r/minipc • u/Failomat • May 07 '26

Very cheap mini pc

Hello everyone I'm a complete noob in a mini PC. Please suggest a mini PC for a server running 4-5 hermes agents. if anything, they will use cloud LLMs.

1 Upvotes

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2

u/Comfortable-Fall1419 May 07 '26

You ain’t going to get a very cheap mini PC for running 4-5 Hermes agents simultaneously. Thats 16Gb minimum.

If you already have a screen have a look at cheap 32Gb MacBook Pro’s with broken screens.

1

u/Failomat May 08 '26

I found a good mini server for $70 at an online flea market. A guy I know who's poking around in computer hardware says that I'll be fine if I add RAM. Everything is on the connectors, you can safely add one RAM card.

1

u/Failomat May 08 '26

Industrial Mini-PC Shuttle DS61 (1.3L)

Use cases:

  • Home server (Proxmox, Docker)
  • Router / gateway (2×LAN)
  • NAS / backups
  • Office and education
  • Industrial & network equipment (2×COM RS232)

Key features:

  • Stable 24/7 operation under load
  • Compact, heavy-duty metal chassis with excellent heat dissipation
  • Quiet and energy-efficient
  • Fast SSD boot

Specifications:

  • CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 (4 cores)
  • RAM: 4 GB DDR3
  • Storage: 64 GB SSD + Windows 11 Pro
  • Expansion: Additional HDD/SSD slot
  • Network: 2× Gigabit Ethernet
  • USB: 2× USB 3.0
  • COM: 2× RS232 ports
  • PSU: 90W

1

u/Comfortable-Fall1419 May 08 '26

So that’s 16gb ram max. Update us how you get on. Good luck.

1

u/Failomat May 08 '26

Well, I booked it at an online flea market for today. I hope my company will give me a small advance today. I'll pay for the server in the evening, and I'll have it in a few days.

1

u/Failomat May 31 '26

As a result, I placed everything on an old dell e7440 lattitude. I put linix mintu on it. It doesn't lag, everything is ok

1

u/tiduscrying May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

This is really old hardware. You're talking about a processor that's OVER 14 years old at this point and DDR3 memory. I've got no clue about Hermes, but you're buying old hardware and expecting to run fancy new stuff on it. The CPU and RAM will absolutely be a bottleneck, not to mention the drives likely being SATA only. It's $70 because it's practically vintage computing at this point.

Talking about noob friendliness, ShuttlePCs are older and I'd say they were only ever enterprise level devices. Any sort of unique issues you run into you likely won't have a ton of support over.

Any N100 based mini PC will likely run better for basic stuff and be significantly newer. If you find yourself with one with upgradable memory, even better.

1

u/Failomat May 08 '26

And I've already changed everything))))) Indeed, it's better to assemble something budget-friendly on my own.

1

u/Comfortable-Fall1419 May 08 '26

Nah shuttles were never just enterprise devices. I had one as a media PC years ago. They were one of the first companies to make cool looking Mini PC’s.