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! :)

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[–] 7 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Get a NUC or one of those mini Lenovo things that show up in lots of homelab photos.

no risk of laptop battery swelling

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.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 days ago

    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.

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