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Under $100 Pre-Owned Mini Computers to Use as Desktop PC's and Servers in 2023
- mtVessel 3y agoMini PCs, not Mini Computers. TFA is not talking about vaxen.
- hdjjhhvvhga 3y agoDo people still use this terminology?
- anotherhue 3y agoI've wheeled a VAX about so it's not unheard of. Likely a generational distinction.
- gasgiant 3y agoYes. I clicked because I thought I was going to read about nutcases running PDP-11s under their desks. I was disappointed.
- NikkiA 3y ago> PDP-11s under their desks DEC released at least 3 all-in-one desktop PDP-11s, the PDT series that were housed in VT100 cases. Plus even the 11/84 isn't really that much bigger than a modern mini-tower PC.
- pkulak 3y agoThese are amazing options for relatives who need a computer. One of these things with Linux + Firefox will basically cover everything. I haven’t totally settled on the distro at the moment. Something immutable, so things can’t go wrong during updates, but you also want something established that you know will be providing updates for a very long time. I’m trying out Nix for this purpose at the moment. There is no graphical App Store for the OS, but if you set up FlatHub then there is. We’ll see how it goes.
- morjom 3y agoWhat about BTRFS with snapshotting? Makes it easy to recover from faulty updates or when you do a small oopsie (for me, atleast)
- booi 3y agoI'm not sure i can teach my mom how to... restore a BTRFS snapshot...
- diffeomorphism 3y agoPretty easily. That is all nicely integrated out of the box with stuff like snapper. So: if borked, press down arrow for "previous version", Enter, done.
- pkulak 3y agoI’ve never been able to get the boot loader included in Snapper. Maybe I’d use OpenSUSE, since it think that’s exactly what the installer does.
- tga 3y agoFedora Silverblue is immutable and should be easier to manage than Nix: https://fedoraproject.org/en/silverblue/ https://fedoraproject.org/en/silverblue/
- pkulak 3y agoYeah, that’s the other big option. But I’d want to go with something like UBlue for codec support and other niceties, and I just don’t know if they will still be building images every week in 5 years. I could always rebase back to normal Silverblue if something happened though.
- rahimnathwani 3y ago"With electricity prices around 12 cents per killowatt-hour in many places in the United States," Here in SF, we pay about 3x that.
- tornato7 3y agoHere in San Diego we have the most expensive electricity in the entire United States[1] because of SDGE's monopoly. 1. https://www.cbs8.com/article/money/amped/san-diego-has-the-highest-electricity-rates-in-the-country/509-b33c2aa1-5414-431d-a060-273059f1e0da https://www.cbs8.com/article/money/amped/san-diego-has-the-h...
- tornato7 3y agoI've seen M1 Mac Minis for sale under $200. With Asahi Linux that could be a very fast and energy efficient home server.
- sgerenser 3y agoWhere? I’d be surprised even a well used one would go for that low. Unless it’s a Craigslist/FB marketplace scam.
- tornato7 3y agoYeah... It might be a scam. I haven't tried to buy one.
- hdjjhhvvhga 3y agoAre you sure they are M1?
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoThey are locked and useless, aren't they? Usually dead giveaway is "parts only" note.
- walthamstow 3y agoThat's some price. I haven't seen them under 375 GBP on eBay UK.
- rewmie 3y ago> I've seen M1 Mac Minis for sale under $200. Are you sure they weren't scams?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- _2z1p 3y agoI just checked...Apple will give me $330 for mine if I traded it in today. That has to be a scam.
- squarefoot 3y agoThe article doesn't mention used chromeboxes. They're ordinary PCs in everything except that Google locks them in order to force users into ChromeOS, but most of them can be easily liberated and repurposed. For further info: https://mrchromebox.tech/ https://mrchromebox.tech/ Older models are very easy to unlock and their SSD+RAM aren't soldered, so they're easily expandable too. They're also excellent as media players in their stock configuration (4GB RAM,16 GB SSD). 2 years ago I upgraded my Raspberry Pi 4 based Kodi box to a used CN62 Chromebox which I paid roughly half of the RPi cost (and runs circles wrt performance and stability around it) and never looked back. Now I own several of them, mostly HP, Asus, Acer; unlocked all of them and installed different Linux distros with full success.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago> For further info: https://mrchromebox.tech/ https://mrchromebox.tech/ Tangent - Why is this static site using JavaScript as replacement for regular HTML links?
- micheljansen 3y agoI have been running an old HP thin client (I think either a t510 or t520). It’s holding up surprisingly well as a general purpose home server. It is low power, completely silent, comes with 16GB onboard SSD and loads of ports. I’ve added two SATA ports using a cheap extension module from AliExpress, but it also comes with 4 USB ports for external storage.
