Yes, you can easily do it.

You want to look at 2 things: 1. Noise 2. Ratio of performance / power usage.

1. Noise

When your PC runs 24/7 then it might be annoying to hear it’s noise sometimes. Real server cases are usually even much louder than former PC’s because they are built for super strong air flow inside.

Think carefully what you need. In my situation it is just one light wooden door away from my bed, so I wanted it impossible to hear. I optimized it so, and it ended up being so quiet that I cannot hear any fans, but I hear the clicking of the harddisks all the time. Well, I got used to that, mostly. For my next home server I want to build my own case that absolutely blocks this noise.

2. Ratio of performance / power usage

People are frequently asking what if I turn this old Pentium etc. into a server?

Well, these old CPU’s have very low performance compared to new ones, but it might just be sufficient. But then you recognize that the old veterans burn 100 Watts for the same performance where a modern (low performance) CPU burns only 5 Watts, and now it will do that 24/7. Think about your yearly costs. Many times it turns out that buying a new one saves your money very easily.

A genius :-)

An ESP32 is a powerful thing, but it is also a microcontroller.

They are programmable as soon as you have physical access. They are NOT like whole PC’s that you can lock up with passwords etc.

More like a gun that you can fire as soon as you have physical access.

I wonder where the expectation has come from? People seem to think that it should be different than it is.

Haven’t they said that about magnetic tape as well?

Some 30 years ago?

Isn’t magnetic tape still around? Isn’t even IBM one of the major vendors?