this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2024
24 points (92.9% liked)

Selfhosted

40487 readers
268 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

are there any older ex-office mini PCs like the elitedesk, optiplex, thinkstation, etc models that can fit a 3.5" drive? Not looking for anything new and thus expensive, just want some old junker (6/7/8th gen Intel) that can host some light stuff. thanks

top 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] malios@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] dingdongitsabear@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

yeah, those are too big. was hoping to score an ITX-sized abandonware for cheap and retrofit it with a 10 TB or so drive. I had this thing many moons ago:

it could fit a drive, with some wiggling and swearing. so I figured maybe something similar exists. building it from new parts is way, way out of budget.

edit: this is how it ran for close to a year.

[–] pax0707@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thing is - “mini” PCs old enough to have 3.5 slots are probably way too old to have decent CPUs.

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I have a PC from 2006 it is not "mini" and it has an awful CPU... :(

What would be a good used upgrade with 4x 3.5 bays?

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

just want some old junker (6/7/8th gen Intel)

You probably have to go back further than that for a 3.5" sff pc. Look on woot though, they have such refurbs all the time. Or scrounge a mini tower.

[–] synestine@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

If you can find them the "mini" format Elitedeak has a 3.5" internal bay along with an optical, for what it's worth. It's not as small as a "micro" but it's smaller than a tower, and at my hearby Uni, they go for the same (cheap) prices.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Why 3.5" drive? (Just curious).

I've found prices aren't necessarily any better at that size.

[–] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Not the OP, but capacity: there aren't 20TB 2.5 drives.

(Or 18, 16, 14, 12, or 10TB ones, for that matter....)

Kinda a dead-end product since laptops are all on SSDs, and enterprises have flocked to SSDs as well and that was essentially the entire market for that size of HDD.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Putting that much data on just one drive freaks me out

[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Raid builds hurt financially up front but can save you from a lot of heartache later, even with larger disks.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Totally. I've got an 8TBx4 RAID5 that has about as much space as one 20TB spinning drive, but with the advantage that if one fails I don't lose anything.

Putting 20TB on one drive though? That's too risky for me.

[–] dmention7@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

I mean, 20TB drives will work in an array just as well as 8TB 😉

Honestly with the price of refurb enterprise drives, it's really hard not to justify not going that route and just keeping a spare drive formatted on warm standby at all times.

A bit of a digression though, since OP isn't looking to cram a bunch of drives into an old mini case.

[–] SweetMylk@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's why you use 2 and have backup.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Two is one and one is none.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 0 points 1 week ago

Capacity like that is the only reason I could think of.

[–] dingdongitsabear@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

they are widely available and cheap.

[–] TroublesomeTalker@feddit.uk 1 points 1 week ago

There's a few companies selling a very plasticky mini-pc that also has 2x 3.5" slots. Trialling it now for a homebuilt Nas, so far impressed. Worst problem is that the bigger drives can be noisy.

Aoostar in the US I think.

Tons. Go look for refurb units from any of the big manufacturers, but I doubt you'll get them at steal prices. Have a look at the Minisforum larger format models that are more updated and $250-400. They can fit that and more. The MS-01 is a gem.