How long will 4 HP mini PCs last as a homelab?
Someone acquired four HP EliteDesk 800 G6 mini PCs (i5-10500T, vPro, 16GB RAM) and built a homelab. They're currently running Frigate NVR with AI object detection (storage expanded with a 2TB SSD), Immich for photos, AdGuard for ad blocking, a Lyrion music server, and Netdata for , all in , and the hardware is handling it well so far. Planned additions include , , more s, various Linux services, and occasional VMs, though containers will remain the main workload.
More units of the same model may become available, raising the question of whether to grab them now and hold them for a future project. They're asking whether hardware like this can realistically stay capable for homelab use for 5+ years (setting hardware failure aside) and what limitations others running similar setups have hit.
Key points
- Homelab built on four HP EliteDesk 800 G6 units (i5-10500T, vPro, 16GB RAM)
- Currently running Frigate NVR with AI object detection (2TB SSD added), Immich, AdGuard, a Lyrion music server, and Netdata via Docker
- Planned additions: , , s, occasional VMs
- Question: will this hardware stay 'reasonably capable' for 5+ years, excluding failure
- Weighing whether to acquire more units now for a future project or buy later as needed