Hello,
Chia Noob here,.I am looking at NUC solution which would set me back like 850$, i saw on Chiadecentral the solution produces about 16 plots per day.
I was wondering as many older servers are offered to the market, would it be possible to use an older sever with e.g. 4 x amd opteron 6174 (4x12 core) with 128Gb memory and e.g. write to 10 sata SSD 2 plots parallel with a delay and 4 threats and 12GB memory per plot. Wouldn’t such rig have a higher plot output than a NUC?
Hi @FujiHakayito. Yes you can use an older server. Maybe it will have a higher output than a NUC. There’s many many threads here with specs and results and advice. I would recommend you do the research since there are no easy answers: it depends.
Digging into the many threads here should give you a good idea of what you can expect.
I understand there are many different configurations.
I was just wondering as a used server 48c/128Gb will set me back about 175$ (still need ssd) and a NUC will cost me 850$+ with less cores/memory. So from that perspective an older server might be a better route to go when wanting raw power but not spending big bucks on the latest CPU/Nvme drives.
btw in Chia time that post is ANCIENT, and that same system will set you back today about $1,875
You can use pretty much ANY computer for plotting, the better question is whether it’s worth your time. Do you have 24 hours to wait per plot?? That’s why there’s a small group of us who’ve been experimenting for the last 6 months trying to optimize for it!! So you can substitute time for money but my time is valuable! 
I see the NUC setup cost about the same as before in Europe, just for the NVMe drive you have to look harder or find an acceptable alternative.
I understand some want to plot as many plots as soon as possible at any cost. However I have 60TB available at the moment. With 30 plots per day it will take me 20 days to fill, with 20 plots it will take me 30 days. After that I am done until I get new disks.
So for me it is not worth to invest 2000$ to finish 10 days sooner. I am trying to find a balance of what could work for me without breaking the bank on a plotting machine.
Where are you getting the 2/TB a day calculation from?? is that what your currently getting?
Well that 6 core/12t NUC with 32GB produces 1.7tb per day.
If I can plot with 48 cores (48t) and 128gb memory on e.g 10 discs at the same time with each disk 2 plots parallel with a delay. Then I should be able to reach 2tb per day no?
What I mean is that like a lot of hobby farmers I will run out of disk space quite fast, so is it worth investing 1000s of dollars, or is it wiser to buy something older, perhaps less efficient at a bargain and wait a few days longer for the plots to fill the drives.
Up to you! 
Consider: do I spend a few hundred dollars now to possibly get plots a little faster or do I save that to get just a few extra TiB which you can plot a little slower.
Most important in all of this is to do some research and make the choice for your current/future budget. There’s no magic bullet, nobody can tell you: this is the absolute only thing you should do. It depends.