I only have my one anecdote to go off of, but if you are located in the US eBay is full of enterprise computer reseller postings and mine arrived in very clean condition. And eBay generally has pretty strong buyer protections.

The beginning of your post sounds like you are still looking at hardware to buy, but the later half seems like you already have the NUC?

If not I’d suggest looking at a used HP Mini, Lenovo Tiny, or Dell Micro ex-enterprise PC. They can be had very cheap off ebay, run with similarly low power demands but very capable devices. I run an HP 705 G4 mini Ryzen 5 2600GE with 16gb ram, 256gb SSD, cost me about $95 and averages about 15w

Additionally here’s an excellent tutorial to do it via Docker Compose in Cosmos Cloud:

https://discord.com/channels/1083875833824944188/1283413252356706416/1283785229923909694

1. Locate the Docker Compose File:

   • Find the Docker Compose file for the desired service. For example, you can use the Open Chat UI and Ollama setup from the following GitHub repository: Open Chat UI Docker Compose File

2. Docker Compose Configuration:

   • The Docker Compose file defines two services: ollama and open-webui. This is the configuration

3. Import the Docker Compose File:

   • Go to the ServApps section in Cosmos.
   • Click on Import Compose File.
   • Click Next and proceed to add or modify the configuration. Replace any ${} placeholders with the desired values, such as latest or any specific version you prefer. You can also make changes later if needed.

4. Create the Docker Containers:

   • Click Create. The Docker containers will be automatically created based on the provided configuration.

5. Access the Service:

   • After the containers are created, you can access the service by adding a new URL.
   • Cosmos typically auto-detects the correct port, so you usually only need to create the URL.
   • You can now access the service as usual.

6. Customize with Labels:

   • Optionally, you can customize the service further using labels such as:
     • cosmos-icon
     • cosmos-stack
     • cosmos-stack-main

7. Modify Environment Variables:

   • Refer to the documentation for the Docker service and its environment variables. You can modify these variables directly from the Docker or Compose tab in Cosmos.

That’s it!