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

  • BountifulEggnog [they/them]
    ·
    4 months ago

    Seems expensive for the specs to me. Also no 3.5 inch bays would be a deal breaker for me personally (much harder to get a good amount of space). It looks like 6th gen intel does have h265 encode/decode so that's nice if you want to run plex/jellyfin off it.

    If you really need that form factor, you definitely should just order the 4gb version and buy ram separately. it looks like they want 45 dollars to go from 4 to 8?? Amazon has a 32gb kit for $55, I'd guess you could find cheaper on ebay or if you went for a 16gb kit instead. Here's a 16gb kit for $22 for example.

    edit: Ah, I was looking at it with a 500gb hard drive. I'd still get the min spec and then buy something else for storage. New 500gb ssds on amazon are $30-50. If you went min spec you could get a new, nice ssd and 16gb of ram if you install it yourself for the same price.