I wanted to echo this by saying that my lab stated as 4 bay Qnap NAS and evolved into repurposed consumer hardware as my interests and needs changed. My current server is an Optiplex that I bought for being small, quiet, and hanging lots of cores and my NAS is just my old gaming PC build with an HBA card (for extra SATA lanes) stuffed into a fancy case. A server is any computer that you say is a server (ideally one with functional network connectivity).

Boost’s ads are mostly there to support the developer, but a one time purchase ($5 irrc) absolutely makes them go away.