A $120 used laptop became his own home streaming service

A writer for How-To Geek says he built his own home streaming service in one afternoon, using a $120 secondhand HP laptop. Shows play on the living room TV through Plex. Music plays through Jellyfin. The article, by David J. Buck, was published October 21, 2026.

What he bought

The laptop has an 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1115G4 processor, 8 GB of memory and 240 GB of storage. It came with Windows. He replaced that with Linux Mint, a free operating system. He also had a 1 TB Western Digital external drive, bought for $45 a few years ago, to hold more files later. His total came to a bit over $120, hardware included.

How the software is split

Plex and Jellyfin are both media server programs. They keep your video and music files on one computer and play them on other devices. The setup also uses Docker containers, which are small packages that run software separately from the rest of the computer.

• Video: Plex, chosen for its interface and how easy it is to start a show.
• Music: Jellyfin, which he says works well for his own music collection.
• Reach: any device on the home network with a web browser can play the music.

His son, who knows Plex well, set it up and added some shows. In under two minutes, Buck and his wife were watching Disenchantment on the big TV. They later watched The Rookie.

What to know before trying

Storage is the main limit. The laptop's 240 GB meant he had to be picky about which shows to add. The extra drive gives room to grow.

Jellyfin needs the home network set to allow the connection to a phone. He says this is simple if you follow the instructions for your system, but the steps vary. He also says the Jellyfin mobile app is not always reliable. Playing music in Firefox on his phone works well.

Why he did it

Buck was tired of ads and subscription costs. He says Spotify was great until it was not, and YouTube Premium no longer felt worth it because of creator sponsorships. His answer was to go back to his own ripped CDs, downloaded podcasts and shows, all served from home.

One side benefit is that the hardware is not locked in. If he tires of the project, he can reuse the laptop and the external drive for something else.

What the article leaves out

The piece does not cover electricity use, backups or how much a larger library would cost to store. It also describes a writer who already knew both programs well, so a first-timer may need more time than one afternoon.