Hi all, I recently sold my gaming/media server PC due to no longer gaming, so I am now in the market for a small server that could fit on a small shelf on a cupboard, and a laptop. My budget for the laptop is $1600, and my budget for the server is $400.
My needs for the laptop are:
- Good enough performance for basic photo and video editing.
- At least 6 hours of battery life.
- Either two USB-C ports with DisplayPort capability or one Thunderbolt port. Proprietary docking ports are also welcome as long as they aren't overly expensive on the used marketplace.
- Display between 13 and 14 inches, with >90% SRGB coverage.
Any sort of discrete GPU is an added bonus, since I would still like the ability to game from time to time. Though if it's going to hurt the battery life too much then I don't see it worth it.
Right now I am looking at the LG Gram EVO, Dell XPS 13 9305, and a variety of Thinkpad Ts and Ps from Lenovo's education store.
I am open to used laptops as long as the specific models' batteries can be easily replaced for not too much money.
As for the server, I want something that can:
- Handle a couple of local 1080p Plex transcodes
- Run Sonarr/Radarr/Jackett/Torrents
- Share the drives like a regular server
Height is for the most part irrelevant, but it has to be less than 20cm in either width or length or both. It should also have at least 2 drive bays.
The HP MicroServer Gen 8 seems to be exactly what I want, but it is in such high demand that whenever one pops up on Gumtree/FBMP it's gone the next minute.
I could get any old Optiplex/EliteDesk and connect it to a RAID enclosure, but I'd just rather have it all in one box.
why did you sell your gaming pc when you could have reused it as a server?
Power draw, particularly with a GPU removed wouldnt be that much