Hello, long time lurker, first time poster here. I just got a router recently (unifi dream router), and wanted to start on building a little homelab. I currently live in dorm in my univ with 3 other roommates, so mini pcs looks good to me, they’re not too loud and small enough to live next to my router. I saw a deal on shopee which is a 2018 i3 mac mini, with 3.6GHz, 8gb ram and 128 gigs of storage. it costs 8000 NTD (about 250 in usd), it’s second-handed and has some scratches on it (I kinda don’t mind). Is it worth it, or should I be looking for something cheaper/not mac mini? (ps I live in Taiwan, sellers/things from east asia like china or japan are much preferred, otherwise the shipping might be a lil bit steep for me). thanks, appreciate all helps.
For that kind of money you can get new mini PCs that will be much more powerful and have more than one NIC, like the other comment mentioned.
Take a look at Beelink mini PCs for example.