are there any older ex-office mini PCs like the elitedesk, optiplex, thinkstation, etc models that can fit a 3.5" drive? Not looking for anything new and thus expensive, just want some old junker (6/7/8th gen Intel) that can host some light stuff. thanks
The micro/tiny form factor PCs generally only have space for a 2.5" drive, while the SFF/desktop size PCs can fit at least one 3.5" drive.
Dell, 8th Gen Intel with one 3.5" drive bay: https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/optiplex-7060-sff/opti_7060_sff_setup_specs_manual/storage?guid=guid-4eab9a0b-c403-4bcd-b692-9419bddfed24&lang=en-us
Lenovo, should have one 3.5" drive bay: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/desktops/thinkcentre/m-series-sff/thinkcentre-m920s/11tc1mdm92s?orgRef=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F&srsltid=AfmBOorJ_EUW-QYIIIGy3i7ZJbitPq8UWoxdoQxtM_BNabrKcNojn7WL#tech_specs
yeah, those are too big. was hoping to score an ITX-sized abandonware for cheap and retrofit it with a 10 TB or so drive. I had this thing many moons ago:
it could fit a drive, with some wiggling and swearing. so I figured maybe something similar exists. building it from new parts is way, way out of budget.
edit: this is how it ran for close to a year.