A used Lenovo ThinkCentre is still the best $100 you can spend on a home lab
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Used Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny machines (M710q, M720q, M920q) remain the most cost-effective entry point for a home lab, starting at around $100 on the secondary market. These 1L desktop PCs offer quad- to six-core desktop CPUs with AVX2 support, Quick Sync iGPU for Jellyfin transcoding, excellent Linux/Proxmox compatibility, and a rich ecosystem of cheap accessories. Three units can form a full Proxmox HA cluster or k3s setup for ~$300, undercutting N100 mini PCs and Raspberry Pi 5 builds. Downsides include limited storage expansion, no ECC RAM, no IPMI/out-of-band management, and 1 GbE networking — but most are solvable with cheap upgrades.
