Yes I am aware, it is why you don’t buy new, there are thousands of used computers out there that I made a side hustle out of buying them and reselling them after some cleaning and fixing, so many I found that’s beyond to list here, but for example I got asus zenbook 14 for $12 because it didn’t boot (which was just a loose connection inside), a macmini m1 for $50, and many other parts and finds. I even have a thinkpad with proxmox and run as a server, uptime now is more than a year.
I'm curious where are you going to find these used machines (EBay, govt auction, Facebook Marketplace, etc...)? I have been wanting to setup a home NAS and home server but am not paying these prices.
Seriously I can’t even get my refurb enterprise drives for reasonable prices anymore. Used to pay like $150 for 14TB ultrastars now it’s like $300 for 12TB exos
Last night I found a 3TB external USB 3.0 drive at the bottom of my "computer junk" drawer that I had completely forgotten I owned. It felt like winning the lottery.
Got some old gtechs I used for production work years ago, lots of 2-4TB that worked for 6-12mo then were moved to a closet and powered off for the last 8-10 years. Thinking of shucking them and checking them. Can’t imagine they’re bad yet.
It's ok to delete things.
You have no idea what I’m doing with my drives. Suffice to say no, I can’t delete 99% of what’s on them.