Have an old mini PC lying around you’re mulling over chucking into your “hardware graveyard” drawer or selling on eBay or Facebook Marketplace? Why get rid of it when you can repurpose and breathe new life into it? Here are some roles most mini PCs should excel at.
1
Turn it into a home server or a NAS
You don’t need a beefy machine for a home server or a network-attached storage device (NAS). Old PCs are a great starting point for building your own NAS, and they can also play the role of a self-hosting or a Home Assistant server quite successfully.
If you have a mini PC powered by an Intel CPU with integrated graphics, chances are the iGPU supports Intel Quick Sync (dedicated video encoding and decoding hardware built into Intel iGPUs), allowing you to run a low-power media server based on Plex or Jellyfin.
The possibilities are more or less endless, even if you have an old, beat-up mini PC. All it takes is time, some patience, and readiness to learn.
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2
Retrofit it into a cheap homelab
If you already have a server or NAS you don’t want to mess with, or just find setting up a server too daunting a task, turn that old mini PC into a homelab.
The great thing about homelabs is that they’re what you make them. Want to explore Linux? Use the mini PC as a canvas to install different Linux distros while learning the ropes. Thinking about building a NAS yourself, but don’t know much about the process? Use that mini PC to learn how to set up one.
You’ve heard good things about Home Assistant, but don’t want to inadvertently break something while learning to use it? Set up a Home Assistant instance on the mini PC and play around with it without worrying about messing up your smart home setup.
Want to learn something that potentially includes breaking things up during the process? You’ve got a perfect test bed in that mini PC.
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3
Install Pi-hole on it
If you don’t know much about setting up a home server or building your own NAS, you can install Pi-hole on the mini PC instead.
Pi-hole is a network-level ad and domain-blocking app that can serve all devices on your local network. It can block ads, trackers, telemetry that various websites collect, and can also be a great DNS filtering tool. In other words, Pi-hole can be very useful to people who spend lots of time on the web, which is pretty much everyone.
The good news is that setting up a Pi-Hole instance is very straightforward. Everything is explained on the Pi-hole website.
All you’ve got to do is install one of the Linux distros Pi-hole officially supports—or check whether you can install it on your favorite distro—install the Pi-hole instance itself, and then set Pi-hole as your router’s DNS server. That’s it. Your old mini PC has now become a network-wide ad blocker.
4
An old mini PC can be a great retro game console
If you’re into retro gaming, consider turning that banged-up mini PC into a retro game console. Since even a Raspberry Pi can emulate a ton of retro consoles, your old mini PC should be more than powerful enough to emulate a good chunk of retro gaming systems.
As long as your mini PC matches the Raspberry Pi 5, anything up to the PlayStation 2 and GameCube should run flawlessly on it.
If you only want to play retro games, the best way to do so is to install Batocera, a lightweight Linux distro purpose-built for retro gaming. It comes with a ton of emulators and supports more than 200 gaming systems. All you’ve got to do is install it, provide ROMs, and it’s off to the races.
If you don’t want to limit yourself to retro games and would also like to play regular PC games, the best course of action would be installing a gaming-centric Linux distro, such as Bazzite, along with EmuDeck. Bazzite works great on mini PCs, and it can turn your old mini PC into a Steam console you can navigate entirely with a controller.
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5
Use it as a video streaming box
Instead of buying a no-name Android box that’s likely infected with malware, why not simply retrofit your old mini PC into a video streaming box? Every video streaming service, from YouTube to Netflix to Disney+, should work without issues. You could also play videos locally or stream them from your media server.
Most mini PCs don’t take much more space than your average streaming box, are quite power efficient, and you can navigate Windows easily with one of those keyboards with a touchpad, such as the Logitech K400 Plus.
6
Transform it into a game streaming machine
If you own a gaming PC, you can use the mini PC as a local game streaming machine. All you need is a stable home network (for best results, use a wired connection), a few apps, and a controller.
You can opt for Steam’s Remote Play feature, which lets you stream games from your gaming PC to any device with Steam or the Steam Link app installed, or for the open-source Sunshine and Moonlight combo. There’s also Apollo, a fork of Sunshine that includes a built-in virtual display that allows streaming in the native resolution of any client device.
Installing and setting up Sunshine and Moonlight is simple and can be done in a few minutes. Once you’re finished, you can start gaming right away.
If you don’t own a gaming PC, you can still game on the mini PC via cloud gaming solutions such as NVIDIA GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming (requires a Game Pass subscription), or Amazon Luna.
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7
Use it for DIY projects instead of a Raspberry Pi
If you’re a tinkerer who’s always elbow deep into a DIY project, you can use the mini PC instead of a Raspberry Pi (or any other single-board computer, for that matter) for your projects.
Even an older Mini PC should offer more power than most SBCs (single-board computers) and be just as versatile as any SBC out there.
8
Repurpose it into a backup or a secondary PC
Last but not least, you can keep the mini PC and fallback to it if your main PC dies. This is a great use case for an old, banged-up mini PC. It won’t take much space on your computer desk (or inside a drawer), and if your main PC stops working, you can switch to the mini PC in a couple of minutes, tops. Sure, the performance and overall experience won’t be great, but having a working computer is infinitely better than not having one.
Back in the day, my trusty Windows desktop was my sole computer I used both for work and entertainment. If something were to happen to it, I’d be dead in the water. But ever since I got a Steam Deck, then a Mac Mini, and multiple Windows handhelds, I’ve stopped worrying about something happening to it, and it feels so freeing.
If you already have more than one PC in your home office or the room where your main PC sits, why not put the mini PC in your garage? Having a PC there can be handy if you need to check something out in a jiff, or play video tutorials on a large screen while tinkering or working.
You could also put the PC into your van or RV if you own one, relocate it to your cabin, holiday cottage, summer house, or any other place where it would be useful to have access to a PC.
Do you have other electronics you don’t know what to do with? We’ve got you covered. There are plenty of ways to repurpose your old Android tablet or iPad, an Android phone you aren’t using anymore, an old iPhone, laptop, and even an old Bluetooth speaker.
