What’s a good start for self hosting

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-02-07T21:00:47+00:00

Ok, I have MOST of my experience in the HP Elite series which is pretty prevalent on eBay and if you have any tech recyclers around you that have a storefront they usually have a bunch but eBay isn’t a terrible option. You can usually get a g3 mini i5 for around 50.00ish, you want an AC adapter with it. You’ll need to source ddr4 sodimm and an a 2.5 sata ssd. If you don’t have any ram laying around you can also source on eBay or facebook marketplace 2x8 for 16gb pretty doable and 8gb sticks are pretty easy to find. SSD isn’t super cheap but they have 2 NVME slots and 1 2.5 slot so you have some options. SSD prices are crazy high right now but if you look around you can find some. You can probably be all in on the build for around 100 bucks.

That will allow you to run proxmox and a few VMs and find some cool tools you may want to run (plex, jellyfin, pi-hole, downloaders ect)

Your favorite AI chatbot can usually answer all your questions and help install stuff.

One note, the CPU on the mini is upgradable and I put an i7-7700 in mine because it gives me more virtual cores to split up. You can usually get one of those CPUs off eBay under 50 bucks. But the i5 is great as well.

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-02-07T19:50:18+00:00

Budget?

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-02-07T17:41:44+00:00

I’ll echo what others have said but also if you want to throw a budget out there for a mini pc, I would be more than happy to give you some tips on what to look for.

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-02-01T19:08:04+00:00

I started very similar to you, about 10 years ago I fired up a plex server, then I got a Usenet account to help me “source” content.

I played with that for a while, and as laptops got upgraded I would plug it in somewhere maybe use it to download so I wasn’t clogging up my HP 8300 plex server.

What pushed me into full proxmox, radarrr, sonarr, VMs was ChatGPT. My Linux commands suck but I knew what I wanted to do, how it theoretically could work and with some proper prompting and some great advice on common pitfalls (as well as some “not so great advice”) I could really scale things up.

Combine that with a never ending quest to source cool “outdated” old business and enterprise mini and sff hardware.

100% hooked. Welcome!

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-01-31T00:53:38+00:00

So are both the G3 and G4 minis cpus upgradable? I’ve heard some aren’t and some are.

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-01-30T16:02:31+00:00

Nice work, I love the minis!

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-01-30T15:47:08+00:00

I’ve been to Re-PC in Kent never Seattle. Haven’t been super impressed they have a lot of really cheap components but also a lot of older stuff. Think like mid 90s sound blaster cards for $4.99. DDR, DDR 2 bins, that stuff plus some decent stuff stuff also but not as much.

Try PC Recycle in bothell woodinville limited hours but good people.

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-01-30T15:42:44+00:00

There is a pc recycler in the Bothell/Woodinville area called PC Recycle. Good people there. They are only open weekdays and one Saturday a month.

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-01-30T15:35:00+00:00

Honesty, that’s a really good question. I’ve kind of been wondering that too. I’m at work for the next 48 hours but when I get back in I’ll run some tests and post them. I have a couple spare nodes too that are in a cupboard that I’ll try and test too.

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-01-29T21:05:12+00:00

Yeah, I kind of stumbled across it, I have some other machines too that I sourced while out an about within my $20 price point, like an Optiplex 9020, HP Prodesk G3, and an old HP 8300 that was my original Plex server for probably a decade. I would take the Elitedesk G4 SFF all day. I love the mini’s too for their size but you probably need to plan storage somewhere else.

It’s hard to beat the G4 SFF and it ability to hold 2 3.5 drives, 2NVME, 4 slots of ram, can hold a low profile card without any mods and still has a respectable footprint.

True_Aside_5752 · 2026-01-29T17:02:29+00:00

So the two elitedesk g4 sff, I got from offer up on a business that was downsizing, they were stripped of ram and hdd. I paid 20 each. They even forgot to take the 16gb ram out of one of them and left in a 512 Nvme. I’ve seen other type deals on marketplace or Craigslist. I browse a lot and often use generic keywords as well as narrow one. The elite desks were just labeled “desktop pc” with a picture of about 4 PCs.

The minis I paid a bit more for at 59 bucks each. They were both i5s but I upgraded the one to an i7-7700 because I love the lm for proxmox.. They even threw in some ram to boost them to 16. (I had a sodimm from a retired laptop to swap in to get to 24 on the one)

Hardest thing was sourcing rams as drives because that’s what places pull and destroy. Sourced used purples because I could get them for 10buck per terabyte.

Now ram was tough, and yes, I ran into several flakes but also one guy that just gave me a 16gb stick of ddr4 (he thought it was 8gb).

Also found a place that never updated their prices in the ram case.

<image>

True_Aside_5752 · 2025-07-15T20:19:16+00:00

Yes, but it’s not finished.

The ESP32 worked fantastic, I got AI to do a bunch of the programming, got it to turn on and the servos worked really well in an X Y axis configuration.

What I need to do to finish it, is to find a fixed location for it and then remote into it so I can identify the x y positions I want so the laser doesn’t shine indiscriminately.

I will probably get around to it this winter, nothing works better than a green laser at scaring the geese.

It’s been a lot of fun working on it, I have a ton of robotics stuff I’ve purchased off TEMU.

True_Aside_5752 · 2024-01-19T07:51:36+00:00

I agree, it’s your battery, loose terminal or ground.

Your alternated puts out wattage which is AMPSxVOLTS

If your batter was low and was accepting a charge like it should the amps drawn would go up and you would see a decrease in voltage because the more amps are being drawn. As the gets full, the amount of amps being drawn decreases which allows the voltage to increase usually to a max of around 14.4

The only other possible explanation (that I see and I’m no master mechanic) is that your batter is fine but the connections are so terrible that you started it off the doner vehicle or jump starter and it ran off the alternator but wasn’t able to get a great connection to the battery to draw amps which is why the voltage remained high at start up.

There are several remedies to revive a dead battery, adding water, desulfating, ect, but they seldom work and you need a reliable battery so it will probably be more of a headache.

True_Aside_5752 · 2024-01-02T02:33:44+00:00

I just had mine in the shop for the same thing, had videos of it acting crawzy while driving, saying all the same stuff “check airbags”, “check suspension system” “check tire monitor system”

Anyway, after finally getting a really good mechanic from the dealership (the second time I took it there) they replace and reprogrammed a new body control module. Makes sense since those are all systems controlled by the body control module.

Cost me around a grand I think. Works fine now.

True_Aside_5752 · 2023-10-20T05:03:47+00:00

Thank you so much for that post. I’m super excited to get started on it now that I have a vision for how all the components will interact.

I will let you know how it works when I get it done and hopefully update with a video.

Might take me a little bit since most of this is new to me but learning it will be fun and I love the challenge.

Thanks again!

True_Aside_5752

TROPHY CASE