I run nextcloud and a few other things comfortably on a pi 5 Not sure how much ram it has I think maybe 4?
this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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If you're only running nextcloud on it, any computer 15 years old or newer, with at least 4GB ram will be able to handle it.
If you want to have a reliable installation, avoid a raspberry pi and get a computer that can take at least two storage drives so that you can set up RAID. Or better yet, mount the storage from a dedicated NAS.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| NAS | Network-Attached Storage |
| NVMe | Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage |
| RAID | Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage |
| SATA | Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage |
| SSD | Solid State Drive mass storage |
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Some HP SFF with 8GB+ and maybe 6th gen or higher would suffice. Spend $100 on a used one which will come with a small SSD. Slap a used 4TB drive in it for storage. Install Debian, Docker and use the NC AIO config.
Don't piss around with a Pi that's going to be twice the price with a tiny SD card (that you shouldn't use for volatile storage), no NVME or SATA, and a tenth of the processing power.
more details about use case plz. how much storage do you think you need, how many users, how many concurrent users, is this a node or the entire server, is this the sole exclusive use case, do you not want to add more services later, etc
And what's your electricity cost per kWh.
Payback time of a Pi 5 vs an old laptop could be well under 2 years depending on where you live
Most computers should be able to run Nextcloud, but to double-check, look at the minimum requirements for Nextcloud. I run my instance using an old laptop I had lying around, and I think it has an 11th gen Intel processor of some kind and 8GB of RAM. It runs fine with plenty of headroom for many other services
I run Nextcloud + Memories plugin on a Pi5 8GB with NVMe with a fanless Argon Neo case. Fast & very stable. One user but it gets quite heavy use.
An alternative you might prefer is a Beelink mini PC which I'm runnin with SSD's. I went for a Beelink EQ14 which i use for stuff like Paperless & Immich plus several other self host softwares. Picked it up cheap about a year ago before the AI nonsense pushed prices high. Frugal with electricity & more powerful than Pi. Ships with Windows which I ditched for Ubuntu Server. I've found it to run like a dream.
Depends if only a few people use it or tens. Then it can range from a potato to a decent oc not older than 8years.