Current planned use cases are Pi Hole, Bitwarden (password manager) server, probably general network storage and torrenting, whatever other "homelab" things I think of later (which is why the specs probably seem a bit overkill)
Lenovo ThinkCentre mini desktop, eBay refurbished, $184 before tax
8GB RAM, 500GB SSD
Intel Core i5 6th Gen. (they don't specify but I'm assuming it's a 6000 series, which was released in 2016)
Direct link to the listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/293526962748
that's the price of the base config (4GB RAM, 500GB HDD). if you select the options I chose it goes up to $184. though at this point I am considering just getting the base and adding brand new RAM and storage, the overall price stays the same yet I can get more RAM and a brand new SSD with the money saved...
Oh I see. I got an hp slim 290 p0043w
There’s a few of them floating around on eBay you can get one for as low as 100 with patience. It has an m2 slot on the motherboard, and a coffee lake processor which supports hardware transcoding
This dude does a nice overview
https://youtu.be/gFv6s_ANrI0?si=jxHh6nhzFzbXj8bR