@kde can legal residents sign it as well, or only citizens?

@bioinfhotep I did look at cloud solutions, including Hetzner, but as you said, it's not a long term solution. The thing is that I only have a couple of hours, or less, per day for my pet projects, so I want something that is available and fuss free from the get go. Cloud is nice but expensive for such convenience, or cumbersome if one wants to have it on the cheap - I would have to pay for storage or transfer the data on the go, Etc.

But the price point is getting there.

@naturepoker good tip, thanks. I did a quick search for DDR4 X DDR5 RAM prices and at the moment, in this crazy market, the prices are not so different. Mind you that was a cursory search.

But, I'll continue researching.

@visone Thank you! I will add it to my list

@visone meaning, I don't mind getting my hands dirty and upgrading it myself with RAM/HDD but not build the whole thing. I know my limitations.

@visone Good points. The server will be running 24/7 but the heavy duty tasks will be in spikes, so overheating is not a concern.

As for the building by parts: I don't enough knowledge and, above all, time to select the parts. It's been more than 20 years since I've assembled a computer - and I had help getting the parts from IT friends

Assuming it doesn't go too over budget, I would rather trade money for convenience.

@baalroga Some can do out-of-memory, and I wrote about it
https://amjdomingues.com/posts/2025-11-02-cmap-tile-db-build/
However, not all do and even if they do, some will require too much time fiddling with the code to go around the RAM limitation, time which could be used to do get results. I am not one to brute-force everything but sometimes a balance is needed.

TLDR; I am willing to pay a little more for convenience, even more than 1000€, because my time is precious to me and I get more fun out of the analysis.

@mkj Oh yeah, server adjacent is not what I want. I had a dell server sitting on a desk for a couple days - data needed to copied before it was wiped and shipped to another site - and it felt like I was behind a plane during lift-off

My current server set up is an old lenovo P16 laptot (AMD RYZEN and 16GB RAM) which I am using as dry run for my future set-up.

I am particularly weary of the BOSGAME and Minisforum brands, specially how silent they are, because I have never heard of them.

- Beelink SER9 MAX AMD Ryzen 7 H 255 64GB DDR5 +1TB SSD (64GB RAM max) ~969€ https://www.bee-link.com/de/products/beelink-ser9-max-amd-ryzen-7-h-255?variant=48458730569970
- Minisforum X1 Lite AMD Ryzen 7 255 32GB DDR5 +1TB SSD (128GB RAM max) 699€ https://minisforumpc.eu/products/minisforum-x1-lite-minipc
- Dell OptiPlex 5060 Micro 1TB NVMe SSD + 2TB HDD i7 64GB RAM DDR4 (maxed) ~ €715 https://www.ebay.de/itm/405549215267?_skw=dell+optiplex+5050+micro

Some options by order of preference, in case anyone has an opinion on them, but other suggestions appreciated:
- HP EliteDesk 805 G6 Ryzen 5 4650GE - 1TB NVMe SSD + 2TB HDD 64GB RAM DDR4 (maxed) 830 € https://fibich-it.de/products/mini-pc-hp-elitedesk-805-g6-mini-65w-ryzen-5-4650g-nvme-ssd-bis-zu-64gb-ram-win-11-pro-wlan-bt
- BOSGAME M4 Ryzen 7 8745HS 32GB DDR5 +1TB SSD (64GB RAM max), ~ €679 https://www.bosgame.com/products/bosgame-m4-mini-pc-ryzen-7-8745hs-32gb-ddr5-1tb-ssd?_pos=4&_fid=b69a62dff&_ss=c&variant=46770243043491

Good to have:

- Linux Ubuntu pre-installed or no OS
- GPU would be nice for some LLM inference or small training tasks but not critical

Not an important consideration:

- Disk space, should be enough for OS+assorted tools and container images, but I have a Synology drive which I can mount for extra storage. Basically as large as possible if the price is right but not critical.

Suggestions for mini PC #homelab server appreciated (~1000€). I want it for data analysis tasks (#bioinformatics) which require quite a bit of RAM, but not necessarily a GPU. I will run linux #ubuntu on it and it's not up for discussion.

Wants:

- loads of RAM. 32GB is a start but needs to be upgradeable to at least 64GB, and ideally 128GB
- silent on idle because it will be next to my desk (living room)
- energy efficient (I heard that AMZ ryzen is generally better than intel)
- LAN port