How to find a cheap ex company PC based on which Intel generation? (self.newzealand)

submitted 2 years ago by sylverstream to c/newzealand

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I'd like to buy an ex company PC to serve as home server, as an upgrade for my raspberry pi. It should run some selfhosted services like Frigate and Immich, and perhaps Jellyfin. I was thinking to buy an 9th gen Intel or later ex company PC. It should be energy efficient as well.

I tried looking at Trademe but you can't filter on CPU generation. I could search on the exact Intel cpu number but that seems too restrictive. Pbtech is too expensive what I saw. I haven't tried Marketplace but guess that's the same. Some reddit post suggested Dell Optiplex, but no idea how their type numbering works.

Any tips?

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[-] TagMeInSkipIGotThis 1 points 2 years ago

Hmm, now im searching these boxes im wondering if I want to expand my cluster from 3-6 nodes, though I don't know if I have enough room in my rack :)

Here's the Dell & Lenovo varieties:

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/computers/desktops/no-monitor/search?search_string=optiplex%20micro&sort_order=priceasc

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/computers/desktops/no-monitor/search?search_string=thinkcentre%20tiny&sort_order=priceasc

[-] sylverstream 1 points 2 years ago

Thanks! So I'm new to multi nodes self hosting stuff, so far have used a Rpi for everything. With that configuration, can you run everything? Most of the things I want to run are dockerized, but eg pi hole had to be installed directly. Most important is better performance for Frigate (web cam monitoring) and immich (photo and video management).

[-] TagMeInSkipIGotThis 2 points 2 years ago

There'd be a learning curve if you wanted to make a proper cluster; but you don't really have to. The simplest way to augment what you're already doing with the Rpi is to just add another computer as a server and put some of the docker containers on there instead of on the pi. You'd just have to know what IP is for which service, or just setup local DNS via pi-hole and point it to the right IP.