Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/1tn57k6/todays_homelab_adventure_was_completely_unplanned/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/homelab by /u/evanmac42 on 2026-05-25 10:32:44+00:00.

I wasn’t even in the mood to leave the house this morning, but I ended up wandering through a local flea market. Between shoes, beach sandals and straw hats, I spotted an old HP Compaq Elite 8300 MT sitting on the ground with a €40 price tag.

I opened it, had a quick look inside, and thought: “Either this is a bargain or it’s going to end up as spare parts.”

For the sake of flea market tradition, I offered €30 and the seller accepted.

Back home, I expected disappointment.

Instead:

* It booted immediately.

* 16 GB RAM detected.

* Two 500 GB HDDs inside.

* Debian 13 installed without drama.

* UEFI works.

* All hardware appears healthy apart from the expected dead CMOS battery.

It even had a Wi-Fi card installed. I removed it almost immediately, not because it was faulty, but out of principle. It’s a server. Ethernet exists for a reason.

The funny part is that this machine wasn’t bought to become a workstation. The plan is to promote it to my new infrastructure server (“Nexus”), handling storage and the boring-but-important services, while my current Debian server will be repurposed as “WOPR” for AI workloads, Immich ML, local LLMs and future GPU acceleration.

So for €30, a machine rescued from a pile of sandals and beach hats may have just become a permanent member of the homelab.

Sometimes the best upgrades don’t come from online stores.