- anyoneamous 3y agoMy Thinkcentre just died an early death - only had it 3 years from new. With that I think my time of having a bunch of devices at home to tinker with is coming to an end - just running a couple of VPS instances in Vultr or Hetzner is less hassle.
- anotherhue 3y agoLikewise, though my thinkcentres live on. Hard to argue with hetzner prices and bandwidth.
- 28304283409234 3y agoI use secondhand Thinkpads. Always a keyboard and screen ready. And battery saved me a number of times when power needed to be cut in th house for maintenance.
- grudg3 3y agoThat's great, and yeah I've thought about how much sense this makes too, but how can I attach 4x HDDs using SATA3 to an old laptop to function as a NAS? That's my only dilemma.
- 28304283409234 3y ago4xhdd on a nas deserves pro level equipment. Not secondhand knock offs. Either do it well, or do it simple. I choose simple.
- jaredhallen 3y agoI don't know. I run 6x cheap SSD's on and old LSI card plugged into my ancient i5. Works fine.
- justinclift 3y agoMaybe look at second hand HP Microserver's on Ebay (or similar)? The ancient G7 ("Generation 7") ones are dirty cheap, fit 4X SATA hard drives, and use something like 12 watts of power. The newer G8 ("Generation 8") ones are significantly higher performance, but also draw a lot more power. Socketed cpu's though, so they can be changed (as I've done). :) They don't have in-built battery backup though, unlike laptops.
- willsmith72 3y agoI'm always so tempted to get a cheapy pc as an alternative to my 2017 MacBook when I'm home, it gets too hot and slow when I use it all day. But I love having 2 monitors too much, don't really have space for 2 external ones
- yurishimo 3y agoYou’d be better served upgrading the MacBook. All of the hype you’ve been hearing about since the M1 release is absolutely real. They are extremely powerful, quiet, and efficient machines assuming your target workflow is not 3D graphics.
- JuanPosadas 3y agoFun fact: an external monitor turns on the GPU and all Intel macbooks have terrible thermals even before you turn the GPU on. The new M1 thermals are amazing and performance is often the same/better. Caveat: not all M1/M2 macbooks can do 2 external monitors, aggressively verify if this important.
- 3np 3y agoservethehome.com has been talking extensively about the Dell/HP/Lenovo varieties in their TinyMiniMicro series. They also have a bit of coverage on even more affordable and bang-for-buck Mini PCs typically sourced through AliExpress. You typically don't find these on the secondary market (yet) but if buying new is an option you can get a decent Ryzen barebone for ~$300.
- dangus 3y agoI’m not sure why the author brought up used Apple TVs without even mentioning Mac minis. The 2012 Mac mini has two 2.5” drive slots, replaceable RAM, a quad-core processor, low idle power consumption, it’s quiet, and you can upgrade it to the latest macOS with OpenCore Legacy patcher. The cost is around $100. Chrome Remote Desktop and Jump Desktop are two good ways to access the GUI over the network, or of course you can use SSH or install Linux if you’d like. It’s probably not the most cost/performance efficient option but if you have any need to run macOS it’s a good choice.
- stevezsa8 3y agoI think it's amazing what you can get these days in terms of used desktops. I've been down that route many times. In fact, all my machines are workstations work was throwing out each refresh cycle. So I didn't even pay. Just had to get myself an SSD. If you have the money and expect to use it as a reliable primary machine, I'd personally spend the extra $500 and build a new machine. Life is better with faster USB ports and CPU fans that don't rattle :] But used machines are great for testing and tinkering.
- rewmie 3y agoI have a Beelink SEi8. That little guy kicks serious ass, and cost me around $300. It's slightly larger than a Raspberry Pi 4, and supports up to 32GB of RAM. I see people talking about the Mac Mini, but it can't hold a candle to these micro boxes from the likes of Beelink and Minisforum.
- creer 3y agoHow easy has it become to spin up a sleeping linux desktop in response to something monitored by a very-low-power SBC or laptop? - Occasional decent performance box spun up only as needed - but reliably? ... looking into this thread from 3 months ago: Making a Linux home server sleep on idle and wake on demand – the simple way (dgross.ca) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35627107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35627107 Except I remember it now: that seemed just a bit overly involved. Any simpler? ... And another one from 4 months ago: Using Wake on LAN (WOL) Across the Internet (2010) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35447094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35447094 where one answer seemed to be to use a smart plug. Simpler.