Dell Optiplex are tiny, absurdly cheap computers that are a great first step for self-hosting out of your house.
Why? Businesses and schools buy hundreds of these at once and then "liquidate" them a few years later. Therefore they're way cheaper than regular PCs for their specs.
For less than the cheapest smartphone you can own a small slice of the Internet.
This is what i use. 👏
Optiplex maxi checking in. Really is a great place to start for self-hosting and I have a few opti-plexes in my house that run a few different things.
I've just bought one with 16Gb ram and 1Tb ssd. I'll run proxmox for a bitcoin node and others self-hosting stuff..
Good advice! But the Lenovo Tiny Clients are built better 😎 I may have a few 😬
I have a few of these as well 😁
How's one? Can't find this in South Africa. Optiplex, sure but the same one op posted is starting at 80 usdt.
Lol
80 bucks for an optiplex honestly still is not bad, as long as it comes with an i5 or better (gen 7 and up ideally) and has at least some ram and storage included. The Lenovo’s I like to run are the M75q. That’s the best price-to-performance imo. But most any model will work for just running a node or a few lightweight virtual machines. That goes for dell, lenovo, or even HP
yeah we're not spoilt for range here, the most available is optiplex systems
Spend the extra hundred bucks for better storage though, you’d only be able to run a pruned node with this
These make GREAT Bitcoin nodes and Nostr relays.
What you think about umbrel?
Everyone will tell you that it’s “overpriced” — and it is (along with Start9 servers) but if you want plug and play and think of it as supporting a cause, then I think it’s reasonable.
After trying out StartOS by nostr:npub126ntw5mnermmj0znhjhgdk8lh2af72sm8qfzq48umdlnhaj9kuns3le9ll, I don't think I would install nostr:npub1aghreq2dpz3h3799hrawev5gf5zc2kt4ch9ykhp9utt0jd3gdu2qtlmhct anymore. Plus, I saw somewhere that the Umbrel nodes ping back to their servers over clearnet exposing your IP address, therefore, your actual address (if not using a VPN on your router). Hopefully they reply so that they can clear this up if that's not true.
Quite a few people will have made the journey from building and managing their own PCs to using a Mac. Once you’re there there’s no worry about managing interrupt vectors and other arcane technicalities. You can just get on with important stuff.The same applies to Umbrella Home. I built two Raspberry Pi Umbrels and was forever checking low memory warnings and occasionally rebuilding. Aaargh!
And then I bought an Umbrel home
Lenovo, my choice for no particular reason, and HP both make similar computers with similar used markets. One of these with a 2tb NVMe drive is my recommendation for node hardware. Far faster than your raspberry pi.
how much more will this cost for my electricity bill? I want to do it, but my 100 year old apartment is not fun to pay for lolol
I prefer an RPi based on noise / heat / power, but if you have space in a well insulated and cooled closet, people always underestimate the value of used corporate gear. Many of the lemons would have died and been replaced under warranty, so those that make it to the secondary market often live longer than expected.
💯
That's way more than the cheapest NEW smartphone and it's USED so what the fuck are you smoking? No wonder you have me muted when you like saying dumb shit like this
Are you dumb?
Nope, just you guys, sorry
What exactly are you suggesting you run on the cheapest new smartphone?
$40 at the most here in the US depending how you define "cheapest"
Maybe closer to $20 if you can order online
These things are EVERYWHERE in #Asia.
Careful, I ran a node on one of these and it failed. I opened it up and the hardware wasn't as advertised- only 8 G RAM , not enough to handle the bloated utxo set when price started pumping. Still working on getting another node running to get my sats back from my core lightning wally. Great learning experience tho.
16GB Ram is a minimum these days
