One thing I never really understand is how much grunt do I need from a computer to self host a podcast and Fedi/Nostr services (as a single user instance/relay operator)

In music land it was always the case that you needed as much processing power as you could afford… and then more, up until the Mac M1 machines dropped and I haven’t really struggled with CPU since.

How much strain does it put on a machine for say 100 people to access the show at one time? I’m intending to get a newer machine (currently on a pretty basic i5 I bought secondhand for £200).

Storage is the most immediate issue I think I’ll run into but maybe I’m missing something (eg braincells).

I’m planning to get another machine, build it up slowly in my own time in CLI (this itself will be quite challenging for me) then switch machines when the time is right. Not sure if this is really a question but I welcome feedback from people who actually know about this stuff. What are the key things I should be looking out for? I’ll be looking out for bargains on eBay mostly and, excluding storage, looking to spend around £250.

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If the machine is hosted on consumer internet in your shed then you're likely to hit bandwidth issues before you really suffer much from CPU power. Just uploading files for users to download isn't very demanding on your CPU really, especially if it's mostly the same files so they're cached well.

Thanks Pre, that’s the part I’m really unsure of. I currently have a decent plan with my ISP (although they often seem to fuck around in the early hours). I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the download figures since switching from Peertube, whilst that obviously doesn’t mean active listeners, Castopod seems to provide a better experience and I’ve yet to get DMs/messages about stuff not working, which was the case with Peertube.

The hardest issue now seems likely Yunohost issues that I can’t solve as most instructions involve straight CLI set ups.