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What's the best affordable pre-built mini server?

What's the best affordable pre-built mini server available in Europe? I'm looking for a reliable and compact option that won't break the bank

Edit: something that are not arm based

Edit 2: I'm looking to set up a system that can run Jellyfin, Ollama, and a few other small services. By 'pre-built', I mean I want to buy a device that already has the necessary hardware and installation, so all I need to do is install the operating system and I'm good to go

Blue_Morpho , (edited )

How small? How many drives? I bought several used Lenovo P330 E2276G for my servers.

The Intel CPU has great low power GPU for video encoding/decoding for video streaming.

The Xeon ECC ram gives long term reliability. It's important if you leave your PC on 24/7 for years at a time.

diy OP ,

I am not a big fan of buying used.

LunarLoony ,
@LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Why not? It would help massively with the 'affordable' criterion

diy OP ,

I just need something that works. I've had a bad experience with a previous model that wouldn't boot on my Ubuntu server drive, no matter how much time I spent on it. But if you know of any models that are worth checking out, I'm all ears.

LunarLoony ,
@LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Might be worth trying to find a refurbished HP ProLiant MicroServer. There are a few on eBay UK within the £200-400 range. You can sometimes find professionally refurbished units as well.

Blue_Morpho ,

Used servers/workstations are likely more reliable than new consumer.

They were very likely kept temperature controlled, have ECC, and are actually known working instead of something like Asus. If I remember correctly, PC mortality is very high the first 6 months, goes down to near zero for 5 years, then starts going back up.

Replace the SSD/hard drive and you are good. You might not even have to do that. I checked the stats on the SSD that came with my used Lenovo workstation and it had like 20 hours on it.

Cupcake1972 ,

what are you gonna use it for?

diy OP ,

something that are not arm based
I’m looking to set up a system that can run Jellyfin, Ollama, and a few other small services. By ‘pre-built’, I mean I want to buy a device that already has the necessary hardware and installation, so all I need to do is install the operating system and I’m good to go

Getting6409 ,

I've had a good experience so far with two minipcs, mele quieter 4c for kodi, and a morefine m9 (I think this one is branded as mipowcat in the EU). They're both n100, the m9 can go up to 32gb of ram although it is picky about what modules it will accept. I use the m9 for jellyfin and about 10 other services. Quick sync works great as far as I've tested it. For jellyfin I'm relying mostly on direct streaming, but I tried a few episodes with forcing some transcoding by using Firefox for playback and it worked fine.

B0rax ,

I like my HPE microserver gen10+

Although it does not come with a GPU by default, but you can install a low power one.

Aux ,

If you want to run Ollama and other ML stuff, you're looking at buying an RTX4090, my friend. Affordable and ML are two things you can't put into one sentence.

486 ,
@486@lemmy.world avatar

While you certainly can run AI models that require such a beefy GPU, there are plenty of models that run fine even on a CPU-only system. So it really depends on what exactly Ollama is going to be used for.

diy OP ,

I am satisfied if it can run a 7/8B relatively fast

droidfone ,

What are the reviews on hardware offered by umbrelos guys?

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