Well my story goes:
- Laptop without a screen, windows, manual 'acquisition' of content, single usb 2tb ssd (4 months) - plex only (200$ i think)
- A tiny factor optiplex (with hw acceleration finally), still windows (3 months) - plex + started to use arrs (+200$)
- Switch to ubuntu & docker containers, added two external hdds 12tb + 18 tb (8 months) - plex, jellyfin, self hosted password manager etc + extensive monitoring with prometheus & exporters + everything behind a reverse proxy on own domain with SSO (+800$)
- Bought a huge case, i7 13700k, 64 gigs of ram, 5x12tb exos drives, put all in proxmox on vms, drives in raidz1, designated previous pc and drives as offsite backup (present) - 51+ services, self hosted google photos (immich), drive, usenet (+2500$ or so), plex, jellyfin, multiple arrs for different qualities etc.
So yeah, just start with whatever you have, it'll rip your finances downhill from there :D
yep! :D