Looking for NUC

hilfel · January 6, 2020

Hello everybody,

I'm a CS student and currently look for a small NUC/PC as a server,

I'm on kind of a tight budget 200-300€.

Since I haven't been into Intel CPU's in the last 3 years I dont really know what to get so here is what I'm planning to do with it:

Some falvour of Linux with Docker and containers with MySQL, MongoDB and some custom Java programs.

I will not play games on it. I need an x86-64 based solution, not an ARM PC. I have a JetSon Nano and a RaspberryPi for that but I want something with proper harddrive storage.

I was looking at the Intel NUC's for now, but they are kinda expensive for Celeron or Pentium CPU's without Memory or Storage.

I'm EU based so shipping from the EU would be nice.

I was looking at these models:

Minis Forum Intel Core i3-5005U 8GB RAM and 128 emmC (Sadly no Sata storage and slightly over budget)
Lenovo ThinkCentre M93p
Refurbished Fujitsu Esprimo Q520

Something similar to these would be nice, I might be wrong and a Celeron/Pentium is enough for my application so I'm looking forward to recommandations.

Bombastinator · January 6, 2020

This may be stupid, but what about an old Mac mini? They’ve got BSD out of the box. The i/o is all USB mostly, but iirc so is the NUC. They cost more new, but it possibly might be a better deal used just because there are a ton of them around compared to NUCs. Of course people tend to want old NUCs less.

Just throwing it out there. Might be an awful idea.