Anybody have any old computers lying around?

Hi folks,

Does anyone have any old computers lying around they no longer want? Even if they're broken.

I'm building a home server setup. I turn old computers into servers that I use for my own development, learning and tinkering around. I'm planning to do a Youtube series on how to build home servers for all sorts of uses such as: heating management, light control, building your own CCTV network, controlling your microwave, home web servers for your own blogs and websites, and everything else in between.

I know it's cheeky. I've got no money. But if you've got anything let me know. I can pay for postage.

Thanking youuuuuuuuuu

Are you looking for any particular spec? I may have one or two HP SFF machines somewhere.

I wish this had been asked this a month or two ago - I sent a couple of big HP xw8400 workstations off to meet their maker, the dual Xeon ones :doh:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pamplemousse

Are you looking for any particular spec? I may have one or two HP SFF machines somewhere.

I wish this had been asked this a month or two ago - I sent a couple of big HP xw8400 workstations off to meet their maker, the dual Xeon ones :doh:

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No specs. Just something I can setup and connect to the home network.

I currently have an old Dell machine that's 2 cores, 16GB ram and 500GB SSD. I put proxmax on it and using LXC containers to host 6 containers. It's running fine, but it's a bit low end on specs to host multiple containers for my video ideas and security lab idea.

I'm hoping to save for a Poweredge R710. They're like £230 with 96GB RAM on them.

Are you into networking mouse? You sound like you know a fair bit from your talk of workstations.

I've currently got my server public facing. I created a container as a reverse proxy, and then port forwarded port 80 on the router to it, and then I use nginx to proxy the requests to the various containers. I've set it up with cloudflare because they edge cache static assets so the home server barely gets any requests. They also hide your IP and DNS so my line doesn't get ddosed lol. My BT business line has pretty quick upload speeds. Thankfully thus far nobody has tried to hit my IP, but I have alerts if that happens.

Tell me more of your networking/computer skills?

And damit HP XW8400's are awesome. But the price? Wow.

A HP SFF would be perfect and better than my current because it can have up to 32GB ram which is a huge benefit.

I can safely say my networking knowledge is vastly inferior to yours! Short of setting IP addresses, subnet masks to hide things and keeping things away from prying eyes (so I hope) with my router, not much more - although I did set up a VPN (my router runs a VPN server internally) to access the camera that lets me know what post has arrived on a particular day - I don't trust the apps that come with cheap webcams if I'm honest and mine is an old PT camera that has no such knowledge.

Let me have a look for them, I'll check what their specs are and I'll report back.

By the way - the xw8400s were chucked out at work. If I see any more turn up in the WEEE skip at work in the near future, would you like me to 'transfer' them to the boot of my car?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pamplemousse

I can safely say my networking knowledge is vastly inferior to yours! Short of setting IP addresses, subnet masks to hide things and keeping things away from prying eyes (so I hope) with my router, not much more - although I did set up a VPN (my router runs a VPN server internally) to access the camera that lets me know what post has arrived on a particular day - I don't trust the apps that come with cheap webcams if I'm honest and mine is an old PT camera that has no such knowledge.

Let me have a look for them, I'll check what their specs are and I'll report back.

By the way - the xw8400s were chucked out at work. If I see any more turn up in the WEEE skip at work in the near future, would you like me to 'transfer' them to the boot of my car?

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Well hopefully my video tutorials could teach you some things :shades: I know what you mean about the cameras. I purchased a set of 2, but all the data was uploaded to the vendors server and you had to login to their web application to view. I quickly removed them. I can see how they'd be useful for people that don't want to set up a CCTV infrastructure on their network. Not many people know how to and often get techies to fit their CCTV. I prefer the boxes that record on location, and then backup to the cloud.

:scared15: Holy moley, they were in a skip?! It's absolutely shocking what businesses just throw out. Yes please, please do transfer them into the boot of your car. I would happily sort you some beer/tea/coffee funds in return.