ThinkCentre M720 Tiny M720q

I'm not sure if there's any low-zero cost ways to 'test' this out first but some threads mentioned running the setup on a old laptop first or something like that. If you have a laptop laying around, slap Rocky Linux on it, it is more or less identical to RedHat Linux, which is the industry standard,

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q/M920q Tiny has a PCIe riser available so you can put a standard NIC in it. With a server pull Intel X550 or X710 card, it's about US$250-300 total to make a nice little dual-port 10Gb router.

I am late to the party, but I hope you read this, OP. For $250, what should I actually be hunting on the used market? 1L Tiny/Mini/Micro PCs are great, but they make better "compute" nodes IMO. One of these can be a good starting point with the understanding that storage will be limited initially, a

The R Pi is kinda expensive these days. You can find a used older generation computer and run one of the open router OS's. Then use WAP'S (Wi-Fi Access Point) where needed from like Unifi or Omada etc OpnSense is also another great option for an OS. OpnSense or any open router hardware options Netga

OK, one at a time... Sophos... Passively cooled desktop models (105, 106, 115) run on dual-core Atoms (1.3-1.7 GHz), except the 115 Rev 3 running on a quad-core Atom. Actively cooled desktop models (125, 135) run on quad-core Atoms (1.6-2.2 GHz). Rack-mountables: 210: Dual-core Celeron (~3 GHz) 230: