Any DevOps engineer around? Looking to buy a system for learning/projects

[t.n.d.]

I think it's time to retire my M1 Mac Mini with 8GB/256GB, which back then I got because I lacked the money and my PC broke.

I'm looking for a system (desktop or laptop) that will grant me the power to learn or work on my projects.

Technologies: Docker, Terraform, Ansible, CI/CD, Scripting, K8s...something around this area.

For Docker I heard that there is a need for around 32GB to work comfortably with it. As for the CPU, I'm not sure if I'll feel any difference if I get the M1 or M2.

What I take into consideration at this point: Base M1 Max Studio (512/32), Base M2 Max Studio (512/32), M2 Mini Pro (512/32) - this one is more expensive than the Base M1 Max Studio si I think it rather get the Studio.

Is there anyone who is actively working as a devops that can give me some buying advice with this one?

 

[Toutou]

Not sure what you’re looking for, for example my hobby stuff (home automation, self hosted cloud, git, samba, website, backups) all runs on a single low-power box (an Intel NUC) with a dual core Celeron and 8 GB RAM running Debian, headless, stuck in a poorly ventilated cabinet. They’re mostly Docker containers. (I’m just a dev, I’m not the one responsible for infrastructure in our company.)

You don’t really need that much power to hone your infra skills. If you mostly want an excuse to get a nice machine then yeah, go crazy, but you could also get a reasonable machine that does what you need for your job and entertainment, and a cheap Linux box with lots of cheap RAM for your tinkering. Also because no one runs macOS on their prod infrastructure. You can get a lot of stuff to run on a Mac to get a feel for or interact with the kind of stuff that runs on prod, but at some point you always SSH into a Linux machine. (Except in Windows shops I guess)