 1U Atom servers that run fanless except for the Noctua fans that I swapped into the PSUs. Advantages over RasPi include SATA and ECC RAM, and were also easier to buy over Covid. (I also have a 4U GPU server, which is currently off when not in use, because I haven't invested in figuring out how to low-power idle it like the article writer has.)
If you can fit your storage on an SSD (or RAID-mirrored pair), and don't need much compute, you can do a low-power server (like to run little services for yourself) using an SBC like a RasPi, or something like a NUC.
Personally, I currently have a couple 1U Atom servers that run fanless except for the Noctua fans that I swapped into the PSUs. Advantages over RasPi include SATA and ECC RAM, and were also easier to buy over Covid. (I also have a 4U GPU server, which is currently off when not in use, because I haven't invested in figuring out how to low-power idle it like the article writer has.)