Well I started out with a Gateway Solo and set it up in server form, now I have the same computer with upgraded hardware, more RAM, wireless access, and Linux OS. I am using it to store clients files, and it doesn't take up much space nor time. What about you?
122 Dual Intel 2.8-3.2's custom built with 12 gigs of memory each running FreeBSD sitting on 5 racks in a local datacenter. Plus the associated routers, switches and backup servers. Are you asking for advice or is this a bragging thread?
Oh, ok. Actually I started out with a T1 into my apartment way back when. The telephone switch office was about 30 feet from my back door. Loop fee was like $10 a month. That was onto a pair of home built servers, one runnign Wildcat on Windows 95 (and then NT) and a redhat linux running as a file server and site hoster. Learned a lot. Like how much it annoyed my ex.
I ran a site which had around 20 users on at the same time using my laptop, celeron with 256MB of RAM. I used my home connection. My home connection actually performed well considering it was something like 256kbps upstream.