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
Welcome to the club!
The build sounds good, and yes a little bit overkill. I host way more on much older gear, comfortably. For "homelab" stuff I wouldn't buy a Xeon like the other commenter said lmao, you're not going to like your bills. That's way too overkill as you're mostly likely going to be memory-bound, not CPU-bound.
Just for reference, I have ~65 containers running and using ~8 GB RAM. I started with 8 GB and added another 8 GB to have a bigger buffer, and to try out new stuff from time to time.
In general, don't worry about hardware too much, get what is within your budget to build up knowledge and skills. You will figure out what you need later down the line.
Also, I prefer Adguard Home over Pi Hole, and check out Vaultwarden, the community Rust version of Bitwarden as well.
I'm rethinking the storage and might just go for 1TB HDD, which brings the price down to $151. Not just for lower price/more storage, but because considering all this is used, I don't know how many cycles the SSD has on it. Do you think this would be a good or bad idea?
New HDD or used?
HDDs are a lot more sensitive to travel/shaking, I wouldn't buy one that isn't brand new from a legitimate store. Or if you're running a used one, then run two mirrored so you're not boned when it dies.
Used SSDs you can check the wear level after it comes to know how much you should trust it. HDDs are more of a toss-up.
I think it's still good to go with the HDD instead. You can always later get M.2 SSD with a USB enclosure if you run "busier" databases that will benefit from faster speeds. They're small enough to dangle from USB ports.
When you go refurbished it's always luck when it comes to any type of storage. My server's root fs runs on an SSD that's like 10 years old, yet I bought second hand hard drives that are 4 years old and they were broken beyond repair.
Make sure to backup your stuff regardless.
You can do better. Look up "8 core Xeon workstation" on ebay, you'll find cheaper machines with more ram and disk
I'm intentionally getting a mini PC because I don't have a lot of space. also most of those seem to not have built in wifi, which I need
It’s a fine start. The computer is a thinkcenter m710q, here is Lenovos interactive user guide and hardware maintenance manual.
You get: two stocks of ram, one nvme device, one 2.5 inch sata device.
I think you’ll be happy with the cheapest base configuration, once space or memory begins to become an issue you’ll most likely install an nvme for the os and incoming scratch space and put the biggest spinning hard drive possible in and get on the ram upgrade train.
The problem you’ll run into is that there are no options for internal storage expansion. There’s no place to plug in a drive controller that could handle more drives, so even if you transplanted the motherboard in a bigger case, there’s way to attach more storage to it internally.
That means you can’t stuff more drives into there without replacing most of the computer.
It’s not the end of the world, and just meant you’ll need to use external usb drive bays or drives to add more storage or make what you do have redundant in some way. Or scoop someone’s old gaming rig sans video card and make that your storage server and let the thinkcenter do other stuff.
E: I wasn’t thinking laterally enough. You could mount it in a new case with long enough standoffs to use an nvme to 6xsata adapter and have plenty of storage.
Check out this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/204486213478
It has an 8th gen CPU but smaller SSD. The CPU is also a T model. That particular one will mean your system will idle at around 10W of power, which is pretty fantastic.
Good idea to get an enterprise mini PC but that one's overpriced! You should be able to get at least an 8th gen processor for that price.
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.
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
well for anyone curious I wound up getting this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/195795479442
much lower price, newer CPU (8th gen i5 instead of 6th gen), same amount of RAM, same storage but HDD instead of SSD
I'm probably going to start out using it as is but eventually upgrade the storage to a 1TB SSD and maybe at that point a 16GB RAM kit will be less than $30
That's about what I have, though with 16GB of RAM. I run a lot more stuff than you mention, though.
Excellent choice, I have basically that but in a NUC form factor.
