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A grand?? You can pick up a used Lenovo Tiny for 50 bucks (US) on EBay.

Just get a used ultra-small form factor PC a la the Tiny, Mini, or Micro series. A higher-end one which is 7 generations old will still absolutely destroy the Pi in terms of performance.

Once I gave up (for now) on doing all this on ARM and switched back to x86, everything got way easier to actually accomplish.

You could build a Framework desktop with one of their past gen motherboards. Also look for surplus servers. The first 1U servers I bought were only about $150 and lasted many years.

Check out minisforum, for example this intel mini-pc. They have a ton of selection, not just that one example.

A second Pi? According to the RPI Locator, Raspberry Pi’s are available for list price now.

My use case is a bit different in that I don’t know what containerized services I want to run, except that I want to play with Kubernetes. Raspberry Pi still seems like a good choice and I may restart that project soon

As the computer nerd in my friends/family circle, Im constantly being gifted old PCs from people. Some I keep and repurpose into servers/other things and others I just recycle for them. I also am an avid PC gamer so when my rig gets retired I usually upgrade the other servers internals from parts I had left over. Don't know if something else is viable for you to keep costs down, even if you can get the PC without a HDD but everything else.

You could pick up a used laptop for pretty cheap. Low TDP, leagues ahead of a Pi

I got a free computer and upgraded the processor to an i7-6700T (eBay) and some old SSDs. It measured around 15W and I haven't had any problems with it. It is miles ahead of using any Pi or ARM-based SBC. I would really recommend just finding a used computer nearby, if possible. Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace has some killer deals.

For me, the small energy footprint of an ARM machine is really important for home usage so I personally went on multiple occasions with Odroid’s offerings and as long as you have a tinkerer’s soul, I can really recommend it.

I recently replaced a pi4 with an intel n95 based mini-pc and it's been an absolute joy. I moved a few of my services and VMs over from the main server. It runs my Homeassistant via HAOS in a VM significantly faster than the pi4, another VM with access to the IGPU runs a 4k dashboard feed into my video distribution matrix, a few containers for simple things like MQTT and Adguard Home (like pihole) and it has room to do more.

The whole computer with 16gb of ram and 256gb SSD cost about the same as a pi4 8gb did when the shortage was at its worst.

The other option of course, is a cheap older optiplex, for under $200 you can get quad core sky lake or kaby lake generation processors, 16gb of ram and room for a couple of SSDs, a bulk storage HDD and a couple of low profile PCIE cards.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

[Thread #146 for this sub, first seen 18th Sep 2023, 18:05] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

What about something like one of those Beelink Mini PCs? A friend sent me a link to one and I was amazed at the specs.

https://youtu.be/zt-5vJdmu0s?si=6tcnq721k0cXB2uG

Second hand Intel 6/7 gen is probably the best bang for the buck right now. Relatively power efficient too if you turn off the turbo-boost in the bios.

My suggestion is to either recycle an old pc/laptop or find one on craigslist for $100 and use the rest of the money to take your husband/wife out to a nice dinner.

Pretty much anything built in the last 15 years will be a big upgrade from a Pi.

if you're in the u.s. check walmart for clearance desktops. we just picked up (to replace an older neighbor's dead atom-based desktop) a new i3, 8gb, 256gb nvme, slim desktop. inside it had mount points and the cables for two sata (3.5in + 2.5in) and a slim optical (or a 'creatively' mounted second 2.5in). we were going there to pick it up at a bit over $300, as i had seen it there the previous day. surprise! it had just got marked down again to ~ $200. original price was $400.

I can vouch for the power of a nuc, they're basically laptop grade hardware.

Dominant failure modes are fan failure and ssd failure. The latter can be solved by using a quality ssd, the former by keeping your nuc out of dirty areas. You can clean it up if it gets dirty, but it's a high risk operation, I've seen fan blades break.

I use an i78500 hp elitedesk g4?

Shop goodwill.com or eBay.

Those intel NUCs are amazing while they last. A j4125 will chug away transcoding anything you'd like. It's been a wonderful upgrade from my pi-stack, and well within your price range.

I have a stack of 5th - 7th Gen tinies I can't seem to get rid of lol

Lenovo m715q, ryzen 2400ge isn't bad, put more ram and an nvme and it's solid.