Hi,

I know a company here in Japan that sells second-hand computers, cleaned, repaired, and with a 3 years warranty. Lots of the usual suspects (HP, Dell, Lenovo), from entry level office desktops to higher end Xeon workstations/servers. Prices vary, obviously.

As you know, these computers often do not use standard off-the-shelf parts, which can be a problem if the motherboard or PSU fails.

What’s your opinion about these computers? Is it worth the pain buying one (for a Linux or BSD based torrenting/seedbox machine, or build a NAS) or should I rather go another route – either build a PC with standard parts or buy a brand new cheap mini PC?

Thanks!

  • mrln_bllmnnBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    It really depends. I’ve seen PCs that use nonstandard parts just so you must use original parts, and systems which made use of new things like 12 volt only PSU really early and had great designs for easy access in a compact machine.

  • __ToneBone__BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I wouldn’t build a NAS in one of these unless it’s like an older server or something. Mainly because these machines aren’t meant for always on use and usually won’t handle very well under random IO of something like ZFS. But if it’s something like a one off Linx box or seed box like you said where you don’t really care if it dies, that would be good. I know a lot of people in this sub also run a handful of these office machines for a Proxmox cluster or something like that where if one craps out, the others could take over