I want to upgrade my Pis to something more reliable and not SD-card based and refurbished thinclients/SFF workstations seem to be a viable route. Does anyone have a cheap source for used hardware like this in Germany? I feel like the usual esm-computer, green-IT etc. are a bit overpriced.
If you go on eBay you’re more likely to find businesses selling old kits for cheap. That’s where I would start :)
Okay yeah immediately the prices seem a lot more reasonable. Do you have a make/model/configuration you like to search for?
Make sure the description says the power cable is included. They usually take the kind of power supply older laptops took and when I bought a thin client to run home assistant the price difference between ones without and ones with the adapter was way less than buying the adapter myself.
There is this great overview to find the Specs and all info about upgrading and stuff: https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/
I second for AfB. Great support, neat prices and good hardware.
I can’t help, but I love that recycling thin clients is become more popular.
I think you need a ton of patience, the prices for used hardware are fluctuating by a wkide margin. And all of a sudden one single machine type will be available in quantities, for cheap. Probably when a big player scraps all of their equipment. I’ve had some luck with Harlander, mainly with monitors and a document scanner. Might be worth a check from time to time.
Thanks, I’ll start digging
I’ve used eBay in the past, it’s usually pretty decent.
Piospartslab on Ebay. Before buying, try to make an offer, offen they approve them and you can get very good bargains! For a Pi upgrade those Fujitsu Futro (S720/S920) are very good, I’ve started using them in the lasts months and I love them.
Cool, thank you!
I recently purchased three Lenovo m910q, which are now running as low-power proxmox cluster at my home for a very decent price. Here’s the shop: http://www.manotebooks.de/ Quite happy with it.
Sehr nice, danke. What configurations did you end up going with and what are you able to run on them?
I now have three i5-7500t with each 16GB oft RAM and 256GB SSD and extra 1TB SSD for VMs and CTs, which are serving as a high availability cluster. Currently they provide my Nextcloud and Jellyfin instances but are overwhelmingly underchallenged. I’m planning to add all my docker containers to proxmox too but haven’t found out what’s the best way to achieve that.
Sweet, were you able to fit the extra SSD inside the case?
Yes, but if you buy there make sure to emphasize that you need the cage for the ssd. Otherwise you need to make an extra order over at harlander.com for 10€/cage, like I did. ;-) (But even then it’s a good price). Yesterday I ordered a second NIC (Intel I225) for the M.2 slot. I hope it fits. Then I have 1 port for traffic and one for management. Cheers.
I’ve got Igel with quadcore AMD CPU, actually quite powerful for home server running adguard, homeassistant,… and some other Igel with Via Eden CPU and HP 525(I think) with same CPU. Had HP for years, now switched to the Igel/AMD. HP needed SATA extension to fit the ssd in, for Igel I’ve simply opened the SSD case and plugged the boar directly. Works like a charm.
