Looking to build a K8s cluster, what are your strategies for finding affordable hardware? (lemmy.world)

submitted 12 hours ago by Eldaroth@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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I currently run all my self-hosted apps either on Podman in a VM or in LXCs on Proxmox. For hardware, I'm using a Chinese-made mini computer with an Intel N150 and 16GB of DDR5 RAM that I bought before the whole AI hype started. I also have a Synology NAS that I use mainly for media and photo storage.

I've been thinking about tinkering with Kubernetes in my homelab for a while now (I already use it extensively at work, so I'm quite familiar with it), and I started looking around for used hardware to use as bare metal nodes. Nothing fancy—I'm looking for 1 or 2 mini servers or SFF with at least 16GB of memory and a decent CPU (4–6 cores). But with current prices, even decently priced used hardware (~200–250€) is quite difficult to find in Europe, and most of it is HP stuff with Lenovo being a rare breed around here. I won't even get started on newly bought hardware...

If you've bought hardware in this market recently, how did it go for you? Or are most of you holding out for now, waiting for better times?

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[-] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 1 points 1 hour ago

When people say that linux adds a second life to bad hardware, they don't just mean making 8 gb of ram usable again. They also mean stuff like this, using dying hardware to it's last breath.

You can mark the failing parts of ram as explicitly bad so Linux avoids them, just like with hard drives. Another way to get more lifespan out of this hardware.

this post was submitted on 25 May 2026

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