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I acquired (2) Optiflex 7040 micros and (1) 7070 micro.

Thoughts on what I should do with them?

Cost to me was $0. So if nothing else I want to wipe them and put a fresh OS install of some sort on them.

I acquired (2) Optiflex 7040 micros and (1) 7070 micro. Thoughts on what I should do with them? Cost to me was $0. So if nothing else I want to wipe them and put a fresh OS install of some sort on them.
[–] • 2 pts (edited )

I had one that I pulled from an ewaste bin. Ran Linux and used it as a file server and to run Foundry virtual tabletop. It was fine for that.

The file permissions got all fucked up some how and I wanted to learn docker so I upgraded to an optiplex 5090 with an 11th gen CPU for more horsepower.

What does your home network need? It could run DNS or DHCP pretty easy if your network is big enough for that.

File/print server. Media server, though the older Intel chip might suffer with encoding streaming video.

Intel has a pretty cool AI extension for Audacity. You might be able to set it up as a little music production station but it might be a little underpowered for that.

If you had a big central hypervisor you could set it up as an RDP dumb terminal to connect into a VDI. Probably a pretty long shot.

Speaking of a hypervisor, there might a hypervisor software that would let you cluster them together. Again probably overkill for a small home network unless you're really into that shit.

[–] • 1 pt

proxmox runs on basically everything so there is that but yeah. All good suggestions.

[–] • 2 pts

Home server Emulation machine

[–] • 1 pt

You mean Optiplex?

We have several of that vintage where I work (6th gen iCore.) They're fine for basic duties, we have a few in use every day. They're more than capable for a Linux version if you're into that.

If you wanted to get into Home Assistant, that's more than enough to do that...otherwise, perhaps you know someone that needs a decent machine but really can't afford something?

[–] • 0 pt

Yes you're right. Optiplex. They are i7s. I haven't popped them all open to see what they have for SSD's yet. The one 7040 I've turned on so far has all of 8GB of ram.

I've always wanted to put together something that has all of our movies stored digitally to stream to our TV.

[–] • 3 pts

Some of those could take up to 64GB. Fill that thing up and run https://jellyfin.org/

[–] • 1 pt

Oh cool. Would you recommend Linux for this application?

[–] • 1 pt

Good enough for any Linux deployment.

[–] • 2 pts

I used to suggest plex but they have been doing dumb shit so yeah, like @stupidbird suggested. Jellyfin is probably a good route.