I have never homelabbed, and this is going to be my first experience. I want to set up a home server. My current goals are to set up a gallery using Immich, an ad blocker/DNS using Pi-hole, and a cloud service.
I want you to suggest what second-hand PC or laptop I should get. I researched a bit and found out that a PC is better because of 24/7 reliability, better cooling, no risk of laptop battery swelling, easy RAM and storage expandability, and low idle power consumption.
What I think the specs should be for me is 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. And my budget is 10k INR.
I want to hear your thoughts. Thank you! :)
Get a NUC or one of those mini Lenovo things that show up in lots of homelab photos.
This is wrong. Any device with a battery can swell.
Welcome to the hobby! It’ll consume your free time and (if you’re the right kind of person) deliver lots of satisfaction.
M920q
You can get them stupid cheap, they have a pcie slot that will fit a full nic card, have a ton of 3d printed parts for them, and can take nvme drives. Plus run proxmox with ease. They’re also the size of a small novel and are nice and quiet. I grabbed a used on on eBay for $100 tossed in ddr4 laptop ram I had laying around, got the cheap riser card and Intel nic for it. Runs opnsense and has been rock solid for months now. Totally worth it.
Cylindrical cells won’t swell up. They go open circuit if they start building up pressure.