What To Buy

You are about to spend twenty minutes reading reviews and talking 
yourself out of buying anything. Don't do that.

This is not a complicated purchase. You are buying a small computer 
that will sit on your desk, run Linux, and host a Drupal development 
environment. It does not need to be fast. It does not need to be 
beautiful. It does not need a brand name on the front. It needs 
enough memory to run a LAMP stack and enough storage to hold a few 
Drupal sites. That is a very low bar and almost everything in your 
price range clears it easily.

Here is the only spec that matters: 8 gigabytes of RAM and a 256 
gigabyte SSD. That's the whole list. Everything else is noise.

Refurbished is fine. Better than fine — it's smart. Someone else 
took the depreciation hit so you don't have to. A refurbished 
business-grade mini PC from three or four years ago has already 
proven it can run reliably. 

If you recognize the brand, you are paying too much.

The sweet spot right now is the category of small form factor 
machines that shipped with Windows 10 and are now considered 
obsolete by the people who care about running Windows. Microsoft 
ended support for Windows 10 in October 2025. Nobody wants these 
machines for Windows anymore. That is precisely why they are cheap 
and precisely why they are perfect for you. You are not buying them 
for Windows. You are wiping Windows the day the box arrives.

The operating system on the machine when it arrives is completely 
irrelevant. The brand name is irrelevant. The color is irrelevant. 
The stickers are irrelevant. You are buying a small computer with 
8 gigabytes of RAM and a 256 gigabyte SSD for somewhere between 
$150 and $200. If someone is asking more than $250 for something 
that fits this description, keep shopping.

You will find these machines on Amazon, on eBay, and on any number 
of refurbished electronics sites. Search for "mini PC 8GB 256GB" 
and sort by price. You will have more options than you need. Pick 
one that ships quickly and has a return policy. Order it. Close 
the browser.

The box is on its way. Go have a conversation with your AI 
assistant about what you are about to build.