Underappreciated punch card computing reference here.

This is a detailed breakdown so thank you. I guess the tl;dr is that it’s a combo of ebay, luck, and filling in the gaps. Sounds about as complicated as I was expecting if I’m honest but I appreciate you taking the time to write it out.

Your setup: goals.

Where are you sourcing your hardware? Decommissioned enterprise DC stuff or are there options outside of the enterprise space that enable this type of setup?