[vladvasiliu]

But those are usually "consumer" parts (in the broad sense). In particular, they won't take ECC RAM. I'm hoping this will change now that AMD has a believable "enthusiast" offering that has ECC.

This to me is the main issue. Usually, manufacturers think ECC = Enterprise = Running in a computer room = Doesn't need to be quiet.

Of course, usually clients looking for thin, least-possible-U systems doesn't help either.

I've actually gotten my hands on a Lenovo tower server my client wasn't needing anymore which is really pretty quiet. But it's "huge" by rack standards. It's basically a full PC tower in height, but longer.

I could see myself running it in the kitchen or something once I get it home after the lockdowns.

The issue is it only takes 2.5" drives, which are still quite expensive if SSDs or use SMR if HDDs.